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gone_byebyeFor all that he never left Arkham's city limits- or, indeed, the territory that could most easily be claimed as the immediate environs of Miskatonic's campus if he could help it- Ray found that he was all too easily made aware of the events and discoveries of the greater New England region. It was likely an artifact of the position he had chosen for himself. Universities tended to bring people in, then send them away, and in a time before serious instantaneous communication those who had made contact with one another during their campus days made greater efforts to stay in touch afterward. What was rare, it seemed, was valued; when communication over distance became simpler and more common in the years to come, its allure would fade, at least in part. Those people whom Ray had come to know during their time at Miskatonic were of the curious, searching sort, with good memories, and whether telephones were available or not they cared very little. The Post Office existed for a reason, as did the telegram companies.
Laszlo Spengler, who had come to America with his parents at the age of six from his native Ostrov, Poland, was a very great patron of both the Post Office and the Western Union people. It was through his agency that Ray was made aware of the house at 135 Benefit Street, in Providence. There was little enough to be said about it in terms of its appearance from without, it being purely of average New England colonial lines of the middle eighteenth century, but it was not the house's appearance that caught Laszlo's attention. His antiquarian uncle, a physician by the name of Dr. Cyrus Spengler, had once been consulted regarding the ill-health of some of its inhabitants. Upon examination of their peculiar illnesses, Cyrus asked after the history of the place, and uncovered the sort of undercurrent of folk-lore that made Ray wish for a PKE meter and a proton pack- and possibly a good-quality flammenwurfer. Even in the most mundane of worlds, a house in which so many people had had their lives shortened by a terrible drain on their native vitality could not mean anything good, and the deaths on record of the house's inhabitants were the sort of thing that called not for a physician but the best alternative of the time, an exorcist. Too, Cyrus Spengler's description of the dank, humid cellar and its grotesquely peculiar white fungi set the hairs at the back of Ray's neck on end. Though he dug through every book on botany and mycology that the Orme Library possessed, he found no species matching their description; and in a place as well-established and well-known as Providence, the prospect of a purely natural species escaping description for so long was hardly to be borne.
It was not until the early summer of 1919 that the letter arrived at Franklin Place bearing Laszlo's most excited writing yet (insofar as anything that the younger man wrote could be called excited; Laszlo, like every other Spengler that Ray knew, was a man prone to keeping his own emotional counsel). He had, the letter said, come to the cellar by night with a flashlight, and seen a particularly sharp definition of an almost human huddled form among the distorted, half-phosphorescent fungi. When it had given off a subtle, sickish, almost luminous vapor that shimmered as it exhaled its way into the great chimney, Laszlo knew that there was no other course of action available to him but to summon those that he knew who would be of the greatest assistance in breaking the house's horror. Did Ray wish to accompany him and his uncle on a night-long vigil in that musty and fungous-cursed cellar?
Now, Ray had by dint of staying safely ensconced within Arkham thus far avoided all further notice by the powers of the peculiar and dangerous so far as he knew. To venture out into the legend-haunted world beyond was a prospect which he scarcely relished; who knew what might be waiting to burst forth at him when he least expected it? The prudent course, it seemed, was to stay just where he was and let others handle the situation. But he thought that only for a few moments. The years in Melcene, Nyissa, and Arkham had taught him prudence, it was true, but prudence is a poor thin thing in the face of friendship. Ray had not seen Laszlo Spengler in person since the day both of them had acquired their doctorates, but the ensuing communication via written word alone awakened powerful memories. He'd known Egon for many years through nothing but letters and postcards, after all. Ray could no more deny Laszlo's request than he could have done the same to the Spengler of his own time, and so he set out for Providence on the twenty-fifth of June, 1919. Laszlo had said that he and Uncle Cyrus would be visiting the house's basement that night, and it was not so far a trip from Arkham to Providence that it could not be made in a day.
Nevertheless Ray arrived at the house in Benefit Street too late. The streets of Providence were soaking with a storm the likes of which had not been seen in years, and Ray's directions to the shunned house relied upon a more thorough and native knowledge than he possessed; by the time he found the place it was so far after dark that he walked past it twice without knowing. It was only on the third pass that he found it, and then only because of the wild and haunted staggering of the figure lurching out from its door to the rain-drenched sidewalk- the figure of Laszlo Spengler.
His tale was shadowy and monstrous, and spoke of a yellow and diseased vaporous corpse-light that bubbled and lapped forth from the putrid earth of the cellar's floor. Its terrible nature was not that of its appearance alone, but lay most truly in its actions, for Laszlo spoke of its enveloping and dissolving his venerable uncle Cyrus, most evilly rendering him into some horror of dripping claws and blackened, decaying features beyond the reach of matter or material chemistry. The flamethrower which he had brought to the shunned house on Ray's own advice had been left untouched, but the specially fitted Crookes tube and its screens and reflectors, designed for the production of vigorously destructive ether radiations, had been tried- and failed, for even the most advanced possible radiations of the time proved powerlessness against that scene of immortal blasphemousness. All it had done was render visible the nauseous changes of Cyrus Spengler's form to that of the house's innumerable lost inhabitants; and in the moment that Cyrus' own face became visible once more, Laszlo had made such farewell as it was in him to make, and fled the scene.
