There are in the Santa Ana Mountains of California some prehistorical survivals only vaguely hinted at by Indian legends or later accounts by wild-eyed settlers. However it is not only in California but elsewhere in the dim dark domed hills of Vermont, the snowy Alps, the harsh Andes, and the towering Himalayas that these things survive and lurk. I have had the terror of discovering this truth. Yet I have somehow managed to keep my sanity, in desperation I tell you so you so you may investigate and deal with these horrors properly-and keep those secrets away from those evil and malignant. I will mail this account to officials of the Federal Government specifically President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Attorney General Homer Stille Cummings, and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation John Edgar Hoover and also three copies to Miskatonic University where many colleagues pursuing the truth work along with each a copy of my journal, certain drawings and photographs, and the translated excerpts from Beyond Space and Time and various periodicals to have them fully realize the truth. I believe, though, that the Federal Government has partially realized this truth of prehistoric survivals probably since that raid on dark, brooding, evil, eldritch, blasphemous, crumbling, Innsmouth in the winter of 1927-1928 but I hope with this account they will get the full revelation. Even now, I shudder remembering what I found out on that cold May night in 1935 in the bleak, brooding, and dark Santa Ana Mountains.
Before I tell the tale, I will relate my background for readers to make sure that I am not merely delusional due to my heritage and the legends that surround it. My name is William Derby Eaton and through most of my forty-one years, I have lived in the city of my birth, ancient, historic Arkham, Massachusetts. I was influenced greatly by that old witch-haunted legend-filled town with its dark brooding spires and twisted gambrel roofs. Perhaps I was quite morbidly influenced since one of my first memories was of going to a funeral of my uncle and aunt who died in a fire and their daughter had gone missing and I remember my parents being involved in her search. I was born in an old aristocratic and distinguished New England family line that had resided in America since 1636 on my paternal side and was an only child. My ancestors were quite involved in early American history. My ancestors participated in the Salem Witch Trials, were members of the Sons of Liberty, fought in the Revolution at Lexington, Concord, Saratoga, and Yorktown and funded trading ships to the East Indies. My father, Charles Eaton was a Professor of English at Miskatonic University until his death in 1932 and my mother, Martha Eaton nee Derby, was a simple homemaker till her death in 1930. I myself was born in on August 20th 1895 at my parents’ home on Waterford St in a pleasant white house of the Federal Era. I was a gifted student at school and at only the age of 17 I entered Miskatonic University, majoring in History. At this time, I became interested in and took part in occult studies with my cousin Edward Pickman Derby, a poet and “Bohemian” and I gave him much advice on his writings of weird and horrific poetry and also edited it. When the Great War came, I did not serve because I had failed my physical exams. Afterwards, I entered the Graduate School at Miskatonic until in 1926 I became a Professor of History at Miskatonic University.
During that time, I continued to be a close companion with my cousin Edward Pickman Derby. So for eight years I teached at Miskatonic University and became a young but respected and competent professor publishing various articles of note in respected journals and in 1929 my great triumph, the history book Politics and Society in New England of the Early Republic came out which in general acclaimed an excellent survey and remains to this day the definitive work on that subject. However, the last three of these years were nearly unbearable, crushing with a series of three tragedies. As stated above both of my parents died in this period. Then the year after my father’s death my cousin Edward, who was almost a brother to me went mad. I still remember than with Edward ranting and raving about how his wife who had left was trying to steal his mind and so on. Finally, he had become insane enough to be sent to the Arkham Sanatorium. Then Daniel Upton, his best friend in a case of what I believe to be collective madness ended up believing Edward’s stories, and thus shot, and killed Edward, convinced in his insane mind it was not Edward’s soul that was in Edward’s body. I felt like I was going mad like my cousin Edward and his best friend Daniel Upton due to the fact I lived in darkening Arkham clustering with horrifying legends, which had driven Edward and Daniel mad. Also despite my love of historic Arkham, I decided I could bear New England’s winters no longer especially, as I was always sensitive to the cold and caught the flu almost every winter and when I was seven I had almost died from the flu. So when the small University of California Los Angeles offered me a teaching post in June 1934 I accepted with little hesitation, agreeing to teach at the university starting the next school year.
