A Dark and Stormy Night

It was a dark and stormy night.   Rain pelting the cabin roof and walls in volleys, thunder rattling the windows bare seconds after lightning glared white-hot into the house through the rain-streaked panes, gusts of wind moaned as they circled tha cabin. making its timbers creak.  A late October storm.

The old man, who lived there alone except for his parrot, had prepared for the anticipated electrical outage by placing lighted candles about the living room and keepng a flashlight at hand.  He’d been a sailor in his youth, had sailed many a sea and visited many an exotic port, but had chosen to live out his years inland, among stony hills, not far from the village of Dunwhich.  When he’d bought the cabin ten years before, he’d heard the tales of past strange goings-on and visitations but those were, if true, more than a hundred years ago and nothing had disturbed the sleepy air of the the area since he’d moved in.

Tonight the television reception was especially bad, so he turned it off and picked up the book he’d borrowed from the library in town—he was partial to mysteries—and had just begun to read when there came a soft tapping at the front door that he could barely hear over the roll of thunder and the creaking of the cabin.  The old man waited to see if it was just the wind.  But no, the soft rapping came again.  And then again.  Who could that be, he thought, too foul a night for the neighbors to be visiting.  Too early for trick or treating and anyway who would send their kids out on a night like this?  He picked up his flashlight to check the door and just as he rose from his chair, the electricity went out.  Of course he thought dourly.  The candle flames flickered as he made his way to the door and opened it carefully to keep the wind and rain out.  No one.  He was about to shut the door.

“Look down here,” said a soft accented voice.   

He turned the flashlight toward the doormat and standing there was a wet and bedraggled monkey who held up the stump of his left arm, “I’ve come for my paw.”  With that, the monkey brushed past the dumbfounded old man and entered the room. 

“I really didn’t invite you in,” said the old man, somewhat recovering his composure, “but on a night like this I guess you’re welcome to come in and dry out.  Now what’s this about a paw?”

“Many, many years ago a Hindu fakir sold you my paw, and I have to get it back so I can go on to my next level.  Do you still have it?”

The old man racked his memory.  “You must have been searching a long time.  It’s been decades since I was in India.”

“My paw,” the monkey said impatiently.  “It took me a long time to trace you here.”

“Wait.  Now I remember,” said the old man.  “Shortly after I bought it I gave it to a soldier who wanted a souvenir.  I think he was going back to England.”

“Did you use any of the wishes that came with it?”

“No.  All that mystical mumbo jumbo spooked me and I just gave it to that soldier and was glad to be rid of it.”

The monkey sighed, “Now I’ll have to go to England.  Do you mind if I wait out the storm here where it’s dry and warm?”

Just then there came a sharp tapping on one of the windows.  The old man went over and shone his light outside.  A large, black, very wet bird tapped again and again.  “Oh why not?” said the old man, and he opened the window and the raven, for that’s what it was, hopped through followed by a blast of wind that extinguished half of the candles.  The raven shook it’s feathers in a mini-shower, squawked and looked at the parrot who stared back and squawked in turn. 

“Aren’t you supposed to say something like ‘Nevermore?’” said the old man as he went around relighting the candles.

“Caw,” said the raven, ruffling its feathers.

“Nevermore,” said the parrot suddenly.  

“Right word, wrong bird,” said the old man to the parrot that shifted on its perch.  

There was a loud knocking on the door.  “Now what? said the old man.  He went to the door, opened it a crack and shined his flashlight through.  No one.

“Invite me in.  It’s wet and cold standing in the rain with nothing on,” said a voice with a British accent.

The old man felt his remaining hair rise, “Who said that?”  Sweeping the flashlight beam around but one one was there.

An amused chuckle.  “Mystifying isn’t it.  It is I the invisible man, and of course you do not see me because I took off my wet clothes.  Now are you going to let me in?”

This night was getting beyond him.  The old man opened the door and saw wet foot prints cross the threshhold and enter his home.

“Thank you.  I usually wear clothes or bandages so that you people can see me, but tonight they became so wet, I just peeled them off.”  The voice came out of the air.

“Here, could you at least put on my cap so that I know where you are?  It’s too strange to be talking to no one,” said the old man holding out a cap.  It was taken out of his hand and placed atop the invisible man’s head where it bobbed about seemingly suspended in air.

“Feel better now?” came from under the cap.

“If you don’t mind, maybe also put on this jacket.”  said the old man holding out his plaid jacket.

The old man watched his jacket move seemingly by itself till it covered the torso of the invisible man, who said, “Thank you, that does help to take away the chill of being nude in the rain.”

The candle flames cast shifting shadows, as he old man saw his cap and coat float across the room and sit on an arm chair by the fireplace.  “But what are you doing here?  What’s the monkey doing here?” he asked.  “What’s going on?”

“You cannot hear the call, but we who follow can.  And these hills are a nexus where once the unknowable became known,” said the invisible man.

