the blackness over burrillville

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The Blackness Over Burrillvilleby Arthur M. Levesque -- [email protected] -- http://boog.org(c)1991, all rights reserved, yadda yadda yadda

"I can call up spirits from the vasty deep.""Why, so can I, or so can any man,But do they come when you do call them?"

William ShakespeareKing Henry IV, Part I(Act III, scene I)

The sun was out, and its rays reflected over the reservoir like liquidgold. Trees swayed in the breeze, and the joyous shouts of children swimmingand playing filled the air. The scene could have been a Norman Rockwellpainting, except for the three guys under a tree on the other side.

"Hey, Jim," John yelled, "forget about that stupid garbage and hand meanother beer..."

"Can't," Jim replied, looking up from the papers he had found and wasattempting to read. "Arthur just drank the last one." He flipped over a page."I write better than this."

"Spell just about as well, though."Arthur belched. Unaware that what happened to them today would eventually

lead to insanity or death, the three young men were wandering through the woodsnear the reservoir enjoying the first beautiful, sunny day of summer. It was apeaceful day, and they were making the most of a day when all of them were freefrom any responsibilities.

"Listen to this," Jim said. "'Mglw'nafh Yanoth-Yith mhifoe fhtagn!Ktarr'n rgan zhafh'l trakh-n'k!!' Have you ever heard anything like thatbefore?"

"At the zoo, maybe," John suggested unhelpfully. "Why don't you put thatthing down? Do you have to read everything you find?"

"Jim can never ignore something new and interesting," Arthur told John.To Jim, he said, "It doesn't sound like any language I know of. Is there an

English translation? Or any pictures?""There are a couple of sketches, like this star with the eye in it, but

all of the text is just more gibberish.""Are there any immigrants in this area that don't speak English?" Arthur

spoke pensively."Not really," Jim replied. "If this were Woonsocket or Providence I might

think it was Vietnamese.""My mother teaches English to Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians,"

Arthur replied. "They don't sound anything like that.""It's probably some sort of Satanic bible," John suggested as he climbed

up the crooked oak tree. "You know that that sort of thing has been in thenews a lot lately. Satanic symbols spray-painted on gravestones, mutilatedanimal corpses found in the woods... Why, I read yesterday that in California

--""That hasn't really been a problem around here, though..." Jim

interrupted. "I've heard losers telling stories about finding slaughteredanimals, but the carcasses are never there when people go to check. Anyway,wouldn't a Satanic bible be in Hebrew, Latin, English, or something else we'drecognize?"

"Just put it away..." Arthur said. "If you haven't figured it out by nextweek, and if you're still interested, I can bring it with me to school when Iget my grades and have a foreign-language professor look at it."

"Besides," John said, swinging down from a low branch, "we have a muchmore pressing problem. We need more beer."


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"And since Artie here drank the last one," Jim drawled, "I nominate him togo back and get more."

Arthur thought for a moment. "That's OK, I guess," he told them. "Hand mea few dead presidents."

John and Jim each reached into their pockets and pulled out portraits ofthe late Abraham Lincoln and the late George Washington, tastefully done inEmpire Green. After transferring the bills, the three of them performed an oddhandshake involving swinging elbows, "L" signs, and head patting.

From a distance, side by side, Arthur and Jim would have been almostindistinguishable. Each was large, but not to the point of obesity, and hadlong, dark hair. They each had a taste for dark, casual clothes. They likedto refer to each other as their evil twins, and were often almost able to readeach other's minds. It was their minds that distinguished them most from eachother. Although both of them had the same tastes and strange senses of humor,Jim was tended to be more emotional and curious while Arthur was more of alaid-back but serious thinker. Arthur had a tested IQ well into the geniusrange, but he normally tried hard not to use his brains and appear toointelligent since that had caused him so much trouble when he was younger. Jimwas more daring and happy-go-lucky, and the schemes they had hatched togetherhad made them infamous at their school.