I transported my belongings on a Southern Pacific freight train and I myself had a comfortable Boston-to-Los Angeles ride. When I arrived at the train station in Los Angeles, California on August 26th 1934 I had already purchased in advance a house in Whittier, a small town near Los Angeles. For some local insight and food that day, I went to a local grocery store owned by one Frank Nixon as soon as I had moved into my home. He told me in our discussion that one of his sons, Richard had gone to Duke University in North Carolina. I said to him that I had teached at Miskatonic, a far more distinguished institution than Duke and we had a lively and good-natured debate about which university was better. In September when I began teaching I was displeased that the University of California Los Angeles did not even offer Doctorates and only had offered Masters since last year. But still I found the warm Mediterranean California climate resembling that of the French Riviera, Italy, or Greece vastly better than the bleak cold New England weather. However during fall I missed the beautiful New England fall foliage and sometimes I woke up at night having dreamt of New England’s fair green lanes and whitewashed steeples in quaint villages.
My discovery of the truth was the connection of various factors. Being an avid antiquarian, I had begun in my spare time studying the history and antiquities of Southern California. I had on several trips travelled to Santa Barbara, San Juan Capistrano, and other sites of the Franciscan Missions of California. I also constantly visited the Huntington Library in San Marino and became a regular there. Then one day at Huntington Library I came upon a curious document written by Father Jose Munoz Alvarez of the San Juan Capistrano Mission in 1802 who was nicknamed “the Mad Monk of San Juan Capistrano” for this document. It was written in Spanish of course and my friend Timothy Askew, Professor of Anthropology at University of California Los Angeles helped me translate it since I had barely begun learning Spanish. Father Alvarez seemed to rant in his writing about some blasphemous horrors in the Santa Ana Mountains. He had also written down some curious Indian legends relating to these things. I listened, somewhat frightened and amazed, to Johnson for these legends were similar to the folklore and legends of New England which I had studied with Albert Wilmarth a professor of English at Miskatonic and an amateur student of New England folklore. The document basically stated that some horrible daemon-like creatures lived in the Santa Ana Mountains and they were the cause of the disappearance of several Spanish soldiers who had gone there to explore. Father Munoz had seen these creatures and he had nearly gone mad trying to describe these things. I asked Professor Askew to translate the document for me so I could correlate it with New England legends. He did so and gave me the English version nine days later. I have put some relevant excerpts here:
“In my talk with the Indians, they have told me many curious legends. They have stated that there are beings in the Santa Ana Mountains, which are not from Earth. They say these beings came from the stars to and the beings are extremely secretive. Indeed, the Indians say many tribesmen over the years have disappeared because they have gotten too near these beings from the stars… “
“ On April 14th 1802 7 soldiers, and 22 Indians left San Juan Capistrano to explore the depths of the Santa Ana Mountains. After 3 weeks they still did not come. Finally almost a month later a bereaved, maddened soldier stumbled upon us screaming and ranting about the beings from Indian legends. The soldier said that the others had made a deal with demons to leave Earth and go to their planet, Yuggoth, which he says is the smallest planet in the system and beyond Uranus…”
“On the morning of April 26th 1802 10 soldiers, 26 Indians, Father Herrero, and I left San Juan Capistrano to investigate once and for all the goings on in the Santa Ana Mountains. By mid-afternoon we had arrived and marched more slowly. We suddenly stumbled upon 3 soldiers in the previous expedition who had disappeared. They declared that the beings were not evil and that they were good. They said Yuggoth was a paradise and the beings would detach their brains from their bodies to take them there and they carried cylinders saying that was where the brain was going to be.”
