The Horrors Beneath Boulder

(This is an excerpt from a journal found in a used book store on Pearl Street; the owner was unaware that it was in his possession. The location of the house that it references so repeatedly is, at this time, unknown. Further research could not be conducted, as the few contents of the journal which this transcriber has read were too horrifying for sustained perusal. The “antiquarian home” may be presumed to be secluded somewhere on one of the wooded mountains overlooking the city of Boulder. The author, after some cursory handwriting analysis by a friend of the transcriber, has been determined as seventy percent likely to be Robert Shannon, a man of humble beginnings who, upon his release from prison for manslaughter in 1997, was surprised by an inheritance from an uncle he was unaware of any relation to. This seems to fit with many of the facts presented in the journal entries that have been read thus far.)

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It was a dark and stormy night. This had nothing to do with what I was finding in the vaulted basement far beneath my antiquarian home. It did not, as such, have nothing to do with what I was finding; It was connected in the same way that a beached whale in Japan is related to a tidal wave approaching Pennsylvania. The thought of that had, prior to this night, been weighing heavily on my mind; that too has little connection to what I was discovering in the vaulted basement far beneath my antiquarian home.

I apologize, to any future generations who find this journal. No mortal beings should be subjected to such horrors, even in writing. I leave this journal for no purpose besides warning all against seeking out the mysteries of the ancient house. I am wary to even write where the edifice is, for some unfortunate thrill-seeker will seek it out. I must leave that decision to my final judgment; when I have written all there is that I have found, if I am sane enough to remember it, I will include the location of my doom.

Dark things had once resided in that vaulted basement; that much was clear simply by seeing the exterior of the building itself. They were, by necessity, darker than the stormy night I did not know was outside. At the present time, I had the basement lit, so as to prevent the creeping horror of utter darkness from storming the fortress of my mind, already further crumbled than the house my body spent its time in. I had been down to the vaulted basement only once in my time owning that unnaturally sturdy antiquarian building, very briefly upon my inheritance, long enough only to realize that no light could reach down there by any means. I summoned workmen to install electric lights throughout the vaulted basement, and when they returned they told me uneasily that they had not encountered any problems with installing the lights. This surprised all of us to uneasiness, in particular the lead electrician, whose name was Harry S. He had never known a standard job to go so smoothly, and for a job to do so in such an old house, with such unpredictable circuitry, with wiring and lighting having to be hung from a colossal height was, in his expert opinion, impossible. After he and his workmen left, I determined to discover for myself what was hidden in that basement, be it normal or supernatural., but had since been waylaid for nearly a year by varied circumstances, included in which were such distracting contemplations as the nature of justice and, to my surprise, Chaos Theory.

Finally I had cleared myself some time to investigate the vaulted and now lit basement. I entered and sealed the door behind me that morning, when the television meteorologists were promising a continuation of the sunny and clear weather. I had chosen such a calmed and promising day to investigate the basement in order to quell my ungrounded fears that something horrible and familiar would be hidden within. For a time, I wandered the infinite storage room with very little thought of what I sought. I found dilapidated photo albums and tattered and tattering magazines of monumental ages. I found boxes also full of knick-knacks, globes, and text books, as well as one filled to swelling with broken watches. My own watch worked perfectly, which is how I knew that by the time I had completed my rounds of the meaningless photos and discovered the mirror, night had fallen.

The mirror fascinated me, for its frame was plain yet intricate. That frame was entrancing through this, and was a strangely smooth gold, with unfortunate carvings that looked by several hands on the corners. More unsettling was the switch just to the right of the mirror; it held my attention better than even the intricate and disturbed carvings on the mirror’s frame, for I had known myself to be the first resident of the mausoleum to use electric lights, and had not ordered a switch be placed anywhere besides just inside the singular door leading to the rest of the house. After some time spent worrying excitedly about it, I finally flipped it. The mirror lit up, revealing itself to be in actuality a window.

Oh, Gods, how I tremble at the very memory of what I saw there, beyond that looking glass! Oh, how I wish I had not seen it, how I wish I could live out the remainder of my days pretending there was not such a thing in this world as those horrible blind beings, the terrible eyeless creatures, the Dark Things that resided there! They seemed to dance a macabre game, though the rules and patterns I could not discern. I could not stand to focus on their motions to discern their reasons. I could focus only on their shimmering, black skin, giving them the terrible resemblance that they were furred. I could focus only on trying to tell one from the next-for there were certainly a multitude of them, this is doubtless-in that barely lit darkness, which stretched on forever. The population stretched on forever, inciting terrible visions of what they were possibly feeding on. More horrifying still was their uncanny resemblance to the common Lagomorph, the wild and gentle rabbit. They were certainly not rabbits; no, they were distant in all respects but the vague visual aspect of their shape. As soon as I saw this, I began to have terrible visions of the Warren-for that was all I could know it as now, a Warren of horrendous, unholy almost rabbits-rising up from the basement, and soon after consuming all who came near them. In my mind, they began to spread across the planet, consuming humans and all other creatures as if they were nothing more than leafy greens.

To my benefit, the Warren took no notice of me. In horror-unable to scream-I tremulously returned the switch to its off position, and made a mad dash for the door that would return me to my own familiar world, of mundane horrors and simple unknowns. I tore that wooden door open and slammed it behind me, not bothering to shut off the main basement light. For all I cared at that moment, the light could fight them back until the bulbs were drained beyond recall. When I was safely-as safe as I could ever be now, knowing that the horrendous Warren was somewhere beneath me-I uttered a scream that I heard, even after I stopped, echoing through the house. I crumpled to the floor and did not try to stop myself from sobbing.

When I finally awoke, light was shining in through the windows. It was morning, and I was not startled by this. Nothing so mundane could startle me anymore. I resolved then and there to eliminate the horrible Warren before it could spread from its unknown origins beneath my home. Yet, I had, and still have, no idea how to eliminate such horror...

# posted by Pope Richard Corey @ 9:26 PM