John had known each of them long before they met each other, but often

felt like they were communicating on a wavelength he couldn't receive. Theycould talk in half- sentences and gestures, and understand each other while allaround looked at them in confusion. Occasionally, John was able to pick uptheir frequency (such as the famous "Mickey Mouse" incident), but was oftenjust as confused by them as everyone else. He was thinner and less muscularthan they were, but also had fashionably long hair. He wore glasses forreading and driving, and long-sleeved shirts to hide his skinny arms. Johnlaughed as he watched Arthur slide down the hill (just narrowly avoiding anunwanted swim in the reservoir) and start ambling towards the nearest liquorstore, about a fifteen minute walk away. He then turned to Jim and struck up aconversation about how his last girlfriend had asked him to choose between herand his new CD player. "It is one hell of a CD player," John said.

Arthur staggered back up the hill about half an hour later and found Johnand Jim in the company of a strangely beautiful woman whom he wished he couldsay he had seen before. She looked about nineteen and had green eyes that heldhis attention and made everything else seem to fade away. Arthur had to make aconcentrated effort to look away and ask Jim for an introduction orexplanation. However, both of them had immediately descended on the case ofbeer like vultures.

"We gave you enough for four six-packs of beer, but there are only threehere," John cleverly observed, pausing to count them again. "Why didn't youbuy four?"

"I did," Arthur replied, dropping to the ground. "It was a long walkback." Lacking any subtlety at this point, he merely gestured in the generaldirection of the girl and asked "who's she?"

"She followed us here," John said, handing her a beer. "If I promise tofeed her, can I keep her?" John drank his beer and continued staring at thegirl.

She stepped forward and offered Arthur her hand. "I'm Janet Withers," shesaid. "Any friend of John's..."

"...is obviously mentally deficient," Arthur completed. He kissed her handand muttered something in French. "Don't worry, Jim and I aren't always thisbad, at least."

She laughed lightly at that. Arthur laughed back and soon was joined byJim and John. It was a beautiful day. A cool breeze came up and they just laythere, reveling in it.


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John soon left with Janet. After they staggered off, Arthur asked Jimwhere he and John had found her. "It's kind of odd," Jim began, "but we werejust walking around because we knew it would take you a while to get back. Wesnuck up behind that big, gray house on the hill... you know, the one thatAustin Levy used to live in. It was just sold recently, I guess to Janet'sfamily.

"Anyway, as we watched the house, a cloud moved over the sun. Did you

ever notice how scary that house looks when it's dark? Yeah, me too; that'swhat I thought of when the shadow fell over it. So, we looked at each otherand then looked back at the house. One of the windows in the back opened and awoman climbed out. She looked both ways, and then ran into the woods. Johninsisted that we follow her (you know how John is), but he made so muchnoise... well, yeah, I made a lot of noise too... she turned and saw us. Atfirst she looked frightened, then she ran to us and told us to get away fromthe house, and not to make so much noise.

"We came back here, to wait for you. You and the beer. Right. Shewouldn't tell us what was wrong or why she slipped out like that. Nope, noteven after I used all the powers of persuasion I had. She did tell us that shecouldn't go back... John is going to see what he can do about finding her aplace to stay. What? Yes, of course we're planning on checking things out.

Maybe even tomorrow. Anybody who would abuse a girl like that... Um, will yoube busy? No? Good, we'll meet at my house then, call first. I gotta go, it'spretty late. Hand me that last six-pack, OK? Thanks. Well, I'll see youlater, drive carefully..."

Arthur returned to his car, a Chevy Malibu parked behind the theater."Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down," he thought, watching Jim waddle offinto the sunset. After taking three aspirin from a bottle in the glovecompartment, Arthur stretched out on the back seat and fell asleep. Later,after a sufficient recovery period, he drove home and went straight to bed.

The next morning Arthur awoke with the worst hangover that he'd ever hadin his life. He felt so bad that he made an immediate pledge: He would neverdrink beer under an oak tree near a reservoir again. He called Jim, and

guessed that Jim had an equally horrid hangover. Jim's mother answered andexplained that Jim couldn't come to the phone, he'd caught some sort of a badbug. They had to put off checking out the Withers house for a week or so untilthey all had a simultaneous day off again. Arthur later found out that Janetwas staying in the guest room at John's, and that he had had (if this waspossible) a worse hangover than Jim or Arthur had.