“It was then I realized that the soldiers were not humans but the beings and that the cylinders contained the real soldiers’ detached brains…”
Then I began the studying this document on all spare times. I had brought a book on New England folklore and several documents also relating to it and I compared the manuscript with those materials. I was astonished by the similarity of the legends and resolved to visit the Santa Ana Mountains.
I first visited the Santa Ana Mountains on October 22nd 1934. For the whole day I hiked through the mountains and investigated hoping to shed light on the folktales but I did not find anything strange or horrific and returned to my home. Then I found the truth about a horrific historical event. In Tustin, a town near the Santa Ana Mountains, I had met a man named Henry Walker, a storeowner who was fifty-six and who had lived during the days of Tustin’s founding and I befriended him. One day soon after my investigations into California folklore began when he and I were discussing local history he brought up a horrifying topic.
Walker said “Well back in the 80’s and the 90’s there were lots of minin goin on up in the Red Hills. There was a small town up there. It was the usual western mining town with saloons, hotels, an’ all that. But in 96’ the mines closed down. And d’ you know why? They’ve been trying t’ cover it up fer forty years.” He grabbed a bottle of whisky on the table, took a swig from it, and then sat down again. “It was in April. I was in town doing my usual work as a clerk at the general store. Than the miners started running screaming and looking crazily. Those crazy bastards! They came down by the dozens and began slaughtering the townspeople. They went mad from the mercury I guess. They beat people to death with their shovels and picks. They killed the blacksmith, Mr.Smythe, and Ms.Holliday from what I saw. Finally the Sherriff, Bill Cooper and his Deputy restored order. They hanged the only surviving miner and the Deputy went to the mines to investigate but he never came back. I don’ know whatever happened to him and I don’ wanna know. Most of the townspeople were dead, hundreds of men, women, and children. As I’ve said they’ve trying t’ cover it up. They’ve simply buried it.” I sat there stunned by his story. And I thought about his story about the cause of the miners’ madness. Walker had blamed mercury. But I wondered could only mercury blame their psychotic madness?
With the Munoz document and the transcribed interview with Walker I thought there truly was a fascinating folklore in California. I constantly visited the mountains looking for something that would give me more evidence than just 2 curious documents and interviews but I failed in my searches. Finally in May 1935 I achieved a breakthrough. It seemed there was a queer cult in Los Angeles worshipping some strange primordial gods, which were related to the folktales. This cult was related to the Theosophists, which were quite numerous in California. Their chief deity was Cthulhu, which I had heard of in the feared Necronomicon, and they often visited the Santa Ana Mountains for their rites. I had first heard of this cult when I was reading the Los Angeles Times. One of its articles stated about a police raid on this cult because about accusations of human sacrifice and murder. I soon resolved to learn more about this cult and their practices since they too seemed interested in the mysterious findings in the Santa Ana Mountains.
So with Askew we investigated the cult. We met several members of the cult; however they refused to talk with us at all. I wrote a letter to various professors at Miskatonic inquiring for more information on the Cthulhu Cult and the New England folklore which were so similar to the one here in California. I had a long exchange of letters with Professor Wilmarth who sent me this postcard in haste:
Albert N. Wilmarth
118 Saltonstall St.
Arkham, Mass.
December 2nd 1934
William Derby Eaton
264 Cleveland Ave.
Whittier, Ca
My Dear Sir:
I have known you for a long time as a fellow colleague and a good friend at Miskatonic University and have heard of your investigation into California folklore and Cthulhu Cult. I beg you please do not investigate anymore. More investigation will result in your madness. I myself seven years ago investigated these matters and I have regretted it ever since. It was in the dim hills of Vermont. And it is the same here in the mountains of California for they are everywhere in distant maddening eldritch places. If you value your sanity I beg you to stop the investigation for there are things men should not know and knowledge of this will come at the price of your sanity. I will continue writing these letters till you stop your investigation.
Yours Very Truly,
Albert N. Wilmarth
This letter merely made me more curious as I wondered what primordial secrets of knowledge of would be the cause of madness.
