“Along about that time, a lot of livestock was disappearing. And a few children. It seems that Zickler had them all carefully recorded, but it’s hard to place any of these circumstances consecutively; as Lyle read to me he kept skipping about in the diary haphazardly, looking up every once in a while to see what impression it made.
“There was one place where Zickler hinted at being dissatisfied and restless and wanting to learn more, but to do that he would have to look up a certain passage in the Necronomicon. He mentioned saving his money so he could take a trip over to Arkham, to look into the copy of the Necronomicon it is rumored they have hidden away in the Miskatonic University there. But evidently he never did make the trip. At least, there’s no mention of it, and Lyle tells me that Zick never left Vecra. Died a natural death here, though he was mumbling bizarre things on his deathbed.”
We walked on to the south field, where we found Eb Corey busily plowing. He stopped for a while and watched Bruce poking around in the ground at various spots.
“I’ll bet you never saw any soil like that before,” Eb said grimly as Bruce straightened up with a sample.
“You’d win that bet all right. Look at this stuff, will you?” And Bruce handed a clod to me. It was the most peculiar looking soil I had ever seen—a queer grayish color, almost powdery, though it wasn’t dry. More like slightly damp ashes. It seemed tainted somehow, and evil—even felt tainted to the touch, not like fresh clean earth should. I dropped it, repressing a shudder, and wiped my fingers clean.
Bruce looked at Eb in amazement. “Do you mean to say that things grow in this?”
“Oh, sure. Tain’t near so bad down on this end as it is closer to the house.”
“Closer to the old graveyard, you mean?”
Eb looked at Bruce, then shrugged. “Well, same thing. Not as bad as it was in my grandfather’s day, either. Only thing is, stuff don’t quite get to normal size somehow; and often as not, I raise some things that are might—well, queer, distorted like. But it all seems eatable enough.”
“I wonder what your grandfather thought about this land. He must have had some idea about it…”
Eb shrugged again. “No telling what grandfather Zickler thought, especially in his last years. He was half crazy then, everybody knew that. All I can say is, he was drove to it—or drove hisself to it. I remember him saying once that the land didn’t belong to us nohow. And the way he said it, he didn’t mean just this little piece of land—he meant all the land everywhere, I guess. It give me the creeps the way he used to talk. Said something about we was here just temporary, like, and someday They would wake and claim the land that was rightfully theirs. He used to mention They sort of reverent like.”
There was an awakened light of interest in Bruce’s eyes as he tried to press this point. “He didn’t say how or when this was to happen? He didn’t mention certain names, such as—Lloigor? Or B’Moth? Or Ftakhar?”
But Eb didn’t seem to remember. Old Zickler had spoken too many queer words. Bruce put a sample of that evil soil in an envelope, and before we left he asked one more question, “Eb, do you remember Lyle Wilson taking a trip to Arkham fairly recently? Maybe he said something about visiting the Miskatonic University library…?”
“Nope,” Eb shook his head. Then he seemed to remember something. “Maybe you mean that time a little more than a year ago; Wilson made a trip then, was gone two or three days, but he never breathed a word to anybody where he’d been.”
“Thanks.” Bruce seemed deeply immersed in thought. Corey resumed his plowing, and Bruce and I cut across a field toward the ravine. It was quite steep where we reached it, full of small trees and scrub bushes. In the direction of the house, however, a quarter of a mile away, it shallowed into a little gully that ended by the edge of the old graveyard. Bruce looked intently down into the ravine for a moment, then turned away.
“What did you mean by those names you asked Corey?” I said, as we walked back to the house. “And what do they mean? Lord knows I won’t attempt to pronounce them the way you did!” And I laughed.
Bruce didn’t laugh.
“What do they mean?” he repeated. His voice was different than I had ever heard it. “I had come almost to believe that they meant nothing, that they were only names. But now—my god, I’m beginning to believe again.
Do there really exist embodiments of those names? Perhaps old Zickler knew. And others, from time to time. After all, those names and the rumors and the books do persist through the years, and where there is legend there is a basis of fact, if only it could be traced back through the eons.”
That was all I got from Bruce. But he didn’t need to tell me more. For a long time I had been aware, disinterestedly, of his study of ancient lores. I knew he had in his library a certain shelf of old books, besides scores of fiction pieces on the subject. I had read a few of the fiction pieces, and was amused. Deep in my mind was the safe and comfortable knowledge that they were fiction and nothing more.
But now I wasn’t so sure, and I didn’t feel so safe. Perhaps all that fiction, after all, had been based on—on something I didn’t like to think of. My vague perturbation was enhanced by the way Bruce had said those words: “But now—my god, I’m beginning to believe again!”
* * *
Just how much Bruce believed, I don’t know. Nor what he was trying to learn, nor why he left his room that night. I doubt now if I could have acted in any way to stop him, even if I had known. The one fact I see clearly now is that neither of us then realized how slowly and insidiously everything was building up to that tragic climax…
That night after supper, Bruce went upstairs to his room—intending, he said, to look more carefully into those ancient books. I stepped outdoors to smoke my pipe; somehow I always enjoy it more outdoors and at night—it helps me to think, and that’s what I needed to do. In a muddled sort of way I was trying to decide how much of this “ancient lore” business I dared, and how much I feared, to believe. I only knew that I liked this place less and less, and if Bruce didn’t want to leave in the morning, I would take the car myself.
Finding I was nearly out of tobacco, I walked down to Lyle Wilson’s store. The place was dark. I stepped onto the porch and was about to try the door, thinking perhaps he hadn’t locked up yet; but then I decided he must be in bed, and I had better wait until morning. I stepped off the porch and was almost out to the road again, when I heard his front door open. I turned and was about to call out to him… when something stopped me.
It may have been partly intuition, but mainly it was Lyle’s actions. I could see him only dimly, and apparently he did not see me at all. But the way he closed his door ever so softly, and crept furtively across the porch interested me. He disappeared around the corner of his store, and I followed.
He passed through a gate at the rear of his property, crossed a field, climbed a low fence into another field. I stayed a safe distance behind him, just keeping him in sight. I could barely make out something that he carried under his arm—apparently a thick book; undoubtedly the diary that both he and Bruce seemed so interested in.