About a week later Arthur went down to Rhode Island College in Providenceto get his grades for the spring semester. He did about as well as he usuallydid, nothing bad but nothing spectacular either. He could have been an honorsstudent if he expended the effort, but he was singularly unmotivated. Beforeleaving, he walked across campus to Rosetta Hall, which housed the ForeignLanguages Department.

He showed the partial manuscript that Jim had found to Professor JeanSaquoi, the head of the department. "Very interesting," the professor said,looking over the arcane script and consulting one of the books on his desk."This doesn't resemble any language which I've ever come across. It could be avery ancient language, one unrelated to any modern tongues and spoken only byisolated peoples somewhere." He took a pipe out of his desk drawer, filled itfrom a pouch in his suit pocket, and lit it. "Maybe Doctor Peters or someoneover at the History Department could help you." Arthur thanked him and got upto leave. "Please tell me if you find anything out," Professor Saquoi asked asArthur left his office.

Dr. Ahmed Peters examined the pages with great interest. "I've seen words


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and symbols like this only once before," he said. "I believe what you may havehere is a remnant of the legendary Necronomicon, which is supposedly an ancientand powerfully evil book written centuries ago by the Mad Arab Abdul al-Hazred.According to what I've heard, it describes these 'Great Old Ones' and theirminions who dwell beyond Earth in space and time, and has rituals to summon andcontrol them. In olden times people who owned such books were often killed inhorrible ways, or just 'disappeared'. It's all utter superstitious nonsense,of course, but it may have some historical significance." Peters leaned back in

his chair. "We know very little about the religions of some early peoplesbecause the Spanish Inquisition burned books like this which they deemedheretical. Would you mind if I borrowed that?" Peters started musing tohimself, "I could get published... be famous... just imagine, the forgottenhistorical traditions of Pre-Christian peoples, written down on these pages..."

"I could lend it to you later," Arthur replied, quickly retrieving theyellowed pages, "but I'm not quite done with it yet. If this is really whatyou say it is, how did it come to be abandoned in the woods of northern RhodeIsland? Can you tell me more about this book?"

"I've heard stories and rumors that aren't worth repeating. Like the HopeDiamond, there are all sorts of stories about bad things happening to peoplewho own this book," the doctor lectured. "They could tell you more at theMiskatonic University in Arkham. Do me a favor, though, don't tell them that

you have a copy..."

That evening they met at John's house. Janet was probably upstairsreading in the guest room, and John was downstairs cursing at his beloved andextremely expensive stereo system.

"Something's causing some kind of interference," John declared weakly. Heseemed oddly pale. "I haven't been able to get good reception for the last fewdays. Someone around here must have a ham or CB radio or some other kind oftransmitter."

"Did you learn anything from Janet?" Jim asked him, his curiosity (asalways) getting the better of him.

"Yeah, I learned that she lived alone with her father. Her father wasinvolved in odd rituals and animal sacrifices and crap like that. She left

because she feared for her own safety. I guess she didn't want to be the nextsacrifice."

"That makes sense," Arthur said. "Those papers we found were from somekind of ancient spell book, according to a teacher at RIC. Druids used to useit as a bible or something for their ceremonies."

"I have a friend who works at the MegaMart," Jim said. "He says thatMarcus Withers was buying an awful lot of food for just two people. He alsosaid that Janet never went shopping with him."

"Probably afraid she'd try to escape," Arthur suggested. "Hey, while youwere in line, did you read the National Inquirer headline about Rosanne Barr'salien relatives?"

"Yeah," Jim grinned. "I can never resist looking over those hokeyheadlines. Anyway, I'm wondering what the extra food Janet's father bought was

for.""Pardon me for interrupting," John interrupted, "but I personally won't

believe any of this voodoo stuff until I've been up there to have a chat withMr. Withers. He and Janet probably just had some sort of fight and she ranaway. You know how girls are."