The cult, as we learned more about it, was quite widespread than we originally thought. It had at least 2,000 members in the Los Angeles area. Members included an eccentric millionaire and a score of movie actors and actresses. It seemed that on May Day, Hallowmas, and Candlemass the cultists would go to the Santa Ana Mountains for strange rites that locals reported quite surprised and shocked.
Before the investigation went any further Professor Askew died in mysterious circumstances. He had left Newport Beach on December 23rd at eight o’clock in the morning on his yacht to go on a brief cruise and promised to return by noon. Yet he did not return and an investigation by police and other authorities began. Then on December 26th his yacht was found floating in the Pacific Ocean with his dead body inside the boat. An autopsy determined that he had died of a heart attack but some thought there were struggles of violence as there was a wound in his arm. But the coroners declared that it was unrelated and probably due to an accident unrelated to his death. Most curiously however an another yachter had reported that he had passed Askew’s boat and saw that there was another boat right next to it. However the investigators dismissed this, for there was no other evidence reinforcing the witness.
He had died a childless widow and in his will left his home in Los Angeles to a distant second cousin from Georgia but left most of his documents and books to the university or myself and other fellow professors. His papers written just days before his death revealed that he had kept parts of the investigation secret from me and that had he not died probably would have destroyed. He too like Wilmarth and my cousin Edward insisted that the legends were true. I felt like going insane. First Edward, then Daniel, and finally Askew! They had all gone mad from their investigations. I perhaps thought that his beliefs that these legends were true had contributed to his heart attack along with that he had been somewhat unhealthy before, being almost seventy. On January 6th Askew’s young nephew Kenneth Tolbert arrived in Los Angeles from Atlanta and called for me to talk about his deceased relative. He was a dumpy and squat man but quite cultured and mild-mannered and representative of the gentle Southern aristocracy. He had moved into Askew’s house.
Tolbert said, “I heard that you and Askew were studying occult cults and such things.”
I replied, “Yes we did study such things.”
Tolbert than peered at me darkly and said, “Do you think than the blasphemous cults killed Askew?”
I looked exasperated, why did all the people around me go mad with strange suggestions of murder? Edward…Daniel…Askew now Tolbert!
He said, “You think me mad, don’t you? Then why were there wounds on Askew’s body? Those damned idiots who call themselves the police! They don’t know anything! They and their damned, idiotic, moronic suggestions claiming to be scientific and rational! Their damned rational theories! They cannot accept anything beyond their damned narrow-mindedness they call rationality and science! Indeed the supernatural explanation makes more sense than the rational theories! The damned police! They shall doom us all unless they open their minds!”
I sat stunned and frightened by his half-crazed ranting. I stood stunned at his madness and rage and ran out of the house to my car. Tolbert shouted at me as I ran out “You think me mad don’t you. Let’s just wait and see! I’m going to avenge Tim! I’ll kill those bastards! Those slimy wretches from Hell! I shoot them one by one! I shall kill them mercilessly!” I did not know what to do. I decided not to call the police until I would visit him again the next day to see if he had improved.
The next day I read my copy of the Los Angeles Times and was instantly stunned by one of the stories on the front page. It said:
Man Goes On Shooting Rampage, Two Dead.
There has been a shooting rampage at the headquarters of the Great Old Ones sect in Hollywood. Yesterday at 11:00 P.M. a man entered the headquarters brandishing two revolvers. The man who has named himself as Kenneth Tolbert shot 5 people before police arrived. The police shot Tolbert in the leg and seized the revolver from him. Two people were reported dead at the scene while three were taken to the hospital-all in stable condition according to the latest reports. Tolbert when taken into custody declared he had shot members of the sect in order to avenge his dead cousin. He has said that his cousin, the late Professor Tim Askew of University of California Los Angeles was killed by members of the sect. In actuality Professor Askew was found dead in his yacht on September 2nd due to a heart attack. There were some wounds on his body but the coroner stated that it was unrelated to his death.
