Beyond The Chaos Gate

  Beyond

  The Chaos

  Gate

  Quentin Ravensbane

  COPYRIGHT

  Beyond the Chaos Gate

  Digital Edition

  Copyright © 2017 Quentin Ravensbane

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author at the email address below.

  quentinravensbane@gmail.com

  ASIN: B075FJ5BPJ

  Independently published

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. The name, characters, places, and incidents depicted in this novel are all products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The author has taken concepts popularized by H.P. Lovecraft and created a hybrid work that is intended to impress upon the reader the sheer insignificance of humanity in the infinite tapestry of existence. It is designed to be horror only in the sense of our discovery that we are tiny creatures, which the universe does not regard as significant or unique, is a concept that brings the dread of the hunted prey to the human heart.

  This book intends to cause the reader to understand the actual danger in existence, both intellectually and emotionally. To live in an uncaring universe, only one species in the spectrum of predators and prey, less than a bacterium beneath the boots of cosmic entities is to lose both our pride and our safety. Can we live with that?

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book is based loosely on the concepts of H.P. Lovecraft. The eBook cover design for this novel is by oliviaprodesign.

  Influences for this novel include Roger Zelazny, Brian Lumley, H.P. Lovecraft, and a multitude of writers in the genres of science fiction, horror and in the fields of physics and philosophy. There is also some small influence by conspiracy theorists, alternative history theorists, pulp fiction masters and a smattering of early childhood comic book (er..graphic art books), just to name a few.

  CONTENTS

  introduction

  1 dark omens

  2 the second case

  3 the group

  4 strange world

  5 the hospital

  6 the third case

  7 the realization

  8 odds and ends

  9 darker days

  10 old ones

  11 time, love, and darkness

  12 dream and death

  13 a new home

  14 the reckoning

  15 the hospital

  16 future past

  17 the first strike

  18 aftermath

  19 the rebel yell

  20 attack the school

  21 disinfection

  22 resolve

  23 Attacked

  24 the pyre

  25 ready for war

  26 The gate

  27 walking

  introduction

  The last thing that an FBI agent expects is to encounter a series of cases that do not feature motivations or capabilities that are recognizable as humanly possible. Even your average serial killer has some reason to pick his victims and some sort of mental trigger that activates his need to kill.

  A man that is psychically talented will sometimes sense things that don't fit the definition of entirely human, but usually, the actions of these inhuman things are possible to understand, as motivated by the need to fulfill a fundamental organic or non-organic entity's needs.

  What if the world was in contact with an entity that did not fit either paradigm? If the entity had an almost infinite power, could the motivations and vulnerabilities of the creature be determined before its effect on the world become irreversible?

  We humans like to think that we are special and that we live in a loving universe. We create concepts such as sin and gods and karma to let us believe in a comforting lie.

  We want to believe that our qualities make us valuable to the world. We want to believe that we are not just one more species of animal on the planet. Even though we go to horror movies to feel the fear that comes from being the prey, we like to believe that we are above such things.

  We are not prey because we are too strong. We are not predators because we are too kind. We know that neither of these assumptions is true. These assumptions are just lies that we tell ourselves because they comfort us.

  When we walk along a trail, we rarely worry that we are crushing ants beneath our feet. Some of us might avoid such destruction, but the ants are so small that they pass unnoticed, one more little tragedy in a cycle of life and death.

  Most of us do not concern ourselves with the lives of little things. When we get an infection, we go to the doctor to get a substance that is poisonous to the bacteria. Who among us have not intentionally killed thousands of cockroaches in our time, just because we detest them?

  Just as there are creatures that are tiny in comparison to us, we are small and insignificant as compared to other creatures that exist. Some beings are bigger than worlds, and our lives or deaths are of no consequence to them at all.

  There is a fabric to reality, and it is not always a rigid barrier to those outside who may want to enter our world. In places, the fabric of reality is thin, and things that are not of our world can sometimes pass through to our reality.

  Most of the time, such travelers are not a problem. They come from places that are similar to our world, and most of them do not even realize that they are not in their own reality anymore.

  From time to time, a man or woman appears that holds a passport to a country that does not exist, or they have an unknown currency in his wallet, or they remember history differently from us. They come from a world very close to our world, and the laws that govern his or her reality are the same as ours.

  Some worlds are vastly different from ours, where the rules of existence are drastically different from our own. It is harder to pass from their world to ours because to do so requires that something must change to allow the passage.

  Usually, this means that the thing that enters our world must change to allow it to survive our reality. If it does not, it will fade away into nonexistence, and vanish from a world where it cannot exist.