"Then we agree," Arthur said. "We should go up there and have a lookaround."

"Would now be OK?" Jim asked.

The three of them slipped out the back door and through the woods towardthe old Levy house. There was a light in one of the windows in back, but John


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suggested that they try ringing the doorbell before snooping or breaking andentering. When no one answered the bell, Jim started to expound on the virtuesof breaking and entering.

They looked through the window into the lit room and saw a motionless oldman lying in a pool of blood on the floor. Jim impulsively smashed the windowand climbed in. Arthur and John shrugged and followed. Fortunately, the windowwas large and close to the ground, so Arthur and Jim were able to climb ineasily. John, however, caught one of his sleeves on a glass shard and tore a

huge hole it."Are you all right, Mr. Withers?" Jim asked. "What happened?"Slowly, Marcus Withers turned to face them. His skin seemed dry and gray.

"It escaped..." he moaned, with an odd accent that none of them could place."I brought it up into this world to serve me and it escaped..."

"What escaped?" demanded Arthur."Yanoth-Yith, the Winged Horror," whispered the old man, pronouncing

"winged" with two syllables. "It stole the incantations necessary to banish itand scattered them about. I was always so careful, but this time when I moved,I must have done the binding ceremony wrong."

"Why would you summon a monster like that?" Jim asked."Little do thy know of sorcery! The Yanoth-Yith draineth life from other

men and giveth it to it's master. I have lived with yon beast for sevenscore

years, moving about every forty years to not arouse suspicion.""But what happened to you?" John asked."It came back when I was alone and defenseless," muttered Withers. "It

was draining forth my life when you arrived and scared it away with all thynoise." Withers looked oddly resigned. "But now, after losing my life, mydaughter, and all else I had, at last I will be one with the elements..."

"We have your daughter," John piped out. "She got away safely, and wefound her."

"Let us help you," Arthur said, reaching out to help Marcus Withers up.As soon as Arthur touched him, Withers' body collapsed into a thin layer ofgray dust.

"Right, I'm out of here," Jim announced.

They met again four days later at Arthur's house. They found him playinga game on his computer. He greeted them as they entered his room, cleared someclothes and papers from a couple of chairs, and motioned to his bed. "Helpyourself," Arthur said, as Jim reached under the bed for a six-pack. Eightsecond later, after they had each finished their first beer, Arthur asked John:"Why didn't you bring Janet?"

"She's working today. She got a job at the general store down the street,and never has time go out with me anymore," John scowled. "Besides, I can'tbring her since I haven't told her about her father yet."

"Well, I've been up to the Miskatonic University like Dr. Peterssuggested," said Jim. "A professor named Philip Armitage looked at the papersI found, and asked me a lot of questions. As soon as I could get a word inedgewise, I asked him about the Yanoth-Yith."

"What did he say?" prompted Arthur, waving his beer can for emphasis andspilling some on John.

"We got trouble in River City," replied Jim. "If there is a Yanoth-Yithloose, it's able to take on the form of a human being. In particular, theappearance of the child which was sacrificed for its summoning. It seems todrain life energy from people for strength; and once it's strong enough, itwill try to open a portal to let in the rest of its species. We humans willfind ourselves lower on the food chain than we like to be."

"I wish we knew what the child Withers killed looked like, so we'drecognize the beast if we saw him," John suggested.

"Unfortunately, they didn't put missing kids on milk cartons back around


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1850," Jim sarcastically reminded him."Is there any good news?" Arthur asked."We have the incantations it needs to summon in the rest of its kind. We

also have the incantation to return it home. Meaning it can't start callingits friends, and all we have to do is find it."

"Meaning it will also be trying to find us," John said, quickly making alogical connection. "Better pass me another beer."

"Maybe this will make you feel better. I've also been doing some

research," Arthur said, almost apologetically. "H. P. Lovecraft and otherswrote stories based on the creatures described in the Necronomicon. Accordingto some of these stories, there is a symbol called an 'Elder Sign' which canprotect people from unnatural creatures. Sort of like silver for werewolves orgarlic for vampires."

