Estronomicon Spring/Summer 2009

JOHN T. CARNEY slept, dreams rattled his sleep. In one, vague shapes strode gigantically through the deep while finned monstrosities rushed past into the fathomless void. In another, a single eye glared . . .

The stranger awoke with a sudden shock. Something or someone was pounding on the wood of the seaside structure and it sounded urgent. His head pounded from the rum he’d drunk earlier in the day and he found that he wasn’t too steady upon his feet upon rising from the couch on which he’d passed out earlier. The pounding on the wood sounded once again, and it was hard to distinguish it from the pounding going on in his skull as if someone had added a sledgehammer to his heart beat. The old seafarer staggered forward towards the door, wondering vaguely if more of Captain Adam’s visitors had dropped by again with more questions. He sighed with exasperation and flung open the door only to find that no one was there. Yet the pounding continued despite this and the old seaman realized that it was coming from not outside the door but below the walkway.

The old man looked under the walkway before the front door and discovered to his shock that Captain Adams had returned. Soaking wet, the captain leaned against a piling, gasping for breath, and not sparing the air for cursing either. However, instead of arms he now had tentacles to replace them.

And without sparing a moment, he proceeded to pull himself up the piling with them, pulling his full weight up the wood by degrees until he had reached the walkway where he continued with the full weight of his curses upon the stranger whom had invaded his home.

“I know who you are now, you old son-of-a-bitch!” he swore. “You’re the one who wrote that cursed book that brought this upon me! Otherwise, I wouldn’t have these!” he cursed, shoving his writhing tentacles in front of him with a thrusting motion. “I damn near drowned out there and almost never made it back. Aye, I know you! You’re Von Junzt, the author of the Black Book, that accursed tome that brings sorrow upon those who happen to open its pages. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t strangle you right now; why I shouldn’t rob you of the existence you so delightfully stole from me not so long ago? Give me one good reason!”

“One good reason?” Von Junzt returned, good-naturedly. “Why because I’m already dead, my good man. I’m dead, yet, I’m alive as well. Don’t you see? We both now have eternal life. You have been transformed! You are now a child of - 52 -