Page:Stirring Science Stories, February 1941.djvu/119



E TOOK Graf Norden's body out into the November night, under the stars that burned with a brightness terrible to behold, and drove madly, wildly up the mountain road. The body had to be destroyed because of the eyes that would not close, but seemed to be staring at some object behind the observer, the body that was entirely drained of blood without the slightest trace of a wound, the body whose flesh was covered with abhorrent, luminous markings, designs that shifted and changed form before one's eyes. We wedged what had been Graf Norden tightly behind the wheel, put a makeshift fuse in the gas tank, lit it, then shoved the car over the side of the road, where it plummeted down to the main highway, a flaming meteor.

Not until the next day did we realize that we had all been under Dureen's spell—even I had forgotten. How else could we have rushed out so eagerly, leaving him to gloat over his triumph. From that terrible moment when the lights came on again, and we saw the thing that had, a moment before, been Graf Norden, we were as shadowy, indistinct figures rushing through a dream. All was forgotten save the unspoken commands upon us as we watched the blazing car strike the pavement below, observed its demolition, then tramped dully each to his own home. When, the next day, partial memory returned to us and we sought Dureen, he was gone. And, because we valued our freedom, we did not tell anyone what had happened, nor try to discover whence Dureen had vanished. We wanted only to forget.

I think I might possibly have forgotten had I not looked into the again. With the others, there has been a growing tendency to treat it all as illusion, but I cannot: I have learned a small part of reality. For it is one thing to read of books like the Necronomicon, Book of Eibon, or Song of Yste, but it is quite different when one's own experience confirms some of the dread things related therein. Many have read excerpts from the Necronomicon, yet are reassured by the thought that Alhazred was mad: what if they were to discover that, far from being mad, Abdul Alhazred was so terribly sane that others dubbed him mad simply because they could not bear the burden of the facts he uncovered?

Of such truths, I found one paragraph in the Song of Yste and have not read farther. The dark volume, along with Norden's other books, is still on my shelves; I have not burned it. But I do not think that I shall read more—but let me tell you of Dureen and Graf Norden, for around these two lie the reasons for my reluctance for the further pursuance of my studies.