"What is this symbol?" Jim asked."Sort of a flaming eye in a broken star," Arthur replied. "It's on a

couple of the papers Jim found." Arthur seemed embarrassed at what he had tosay next. "I went up to 'T For Two' at the Mall and had four T-shirts withElder Signs on them made. One for each of us, and one for Janet. Now wewait."

"I can't wear a T-shirt," John protested. "I'll take it back and have asweatshirt made with the same design."

"Y'know," Jim began, in his best Andy Rooney voice, "call meold-fashioned, but I don't think I've ever seen a vampire movie where the goodguys wear T-shirts with pictures of crucifixes on the front and garlic on theback."

"Well, maybe you should," Arthur replied, defensively. "It certainly is ahell of an idea."

"Give me the pages with the incantations," John requested, "and I'll makeus all copies."

HARRISVILLE - Robert Miller of 56 Snake Hill Road,Chepachet, has been expelled from the Burrillville Rod andGun Club after an alleged incident which occurred lastnight. Miller was trying out his newly-acquired Lee

Enfield rifle in the woods on the club's property when heclaimed he saw a dragon-like creature flying overhead.After trying to shoot the apparition, Miller ran to theclubhouse to get the other members. Randy Thompson, theclub's president, told police that they "heard screamingand repeated firing before Bob returned to the clubhousewith his fantastic story ... we ran out with our telescopesand night-sight binoculars, but couldn't see anything."Police are considering charges against Miller for operationand discharge of a firearm while under the influence.

In a possibly related announcement, T. F. GreenAirport and the local National Guard base have reportedthat they have been picking up strange images on their

radar for the last two weeks. An investigation isunderway.

(From The Providence Journal, June 29, 1990)

Over the next week, the four of them expressed an eagerness and bravado tomeet the Yanoth-Yith and have it over with, but the Winged Horror failed tomake itself known. They wore the Elder Signs always, often under anothershirt. Unfortunately, the weather was often too hot to allow much comfort tothose wearing two shirts.

Despite the weeklong blazing sun, most of the people they saw as theywalked through Burrillville seemed oddly pale. Some people thought that a


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virus was going around, while some children scared each other with tales ofvampires. Three men and one woman, looking at the graying faces of thosearound them, knew the terrible reality.

"The fucking thing is feeding like there's no tomorrow!" Jim saidincredulously, squeezing into an easy chair. "We need some kind of plan tofind it and get rid of it before people die!"

"I'm working on an idea..." said John."Really?" asked Janet, her eyes sparkling. "Tell me about it!"

"I love secret plans!" Jim exclaimed."I won't say anything to any of you until I've got it all figured out,"

John explained. "It's just a bit too weird."Jim and Arthur turned and looked each other straight in the eyes. "Too

weird for us?" they chorused. "No way!""You'll just have to wait," John insisted. "So, did anyone bring beer?"

The next day, Jim and Arthur went over to John's house. They had eachcalled in sick to their jobs, which had caused no suspicion; everyone was sickthese days. John's mother answered the door wearing a bathrobe and an icepack,and told them that John and Janet had headed down toward the reservoir.

"Of course!" Arthur said, climbing into Jim's van. "The Yanoth-Yith wouldprobably keep watch over where it had lost the documents, hoping whoever had

took them would return to the proverbial scene of the crime.""And you seriously expect me to drive us there?""I don't expect you to do anything seriously."

They spied John and Janet sitting under the oak tree. Neither Jim norArthur could hear what they were saying, but they seemed to be smiling andlaughing.

"Clever ploy," Arthur said, "pretending to be there having fun.""They don't fool me," Jim said, as John put his arm around Janet, "they

are having fun."Jim and Arthur felt pangs of jealousy as John and Janet began to kiss.

Janet got up and kicked off her sandals. She removed her T-shirt and jeans and,wearing a red polka-dotted bikini, playfully ran down to the water.

Turning away, Jim whispered to Arthur, "What do we do now? Drive away inthe van or walk over to them and clear our throats loudly?"