The Great Old Ones sect is somewhat controversial and unorthodox due to its strange rites and practices. There have been many police raids on the cult including one last June. The police raids are due to several whispered rumours in the poorer quarters of Los Angeles about human sacrifice and voodoo rituals. The cult firmly denies these charges and there is no evidence to support these rumours.
No victims have been identified as of yet. Tolbert is in police custody at the Central Police Station and is currently being questioned by police about the shooting.
I drove to the station and talked with the officers there to see if I could talk to Tolbert. They allowed me to talk to him behind a glass door. Tolbert shouted happily and excitedly “I did it! I did it! I avenged Tim! I killed those bastards! May they burn in Hell for all eternity! You ought to have seen it Bill! It was so fun! The fear in their eyes! I laughed happily as I blasted their heads off! The exhilaration of killing them! The joy of their fear and terror! The satisfaction of their deaths! That feeling you get of triumph!” I could clearly see he was now completely mad and felt extremely guilty about not telling the police about his madness knowing that I could have prevented two deaths. For a few weeks I hung my head with guilt until I alas recovered slightly after confessing that to a psychologist. They said it was understandable, trying to protect a friend from going to a madhouse. But the curious thing was that some people mainly Mexican immigrants and congregants of revivalist churches regarded Tolbert as a hero for killing members of the cult and I heard reports of a Catholic priest blessing Tolbert. They believed Tolbert had done a just thing by purging the Earth of members of an evil cult.
By now it was Candlemass one of the days when the cultists went to the Santa Ana Mountains to practice their strange rites. That day I drove my auto to Black Star Canyon which was the site of their rituals. I left my car on the road and walked around the road to see the ritual from the other side of the canyon. I brought a camera, binocular, notebook, 3 pens, a ham sandwich, and water with me in a backpack. I hiked up a backroad and camped there as there were no cultists there for now. About half an hour later a small group of cultists walked to the site of the canyon after leaving their automobile a few miles away. Over the next half-hour more and more arrived until there were at least several hundred cultists. Than the chief priest, an exceedingly aged man in a black robe and long beard, who I believe was Chinese, arrived. All the other cultists bowed and went to their knees before him. He muttered a few words in a strange language which I am certain are not Chinese or any other common language and the cultists rose. The chief priest than opened an aged, yellowed tome. I could not identify what book it was, which frustrated me. The chief priest than began chanting quietly and slowly at first than quicker and faster. The cultists began whooping and dancing muttering the chant. The words were not, I think, from any language that was widely spoken or even a human language. The sounds were exceedingly strange and shocked me to see it come from a human mouth. I began writing notes on the ritual in my notebook and saw closely in my binocular in amazement. After the chanting the chief priest took out an idol, I recognized as that of Cthulhu. The worshippers grovelled once more at it and began a new chant. The chant reached extreme proportions, the cultists’ voice on the brink of breaking and the chant becoming almost orgasmic. I stood up and tip-toed to get closer to them but I fell breaking one of my bones in the left arm. I staggered to my automobile and drove down slowly to Santa Ana the nearest town with a medical office.
I had to get a cast and I stayed in the hospital overnight. I returned to teaching at the University a few days later and talked with Professor Leland Vanderwater who had succeeded Askew’s position about the cultists. I also wrote back to Miskatonic University’s professors about the cult and their ritual. I visited Tolbert on February 5th and he declared triumphantly that he was right about the cult. I was forced to agree that he was right on some parts but I was sure that the cult did not practice anything truly evil.
The investigation about the Santa Ana Mountains continued with me and Professor Vanderwater. However we did not find anything new. Still every day we would pore over every document and book in the Huntington Library and Los Angeles Public Library and would take hikes into the Santa Ana Mountains during weekends. Every week I received a letter from Wilmarth begging me to stop my studies. On a letter dated February 14th he announced that he would go to Los Angeles during his vacation to speak to me personally and that he was already on his way there. On February 22nd he arrived and knocked at my house during evening. I opened the door for him and he handed me a document written by him a couple of years ago. I read the document clearly by a bereaved madman for the paper ranted about how some Vermont farmer had discovered aliens and so on. I implored him to leave after reading the document and he insisted that I keep it and read and realize what he said before, as he put it “Too late”. So he left on the train the next day returning to Arkham.