  Sometimes, that which seeks to enter our world is as vast as it is strange, and in that case, there is a struggle between the laws of our universe, and those of the other universe, to see which rules will dominate our world. If the cosmic entity, which hungers to enter the gate between worlds, is hungry enough and powerful enough, then our universe can lose the fight.

  If the laws of our universe changes in this struggle, then the thing, which seeks to enter, will be free to come into our realm, and everything we love in this world will be wiped away. The idea of such uncaring gods has been with us since the beginning of time. Maybe the reason for this is that it is a real danger.

  Dr. Stephen Hawking is only one of a huge number of people that suggests that we should not advertise our existence to any alien species out there who might be listening. I agree with that worry since there is no way that we can know the concerns of a species that is alien by definition.

  In an infinite number of infinite universes, there can be no limit on the scope and power of living creatures. In far dark worlds, there are vast and chaotic demon gods who hunger to enter our world. Their coming will mean our extinction.

  That would put a definite damper on Super Bowl Night. If it is a choice betw
een the coming of Yog-Sothoth, and going fishing, I will go get my fishing rod.

  1 dark omens

  April 4, 2019

  Ian is looking down a long corridor, and he sees an open doorway far down the hall. Even though the door is open, it is very dark, and Ian cannot see into the place beyond the door.

  Without seeing beyond the door, Ian has a Knowing that something monstrous and evil is on the other side of that portal, and it has a great hunger to pass through the door into the corridor.

  Now Ian sees that there is a multitude of strange hooded people, with misshapen bodies and faces lined up against the walls of the hallway, all the way down the corridor to the open door. Ian notices two things at the same time. All of these people have webbing between their fingers, of the sort that aquatic reptiles might sport. Also, there are now flashes of intense light from within the doorway. It is blinding to Ian, but it never illuminates anything inside that place.

  Ian guesses that there must be dozens of these distorted people between him and the door. All of them have expressions on their faces, which seem equal parts terror and worship. Only those who worship very cruel gods should have that mixture of expressions on their countenance.

  A tendril of some black and smoky substance now comes out of the doorway and starts down the hallway toward Ian. As it passes its followers, it touches them. What follows after is beyond Ian's comprehension. They seem to turn to dust or perhaps ashes, but they also emit a receding scream, as though they are falling into an endless shaft or hole that extended from the Earth to Hell itself.

  The tendril of darkness is coming closer to Ian, as though it found it important to reach him. He watches as one after another of the hooded worshippers of the dreaded thing are consumed. At last, the last distorted man between Ian and the door is gone, and the tendril reaches for Ian, like the tentacle of a giant squid reaching for a nearby fish. Just as the tendril makes contact with Ian's arm, he wakes up from his sleep.

  Ian blinked a few times as he tried to bring his eyes into focus. He was okay, but there was a low-level persistent sense of dread, which had been present even before he went to sleep.

  He had the dream, and he knew that it meant that someone had died this morning. Ian felt the tension level go up in his mind with his every contemplation of the dream.

  Ian knew himself to be very bright, with a high IQ, and he knew himself to be anti-social, or, as he preferred to say, he was asocial. He lived on the family trust fund, and he had plenty of time on his hands, not needing to consume his time with a job, or any actions to collect survival funds.

  Ian was introverted, and he did not socialize easily. As a matter of fact, he only had a handful of friends and acquaintances, most of whom would frequent the town's only bar or pub, known as the Starlight's End.

  Thinking of the bar brought Freya to mind and a slight and rare smile to his face. Of the outside world, she was probably the only aspect of the objective world that he preferred to the interior world in which he usually dwelt.

  Ian had recurring precognitive dreams throughout his life, and the history of his family featured similar talents, making the psychic world a legacy for him. Over the years, he had expanded his skills to include a kind of hybrid astral projection in addition to the precognition.

  Ian decided that he needed to give the situation a good old college try while it was fresh in his mind, so he settled down into his favorite meditation chair, and began the process of visualizations that had become his shortcut into a meditative state. After about five minutes, he felt the floating sensation that told him that he was in a deep Alpha state. When he noticed that he was slipping into a Theta state, he began directing his point of view into a nonlocal form.

  What he practiced was not really remote viewing. A more traditional practitioner would have called it astral projection, but there were many reasons why Ian did not see it that way.

  In astral projection, the common viewpoint was that you project yourself into your 'astral body,' an ectoplasmic body connected to your physical body by a cord of ectoplasm. In remote viewing, you simply see things non-locally, but it is usually an intuitional process, where you simply know things, which you subconsciously express in some medium of pictures or painting, or some other means of expressing your intuited knowledge.