"The third option," Arthur said, ask John began to chase Janet to thewater. "We drive over them in the van. Loudly." John, unable to resistfollowing a beautiful girl, removed his sneakers and protective sweatshirt."Come on, let's get out of here." John began to remove his jeans, revealingblue swimming trunks.

Jim and Arthur were just climbing back into the van when a scream splitthe air. They immediately ran back to their vantage point and saw Janetrunning towards the woods and screaming all the way. John, with his jeansaround his ankles, was trying to keep up with her but kept tripping andfalling. After Janet reached the woods, she apparently kept running, for herscreams continued to get fainter and fainter. A few seconds later, as John was

about halfway towards the dark safety of the woods, a shadow passed over him."Look!" Arthur yelled, trying unsuccessfully to spin Jim around. He then

pointed at the source of the shadow and allowed Jim to spin himself. Circlingabout a hundred feet above John was a leathery apparition straight out of anightmare. It looked as though someone had taken the head of a warthog, thebody of a lion, the tail of an alligator, and the wings of a fruitbat and hadbeat them all together with several aluminum baseball bats. Its body wasroughly man-sized, and its claws looked like sharpened daggers. Its eyes werepoints of black flame, and were locked on John.

"Shittagoddamn..." muttered Jim, highly impressed."Let's go help him!" Arthur yelled. "He's not wearing his Elder Sign


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shirt anymore!"The same thought had occurred to John almost immediately. After looking

up to see the beast casting a shadow over him, John noted with uncharacteristiccalmness that he was no longer protected, and that he would never make it tothe woods. Feinting towards the forest and falling to the ground, John fooledthe Yanoth-Yith into swooping down towards him. He immediately rolled to theside, dodging the razor-sharp talons, and hopped, slipped, rolled, and felldown the hill as quickly as he could towards his Elder Sign shirt. "Should

have gotten damned tattoos," John muttered."I usually swim in a T-shirt so I don't get sunburned," Arthur panted as

they ran across the parking lot towards the reservoir."John always called you a wimp for that, too," Jim gasped back.The beast seemed confused by John's evasive tactics, and seemed more

confused when it saw Jim and Arthur loping towards it, screaming and keepingtheir Elder Signs visible. It watched Arthur and Jim nervously for a fewseconds, then seemed to realize that it was being distracted from its originalprey. It spun around and dived for John.

John had just grabbed his sweatshirt when the Yanoth-Yith pounced on him.John pressed the shirt against the beast and was heartened to hear sizzlingsounds and growls of pain. Then the beast knocked the shirt from his handswith one forelimb as it tore out his throat with the other.

Arthur and Jim stopped in terror as they watched what appeared to beelectricity arc from John's body to the Yanoth-Yith's. The beast then launcheditself over John's gray body and flew off over the woods. As a breeze came up,causing John's body to collapse into powder and blow away, Arthur and Jimcontinued to stand paralyzed, not knowing what to do next.

They found Janet about an hour later. She was hunched over near a tree,sobbing mindlessly. From the blood and bruises on her, it seemed as though shehad fallen several times, possibly even run into a few trees, in her panickeddash from the terrible beast her father had summoned.

"How's Janet?" Arthur asked Jim the next day."Still not talking," Jim replied. "I've given her my bed and taken the

couch. We'd better watch her, I'm afraid of what she might do in hercondition."

"OK, I'll move in with you for now, take the sofa in your den, and we'llwatch her at all times. Hide the sleeping pills, razor blades, and so on."Arthur sighed. "We should have gone over and joined them."

"Think of what John would have done to us had we tried to get between himand another conquest."

"He'd still be alive.""You don't know that! You also didn't know at the time what was about to

happen!""I could have done something and I didn't. Because of that a good friend

of ours is dead." Arthur started walking away. "You take the first shiftwatching Janet. I'll find that bastard if it's the last thing I do."

Jim walked into his house. He quickly identified himself to Arthur,holding sentry duty on the couch. "Mind if I turn on the lights?" Jim asked.