All this was not unfolded in the course of mere moments, of course, but over the hours between that terrible time and the grey wet dawn. Ray knew better than to press too directly, but only walked beside his friend for so long as the younger man had it in him to talk. By the time that daylight's fingers streaked the sky Laszlo seemed almost in possession of himself again, and insisted upon returning to the house in Ray's company. There were no vestiges left of his uncle's physical form save only the man's hat, and Laszlo sat dazedly upon the nearest of the chairs which he and Cyrus had brought. Words seemed to fail him, but as he lifted apologetic eyes to the older man there passed between them an understanding that had no need for words. He had no need to speak further; Ray believed him, and more than that, he understood.
Come the next morning, which was bright and sunny, the two men took possession of two pick-axes, two spades, two military gas-masks, and six carboys of sulphuric acid at the door of the shunned house in Benefit Street. Their digging commenced at eleven in the stinking black earth in front of the fireplace, and Laszlo more than once trembled against his will at the sight of the viscous yellow ichor that oozed from the white fungi which his spade severed. Still, he and Ray delved on, despite the evil smell which increased the deeper and wider their combined hole made. By mutual silent agreement they donned their gas-masks and arranged the carboys of acid for rapid deployment when the pit grew nearly as deep as Ray was tall. It was a wise idea, for not long after Ray's spade stuck something softer than earth- a kind of nearly putrid congealed jelly, seemingly translucent in places. The older man hesitated as Laszlo scraped more of the dirt away, revealing a fold in the substance and then its huge, roughly cylindrical form- and then the realization struck them both: what they looked upon was the elbow-joint of some being far too vast to be anything natural. From there it was the work of mere moments for the both of them to scramble away from their discovery, a race to see who might unstop and tilt the corrosive acids into that unspeakable pit. Ray, for his part, gave silent thanks to the unknown distant makers of his gas-mask, because in the instant that the floods of acid descended a thunderous flood of vile greenish-yellow vapor erupted out of the pit, and a hideous roar broke forth. Still he poured, as did Laszlo, and when the younger man wobbled from the fumes that had begun to penetrate his own mask Ray caught him up before the fall could do him any harm.
By the end of it there was no further vapor, no awful fume or emanation, and it seemed safe enough to shovel the earth back into the pit. It was Laszlo that first noticed the withering of the weird white fungi, and pointed it out; a good omen, Ray thought, and he said as much. Laszlo laughed a little at that, for even now he had no belief in omens or luck. But in the days to come, when the house no longer stank of strangeness nor felt queer or wrong to those who crossed its threshold, he wondered a little; and in the spring, the barren old trees in the yard began at last to bear small sweet apples once again.
Laszlo Spengler, who had come to America with his parents at the age of six from his native Ostrov, Poland, was a very great patron of both the Post Office and the Western Union people. It was through his agency that Ray was made aware of the house at 135 Benefit Street, in Providence. There was little enough to be said about it in terms of its appearance from without, it being purely of average New England colonial lines of the middle eighteenth century, but it was not the house's appearance that caught Laszlo's attention. His antiquarian uncle, a physician by the name of Dr. Cyrus Spengler, had once been consulted regarding the ill-health of some of its inhabitants. Upon examination of their peculiar illnesses, Cyrus asked after the history of the place, and uncovered the sort of undercurrent of folk-lore that made Ray wish for a PKE meter and a proton pack- and possibly a good-quality flammenwurfer. Even in the most mundane of worlds, a house in which so many people had had their lives shortened by a terrible drain on their native vitality could not mean anything good, and the deaths on record of the house's inhabitants were the sort of thing that called not for a physician but the best alternative of the time, an exorcist. Too, Cyrus Spengler's description of the dank, humid cellar and its grotesquely peculiar white fungi set the hairs at the back of Ray's neck on end. Though he dug through every book on botany and mycology that the Orme Library possessed, he found no species matching their description; and in a place as well-established and well-known as Providence, the prospect of a purely natural species escaping description for so long was hardly to be borne.
It was not until the early summer of 1919 that the letter arrived at Franklin Place bearing Laszlo's most excited writing yet (insofar as anything that the younger man wrote could be called excited; Laszlo, like every other Spengler that Ray knew, was a man prone to keeping his own emotional counsel). He had, the letter said, come to the cellar by night with a flashlight, and seen a particularly sharp definition of an almost human huddled form among the distorted, half-phosphorescent fungi. When it had given off a subtle, sickish, almost luminous vapor that shimmered as it exhaled its way into the great chimney, Laszlo knew that there was no other course of action available to him but to summon those that he knew who would be of the greatest assistance in breaking the house's horror. Did Ray wish to accompany him and his uncle on a night-long vigil in that musty and fungous-cursed cellar?