  A long time ago, Ian had discovered that both arts were the same thing. They were different expressions of the same process, due to a difference in beliefs about what was going on. He practiced astral projection but projected only his point of view, with no astral body or cord created or visualized.

  One of the good things about remote viewing is that it is not limited by time. It is as easy to see events in the past or the future as it was to see events in the present, as long as you believed you could see those events.

  Ian felt his point of view disengage from his body, and expand around him while he decided on a direction to search. He felt the Darkness to the North of him, and his sight sped over the landscape toward the source.

  One moment he saw everything in the path he had chosen, and suddenly, he found himself engulfed in darkness. He could not see what was projecting the darkness, but he felt an ominous sense of dread, and he thought that he caught glimpses of something tentacle-like in the dark, composed perhaps of shards of shadow that somehow was darker than the total darkness he was already sensing.

  No matter how he pushed, he could not get closer to the thing behind the stygian night. That was probably a good thing. Ian felt completely vulnerable, even though he had always thought himself untouchable when he was remote viewing. His unconscious mind now was screaming that he was in danger, and he let himself be reeled back to his physical body.

  Ian opened his eyes, and painfully straightened his lanky body as he rose to his feet. He always found it almost funny how he could have such creaky muscle effects from a meditation that was essentially an exercise in relaxing those muscles.

  Garret's Arrival

  FBI agent William Garret arrived in the town of Holden at the request of the chief of police, Chief Harold Smite. Garret pulled up into the smallish parking lot of the equally small police precinct of the quaint little town of Holden.

  Garret was recently assigned to Holden to assist with the multiple murder case of this morning. It was almost five pm now, with just time enough to settle into the town, and the precinct, and find a place to stay, and a good bar in which to unwind.

  He went straight in to meet the Chief, and get himself squared away. Shaking the hand of the somewhat overstuffed police chief, he reflected that all cop bosses looked and acted alike.

  "Special Agent William Garret, FBI," Garret said. "I understand that you have an unusual case for me?"

  "You bet. A three-person family murder, involving capitation and strange symbols left behind," Smite replied. "These are the first murders in Holden in twenty years, and the first multiple murder ever."

  They spent the next few moments discussing the strange details of the case. After Garret had met with chief Smite, he headed straight to the forensics lab to get up to speed on the analysis of all the available clues and evidence.

  Police Detective Crawford arrived at the lab at the same time as Garret. He began to fill Garret in on the case, as he understood it.

  "The killer or killers broke into the Saxon residence using a crowbar," Detective Crawford said. "The lab guys believe that this occurred at around six this morning, based on the cooling gradient of the bodies."

  "Nobody heard or saw anything?" Garret asked. "I thought that the Saxon house is located in the middle of a housing HOA community. There should have been lots of eyes and ears around at that time of day, or don't the elderly in this town share the early rising gene?"

  "Yeah, there were plenty of elderly dog walkers," Crawford admitted. "But the truth is that most of them don't have the sharpest eyes. Also, the gas sniffer indicates that a gaseous mixture of chloroform and ether filled the house. There probably wasn't much activity outside of
the house, and the family was likely unconscious while they were beheaded, so no big sounds."

  "I take it that a blood test is being conducted to verify that they were incapacitated by the gas?" Garret asked. "I would hate to think that any of them were conscious while they got their heads cut off."

  "Yes, the blood tests have been ordered," Crawford said. "The theory is that they were gassed before the break-in, probably using the air ventilation to access the victims."

  "So, let me get this straight," Garret ordered. "Nobody knows whether one or multiple persons committed the murders, and nobody knows what they did with the heads of the victims, right?"

  "That is correct, but it is not the weirdest part of it," Crawford replied. "The criminalists found some sort of unknown fungus growing on and in the victims' bodies. It had the effects of a very aggressive flesh-eating bacterium, and the bodies had to be incinerated to avoid any possible contagion in the community."

  "I don't know if you know this, but bodies are one of the biggest sources of evidence," Garret joked. "I feel like I am swimming in a very shallow pool here."

  Crawford grinned and nodded in agreement, and indicated the way to see the coroner for any autopsy information gleaned from the bodies, before their disposal. In just a moment, Garret was pumping the Coroner for the information.

  Dr. Owens validated and expounded on the information that Crawford had already provided. He said that the fungus was the most puzzling aspect of the case. There was no indication of where the fungi came from, and as far as the local scientific community could tell, it was of a species that was entirely unknown. It was also the strangest, and most mobile, weird variety of fungus that any of them had ever seen.