I turned the pages and stared blankly at the images David had drawn. Like an artist undiscovered, he had revealed things I could not comprehend. The spiders. Or were they really spiders? Creatures not unlike spiders, yet possessing what seemed like an endless array of segmented legs. I could see no body, yet a stroke of a pencil. Horrid things they were, and I began to wonder myself if they truly existed.
As if I thought these creatures were bizarre enough, I turned a page and witnessed a thing of which no man should see. It had a long tubular-shaped body, with thick short legs and heavy feet of nine toes. It’s face was obscured by tentacles that reached out from a large circular maw lined with jagged teeth. From the tentacles grew more, smaller tentacles, and from those, more. If its design had been crude, I could have gazed upon it with more ease, but its perfection disturbed me to no end.
Below this particular drawing was a short paragraph by David:
Image this one hundred times this size, my friend. It is Cthulhu, king of the Great Old Ones. It is what holds me prisoner in its dimension. The book you hold now is my only salvation. It cannot destroy the creatures of this realm, but will push them back, as God pushed the Devil into the pit. It is then you can save me. Yet, I have more to show you. Soon, you will follow the same path as I – Godspeed.
I pondered over this for quite some time, growing weary all the while. Finally, I turned a page to find a drawing of what seemed to be the entrance to a cave of some sort. As I gazed at the drawing, the walls of the caved seemed to move with life, undulating and embracing upon something invisible. I closed my eyes and drifted off…
I awoke a short time later, the book still unfurled on my lap. I closed it and yawned, listening to the breeze blowing through the open French doors. The flames in the fireplace had grown weak, and fluttered as if about to die altogether. I set the book on the end table, and rose to add more wood to the fire. Rather funny, though, I didn’t recall leaving the doors open. The wind, of course it must have been the wind.
I made to close the glass doors, but hesitated. The breeze was refreshing, and I stepped out onto the patio to survey the grounds along the back of the house. Oddly enough, the greenhouse was lit from the overhead fluorescents, and I went to investigate. I opened the door and glanced inside at all the plants and flora, but the building was otherwise empty. After one more look around, I turned off the lights and decided to retire for the evening. When I returned to the study, I saw David’s book lying on my chair, open to the page with the horrid drawings of the spiders. I shuddered, for I knew I had not left it there.
From behind came light. I turned and saw that the greenhouse was lighted as before – I knew then that David had truly planned on leading me through the strange events he had before experienced. For the first time I was truly frightened. Was I to become victim to the heinous events bestowed upon my friend? Surely, he would not let harm come to me, except to lead me to his astral prison.
I ran into the kitchen and pulled a large steak knife from the wooden cutlery holder on the counter. I made my outside and immediately noticed something odd attached to the glass wall on the inside of the greenhouse. This was no plant, for it scuttled up and down the glass with amazing speed.
A spider!
This most certainly proved David’s sanity. Yet, I felt as if something was trying to sneak into my mind and steal my sanity away. Still clear of mind, I opened the greenhouse door, and warmth and beautiful scents cascaded over me. I started down an aisle, surveying the plants for any sign of the spider-like creature for it was no longer attached to the glass. My mind ran wild. It was waiting for me, waiting to kill me. I was experiencing the same fear David must have felt when he first encountered the freakish things. I held the knife before me and slowly moved toward the end of the aisle. Some of the larger plants brushed against me with large, flat leaves or the thin leaves of the ferns.
I heard a pattering on the floor, and saw a flurry of thin legs as the thing scampered across the aisle at the end. It sickened me to see it, but regardless I picked up my pace. I stopped just short of the end and peeked around the corner. There were three more aisles to contend with if the creature wanted to play a game of cat and mouse all night.
I crept over to the next aisle and moved back toward the front of the greenhouse, where a large counter (I had built this myself, and I was quite proud of it considering I know nothing of woodworking) stood before several tall shelves lined with pots of various sizes and colors. Stacked on the floor were bags of soil and fertilizer.
I reached the front and stood behind the counter as if I was a clerk ready to make a sale. I leaned on my hands and took several deep breaths.
The book you hold now is my only salvation…
I should have brought the book with me to perhaps witness its power over these multi-dimensional beings. As if that very thought had triggered a reaction, the spider emerged from some foliage in the aisle directly in front of me. As it moved toward me, I was almost mesmerized by all those damned legs. My mind could not fathom such a thing, and yet, here it was; I could hear the legs scraping through dust on the floor as it grew near.
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