"You might wake her up. Where did you go?""I searched his car and room. I found a copy of the incantations, but not

the original. His car had some odd scratch marks on it. I think the originalswere in his car and that thing has them." Jim paused. "Someone else stole hisradar detector."

"I think so too. While you were watching her earlier, I went back toMarcus Withers' workroom and found out it had been cleaned up recently. Ithink that the thing is planning to start summoning in the other Yanoth-Yith


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sometime soon.""What do we do now?""We know where and how, but not when. We'll have to watch the Withers'

place 24 hours a day. We can't take Janet with us in her condition, so thatmeans leaving her here. We can tell your brother to keep an eye or two onher."

"When do we start?" Jim asked, already knowing the answer."No time like the present."

Jim and Arthur arrived at the house which Marcus Withers had occupied forsuch a short time. They decided to wait inside the workroom, each armed with aflashlight and a copy of the incantation to banish the Yanoth-Yith. Arthur hidin the closet, but Jim insisted on hiding under a desk.

"I've got to see this thing close-up," Jim announced."Curiosity killed the cat," Arthur reminded him."You should know by now that I'm not a cat," Jim replied facetiously.As they saw the light of the full moon coming through the broken window,

they knew that this would be the night.It seemed like an eternity before they heard something climbing through

the large window. They smelt incense being lit, and saw the light of severalcandles dancing on the walls. A slow, deep chanting began. "N'gaah,

N'gaahah... N'gaah, N'gaahah..."Arthur opened his door a crack and saw Jim climbing out from behind his

desk, incantation ready. "My God!" Jim whispered, unable to be silent. "It'sJanet!" Arthur looked at the wall behind Jim, and saw two shadows. One shadowhe recognized as Jim's. The other shadow, a feminine one, must have beenJanet's. Arthur was about to come out of the closet and demand an explanationfrom Janet when her shadow changed. It grew about a foot taller, and batlikewings sprouted from its shoulders. Arthur opened the closet door further. Hesaw the creature continuing with its rituals. Arthur sensed Jim's nervousnessas Jim swallowed and began the banishment incantation. "Yanoth-Yith mhifoefhtagn! Yanoth-Yith mhifoe fhtagn!" The Yanoth-Yith quickened its chanting,and soon it and Jim were racing through the arcane words. Suddenly, there wasa note of triumph in the thing's voice as a black hole in mid-air opened up

before the Yanoth-Yith. Jim looked into the hole and began to scream. Arthurcould feel a snapping sensation as Jim's mind went irretrievably mad from whatit saw through the hole in space. Arthur heard a second voice joining Janet'sas another Yanoth-yith entered the room through the hole. Soon there werefour.

Arthur closed the door and began to chant rapidly under his breath,scanning his xeroxed document with his flashlight. He tried not to bedistracted and continued chanting as he heard eight, sixteen, then thirty-twovoices outside the closet chanting in the eerie, deep voices of theYanoth-Yith. He was not distracted by the growing din of winged horrorsjostling each other for room. He was not distracted when one of them noticedlight escaping from under the closet door and warned the others. He continuedchanting even as they ripped the closet door off of its hinges. And, as the

giant claws closed around his arms, legs, and throat, he screamed the last fivewords: "Khebor Cthnadii Bokou Pz'nhai Dhu-Daa!"

There was an explosion of light and sound. All of the colors and shapesArthur had ever seen danced before his eyes. He heard so many soundssimultaneously that he was unable to focus on any single one. He saw thehoards of Yanoth-Yith being sucked towards a blinding white glow where theirportal once hung. As the glow engulfed the last of the winged beasts, Arthurthought he saw it become Janet again, and look at him with a tear in her eye.

And then there was nothing but darkness and Jim's screaming. The candles,incense, fragments of the Necronomicon, and Yanoth-Yith were all gone, suckedinto the void. Even the flashlights were gone. Arthur turned on the lights


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and looked at the still-screaming Jim. There was nothing behind his eyes, andArthur knew that the mind which had been Jim was lost forever beyond space.Arthur and Jim were still standing in the same positions twenty minutes laterwhen the police arrived.

the blackness over burrillville

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