So the days wore on. By March 1935 I had virtually given up the search for other pursuits. However in mid March a couple of people near the Santa Ana Mountains reported seeing strange creatures in the night. They were crustacean like the ones reported in Wilmarth’s document and I drove there the next day. Vanderwater and I scoured the whole area and we saw some strange tracks and heard some strange chanting in the area. We stayed there till ten at night and left somewhat disappointed.
When we returned to the car Vanderwater said “Perhaps there is nothing more to be said about the cult and folklore. We are perhaps just goose-chasing to no-where and no one. The cult’s just one of the many Theosophist cults that’s been springing up in Southern California these days.” I said “Perhaps it is but the sociological findings for you will be great! You could become one of the most famed anthropologists in the world!” Vanderwater was seduced by that thought and agreed to continue the search.
By now it was nearing May Day, another one of the Cthulhu Cult’s ritual days. Vanderwater and I prepared to go there on that day. During that time I continued to study the archives of Huntington Library and the esoteric bookstores of Southern California. In a small dusty bookstore in the Chinese quarter of Los Angeles operated by an herbalist I came upon an interesting book in Chinese. It looked the same as the book that the high priest of the Cthulhu Cult had been chanting from in their ceremony. I asked the owner to translate the book for me. The owner spoke little English and also he couldn’t read written Chinese well. He had introduced himself as Mr.Zhang and said the title of the book was Beyond Time and Space by Lee-Hsung-Wang, an astrologer during the Tang Dynasty. Zhang said he had heard of the book and that it had a bad reputation in China. The book made wild claims about strange monsters not from Earth. Lee-Hsung-Wang himself had disappeared soon after writing the book. Mr.Zhang himself had acquired the book from his old mentor who had been an herbalist and a scholar in San Francisco’s Chinatown before he died in 1925. The old mentor had been from China and had arrived in the 1850s from China during the California Gold Rush and when he died was almost a hundred years old.
As Mr.Zhang continued talking he said “Mr. Eaton I advise you not to read this book. I have merely read parts of it and it has given bad dreams at night. Even if I could translate the entire book I would not because the book is strange and evil. I was going to burn this book sooner or later but it is a great valuable and haunted by both Chinese and Western occultists such as you”. I decided to buy this book and asked him the price of the book. Zhang said the book cost five hundred dollars but I handed him the money almost immediately.
As I left Mr.Zhang peered at me darkly, saying “Remember what I said, Mr. Eaton”.
I looked around Chinatown for someone who could translate the book for me but I couldn’t find anyone who could until I met someone who told me there was someone in Salinas a town about midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco who could. The man who could translate the book was a cook named Lee who had been employed by a single family for a generation. The man gave me Lee’s address, employed by Mr. and Mrs. Caleb Trask of Salinas.
I immediately took a train for Salinas deciding to cancel the trip into the Santa Ana Mountains to see the ritual for Candlemass, passing the beautiful Salinas valley consisting of marvellous oak trees that was even beautiful in spring and bordered by two mountains, the Santa Lucias to the west where beyond lay the great and majestic Pacific Ocean and to the east lay the light and pleasant Gabilan Mountains which I watched marvelled as I sat on that train. I finally arrived at their house and clutching the book I almost ran up the stairs into the house.
A young, attractive woman a few years younger than me, in her mid-thirties or thereabouts answered the doorbell.
“Hello,” I said “I am William Derby Eaton and I am sorry to suddenly surprise you but do you employ a cook named Lee? I need his help to translate a book.”
She said somewhat startled, “I am Abra Trask and I am sorry but Lee is dead. He passed away last December”.
As I prepared to make some small talk with this admittingly attractive woman I suddenly noticed a small photograph on a table a few feet away. It resembled an older version of my maternal cousin Cathy Ames who had disappeared at age sixteen when her parents died in a fire in their home.