Now, Ray had by dint of staying safely ensconced within Arkham thus far avoided all further notice by the powers of the peculiar and dangerous so far as he knew. To venture out into the legend-haunted world beyond was a prospect which he scarcely relished; who knew what might be waiting to burst forth at him when he least expected it? The prudent course, it seemed, was to stay just where he was and let others handle the situation. But he thought that only for a few moments. The years in Melcene, Nyissa, and Arkham had taught him prudence, it was true, but prudence is a poor thin thing in the face of friendship. Ray had not seen Laszlo Spengler in person since the day both of them had acquired their doctorates, but the ensuing communication via written word alone awakened powerful memories. He'd known Egon for many years through nothing but letters and postcards, after all. Ray could no more deny Laszlo's request than he could have done the same to the Spengler of his own time, and so he set out for Providence on the twenty-fifth of June, 1919. Laszlo had said that he and Uncle Cyrus would be visiting the house's basement that night, and it was not so far a trip from Arkham to Providence that it could not be made in a day.
Nevertheless Ray arrived at the house in Benefit Street too late. The streets of Providence were soaking with a storm the likes of which had not been seen in years, and Ray's directions to the shunned house relied upon a more thorough and native knowledge than he possessed; by the time he found the place it was so far after dark that he walked past it twice without knowing. It was only on the third pass that he found it, and then only because of the wild and haunted staggering of the figure lurching out from its door to the rain-drenched sidewalk- the figure of Laszlo Spengler.
His tale was shadowy and monstrous, and spoke of a yellow and diseased vaporous corpse-light that bubbled and lapped forth from the putrid earth of the cellar's floor. Its terrible nature was not that of its appearance alone, but lay most truly in its actions, for Laszlo spoke of its enveloping and dissolving his venerable uncle Cyrus, most evilly rendering him into some horror of dripping claws and blackened, decaying features beyond the reach of matter or material chemistry. The flamethrower which he had brought to the shunned house on Ray's own advice had been left untouched, but the specially fitted Crookes tube and its screens and reflectors, designed for the production of vigorously destructive ether radiations, had been tried- and failed, for even the most advanced possible radiations of the time proved powerlessness against that scene of immortal blasphemousness. All it had done was render visible the nauseous changes of Cyrus Spengler's form to that of the house's innumerable lost inhabitants; and in the moment that Cyrus' own face became visible once more, Laszlo had made such farewell as it was in him to make, and fled the scene.
All this was not unfolded in the course of mere moments, of course, but over the hours between that terrible time and the grey wet dawn. Ray knew better than to press too directly, but only walked beside his friend for so long as the younger man had it in him to talk. By the time that daylight's fingers streaked the sky Laszlo seemed almost in possession of himself again, and insisted upon returning to the house in Ray's company. There were no vestiges left of his uncle's physical form save only the man's hat, and Laszlo sat dazedly upon the nearest of the chairs which he and Cyrus had brought. Words seemed to fail him, but as he lifted apologetic eyes to the older man there passed between them an understanding that had no need for words. He had no need to speak further; Ray believed him, and more than that, he understood.
Come the next morning, which was bright and sunny, the two men took possession of two pick-axes, two spades, two military gas-masks, and six carboys of sulphuric acid at the door of the shunned house in Benefit Street. Their digging commenced at eleven in the stinking black earth in front of the fireplace, and Laszlo more than once trembled against his will at the sight of the viscous yellow ichor that oozed from the white fungi which his spade severed. Still, he and Ray delved on, despite the evil smell which increased the deeper and wider their combined hole made. By mutual silent agreement they donned their gas-masks and arranged the carboys of acid for rapid deployment when the pit grew nearly as deep as Ray was tall. It was a wise idea, for not long after Ray's spade stuck something softer than earth- a kind of nearly putrid congealed jelly, seemingly translucent in places. The older man hesitated as Laszlo scraped more of the dirt away, revealing a fold in the substance and then its huge, roughly cylindrical form- and then the realization struck them both: what they looked upon was the elbow-joint of some being far too vast to be anything natural. From there it was the work of mere moments for the both of them to scramble away from their discovery, a race to see who might unstop and tilt the corrosive acids into that unspeakable pit. Ray, for his part, gave silent thanks to the unknown distant makers of his gas-mask, because in the instant that the floods of acid descended a thunderous flood of vile greenish-yellow vapor erupted out of the pit, and a hideous roar broke forth. Still he poured, as did Laszlo, and when the younger man wobbled from the fumes that had begun to penetrate his own mask Ray caught him up before the fall could do him any harm.
By the end of it there was no further vapor, no awful fume or emanation, and it seemed safe enough to shovel the earth back into the pit. It was Laszlo that first noticed the withering of the weird white fungi, and pointed it out; a good omen, Ray thought, and he said as much. Laszlo laughed a little at that, for even now he had no belief in omens or luck. But in the days to come, when the house no longer stank of strangeness nor felt queer or wrong to those who crossed its threshold, he wondered a little; and in the spring, the barren old trees in the yard began at last to bear small sweet apples once again.