“ I told you before, I simply want my paw,” said the monkey.

“Nexus?  Unknowable”” asked the old man.

A measured pounding at the door interrupted. 

“I shall not be the only one heeding the call tonight.  Go old man and let it in,” the invisible man commanded.

The old man was by now numbed by the night’s strange visitations and he crossed the room to the door calling out loudly, “I’m coming, I’m coming.  You can stop pounding.”  He opened the door carefully, mindful of the wind.  And stared, stunned by the sight of a human wrapped in white bandages from head to foot with only the narrowest space for its eyes.  Without a word. the mummy strode past the old man to enter the room, dripping as it moved.

“Ah Pharaoh, what a pleasure to see you again,” said the invisible man.  “Did you finally catch up to that troublesome Egyptologist who violated your tomb?”

“Not as yet, not as yet, but be assured that I will,” the mummy replied in a dry, rasping voice.  “And when I do, I shall also raise my queen whom he has imprisoned within a glass case at the British Museum.”

“Well, in the meantime since you’re here and your wrappings are soaked, why don’t you unwrap yourself and let them dry out?”  suggested the invisible man, much to the old man’s horror.

“I cannot do that,” said the mummy, much to the old man’s relief  “The wrappings hold my body securely together.  Having been dessicated for centuries, the water actually feels pleasant.”

“You heeded the call as I did?” said the invisible man .

“What’s this about a call?” asked the old man.

“Of course,” replied the mummy.  “One cannot ignore the call of Great Cthulhu.”

“C-Cthulhu?” asked the old man.  “What’s this Cthulhu?”  He was ignored.

“We will be joined by yet another, for he was behind me on path,” the mummy said.

And as if on cue, there came a thunderous hammering of the door.

“Allow me,” said the invisible man rising from his chair.  

The old man saw his empty jacket and cap rise from the chair and move towards the door; feeling relieved that he would not have to immediately confront whomever or whatever was knocking so heavily on his door.

The door swumg open and a huge form filled the frame.  “Ah the monster,” said the invisible man.  “Welcome to our small company.”

“Yes, you  men call me monster though I was formed from humanity,” the monster replied.  I who by nature would have been good, was forced by humanity’s rejection and cruelty to respond in kind.  I have sunk so low as to slay my creator, the one named Victor Frankenstein, who dared to defy his Creator by bringing life to me.”

“You too answer the call,” rasped the mummy.

“Yes, I have become so accursed that now I too can hear the call.”

The old man did not dare call attention to himself by asking what they were talking about and he quietly retreated to the corner of the room by his parrot.

“Now I must take advantage of the storm to renew my energy, for it was on a night like this that I was born,” said the monster.  

The monster went back into the storm.  The old man heard him climb ponderously onto the roof and hoped that the roof timbers would hold under the monster’s weight.

Inside the cabin they heard the monster’s call to the storm clouds, “Strike me oh heavenly bolts.  You that once brought me life.  Now renew my strength or slay me, I care not which.”

As if in reply, a brilliant flash flooded the room through the windows with a simultaneous trememdous Boom directly over the cabin that rattled the dishes in the kitchen cabinets, and made the old man’s ears ring.  And the monster’s bellow—of pain? truimph? rage?  They heard his body slide, clattering across the roof and fall.  Then silence until the door knob turned and he stepped into the room, his clothes and hair dripping but still smoking a little despite the rain.  “I am revived,” he said.  “And ready to answer Cthulhu’s call.”

“Once the main fury of the storm passes we shall go as a band,” said the invisible man.

The old man summoned enough courage to venture, “Who or what is this Cthulhu you keep talking about?”

“Great Cthulhu dwells on an island that periodically rises from the depths of the sea to rally his followers.  He is one of the Elder Beings whom you men would call evil, but his purposes are beyond the puny human understandings of Evil or Good.  He is Great, and we follow,”said the monster.

“I’ve heard tales in the dives of South Sea ports,” said the old man. “Of a foul island found on no charts that rises from the sea and then sinks.” 

“They are not mere tales,” said the invisible man.  “But come, the storm is moving away.  Let us also be on our way.”  And with that, the three visitors rose.  

“My coat and hat?” asked the old man cautiously.

“Here you are.  I thank you for their use,” said the invisible man as he handed them to the old man before going out the door into the dark night, fully invisible once more.

“And I’ll be on my way too, to England,” said the monkey.  “You don’t happen to remember the name of that soldier you gave my paw to, do you?”

“Let me think,” said the old man.  After a long pause he said, “I think it was Usher or maybe Asher.”

“Thank you.”  And with that the monkey too was gone.

“What a weird, unsettling night,” mused the old man to himself.  “May I never see any of those things again.”

“Nevermore,” said the parrot, settling itself to sleep.

“A night’s worth of nightmares,” the old man said.

“Forevermore,” said the raven.