“Excuse me but who is that person in that photograph?” I asked pointing at the picture.
Mrs.Trask sighed and said “That was my husband’s mother. We are ashamed of her, she was evil. She shot my husband’s father-her husband and then murdered a brothel owner in Salinas and became the owner herself”.
“Excuse me, but she looked like a cousin of mine who went missing around the time I was born and her parents perished in a fire, what was her name?” I asked.
Mrs.Trask said “Her original name Catherine but she changed it to Kate”.
I was greatly surprised by her revelation because my cousin’s name was Catherine.
I exclaimed, “That was my cousin’s name!”Then I went on to describe Catherine, every biographical detail I knew of her, every description. I had a photo of her in my pocket and I took it out and compared the photos. Its similarities were unmistakable. I had found my long-lost cousin after forty years! I was overwrought with joy. I needed to know her fate. I asked Mrs.Trask “What happened to Catherine?”
Mrs.Trask said bluntly “She’s dead, she killed herself after meeting her son, Aron. Aron himself was in the Great War and was killed. Aron was my first love than I met Cal and I married him soon after his father died”.
So my unknown cousin’s children had died without me noticing or even knowing they had existed! I said mostly to myself “Good God! This is a small world. I want to translate a book from Chinese to English and I find my nephew who happens to live in California! And you happen to have employed Lee and live in this town!”
I had tea with Mrs.Trask as she showed me her family photographs and records. I was horrified and disgusted at the prospect of my cousin being a woman who had shot her husband, murdered someone, and operated a sadomasochistic whorehouse, and possibly even killed her parents by burning down their house. I was also fascinated however that my cousin’s husband’s father was Cyrus Trask a distinguished member of the United States Army who had been a military advisor to the President. My father had known Cyrus Trask and had gone to his funeral. It was a small world!
After having that long discussion about family history Mrs.Trask said “I’m guessing you were here originally here to translate the book. Well before Lee died he teached a lot of Chinese script. While I’m not fluent I’m probably the best English-Chinese translator in all of California!” I handed her the tome and she began carefully peering at it closely. Almost as if in a trance she remained silent and began flipping through the pages. Mrs.Trask’s face turned pale and she forgot I was even there, reading the pages, trying to make out every word. When her face turned up she looked horrified and slightly maddened.
I asked “What did the book say?”
Mrs.Trask stood up, handed the book to me and said “This book is crazy; it has such outrageous conclusions and disturbing ideas. You are lucky you don’t know Chinese, it’s quite disturbing. It basically says that there are extraterrestrial creatures that are far more advanced than us lurk behind the darker places of Earth such as tall mountains, vast deserts, and the great oceans. Even though it isn’t real it’s still disturbing”.
I pleaded with her to translate at least some of it for me. She at last relented and grabbed a fountain pen and began transcribing passages of the book for me. She handed me one of the pages she had transcribed:
“It is the cult of the Great Cthulhu that is well-hidden across the Earth. They wait patiently for the return of Great Cthulhu. They wait as centuries and millennia pass. But yet they still wait eagerly for Great Cthulhu’s return. In the meanwhile they pray, sacrifice, kill, murder for Great Cthulhu. In the mountains of the West in Sichuan province resides its leader, a man who will never die and has lived for millennia. I am his apprentice to do his duty by collecting all the spells and chants for the return of Great Cthulhu. It is the Great Cthulhu whom I eagerly await. I will wait the years, the centuries, and the millennia for Great Cthulhu. Great Cthulhu resides in the distant city of R’lyeh under the immemorial ocean and its black abyss. There it sleeps and dreams for when the stars are right. For only when the stars are right can Great Cthulhu thrive and live. I do not know when the stars will be right. But the stars will be right. It is inevitable that the stars will be right and Great Cthulhu can thrive. But it will be a long time, when years will become decades, decades will become centuries, centuries will become millennia of infinite aeons and time that even death may die.”
That passage amazed me for its similarity to the Necronomicon and its famous passage:
“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons that even death may die.”
I excitedly told Mrs.Trask that fact and she was amazed herself. As she prepared to translate more of the tome a man, Mr.Trask I guess, entered the house. Mr.Trask was darkish and handsome looking, clean-shaven and a face that showed practicality and common sense. I ran up to Mr.Trask and told him everything about myself and how he was related to me.
Mr.Trask said “My mother’s long-lost cousin. What coincidences!”
The translation of Beyond Time and Space continued with Mrs.Trask’s guidance. Mrs.Trask dutifully translated passage after passage. In the meanwhile Mr.Trask watched and asked me about my family and how exactly he was related to me. I shuddered as I read some of the passages in the book such as this one:
“The cult of Great Cthulhu is all over the world. In the distant mountains and deserts of the world Great Cthulhu’s followers dance, pray, chant, and kill for Great Cthulhu. The cult of Great Cthulhu does not merely worship Great Cthulhu. They worship Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, and Dagon. Along the eternal Oceans of Earth they mate with the Deep Ones. The Deep Ones brood in the great megalopolises under the oceans. These hybrid products of men and the Deep Ones have the key to eternal life...”
I couldn’t help but notice this passage’s similarity with the rumours and legends around Arkham related to Innsmouth especially the ones that claimed that the people of Innsmouth had made deals with the devil and the so-called “Innsmouth look” and especially the cult, which was very similar to the ones described in the book.
I read another passage of Beyond Time and Space that also greatly unnerved me:
“The Great Old Ones once ruled the Earth. Their cities still stand on distant, desolate corners of the Earth. The Great Old Ones once created servants and slaves of their own called Shoggoths to work for them in the Oceans. These creatures are incomprehensible to men. They copy the speech of the Old Ones and can imitate their form. These creatures are pure abomination and to see them is death…”
This process of translating continued well into the night. The children of the Trasks, Charles, Mary, Adam, and Cyrus arrived from their schools and I was introduced to them. The Trasks let me stay overnight as I was their long-lost uncle. For the next day the same process continued until I had to return to Los Angeles to resume teaching at the University. I kept the book at the Trasks so Mrs.Trask could continue translating Beyond Time and Space and mail the translation to me.
After returning from Salinas I showed Professor Vanderwater the translation of Beyond Time and Space. Professor Vanderwater after reading the translation said “Good God! The Cthulhu Cult is so widespread!” Professor Vanderwater continued “I’ve read the Necronomicon also and these two books are remarkably similar. I’ll publish these findings soon.” Three days later I received a letter and some more translation from Mrs.Trask. Here is the complete letter:
553 Hope St.
Salinas, Ca.,
May 27th 1935
William Derby Eaton, Esq.,
264 Cleveland Ave.
Whittier, Ca
Dear William:-
I have as you requested translated a large portion of the book Beyond Time and Space. I believe I can translate the book in entirety within 2 months. However the task is momentous and hard because there are many archaic terms in Mediaeval Chinese very different from Modern Chinese as much as Chaucer’s manuscripts are different from our own books. Therefore there are many parts of the translation which you may consider broken in some aspects. I apologize for that. The translation is enclosed in this envelope. I hope for your greatest success.
Sincerely,
Abra Trask
I read the translation fascinated, spellbound by the proclamation of hideous eldritch secrets of the primordial past. I shuddered at his description of the Elder Ones and the Great Old Ones. After Vanderwater read the translation he and I co-wrote an article for the American Anthropological Journal on the Cthulhu Cult and the universally popular folklore and legends around it and it was published in the March issue of that journal making quite a stir. Vanderwater and I were informed by the American Anthropological Society that they had some documents relating to it by the late Professor George Gammell Angell of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and his grandnephew the late Francis Wayland Thurston of Boston who was a writer of several books of critical acclaim. A copy of the documents were mailed to us and Vanderwater and I studied it together when we realized Thurston who had commented and added some material to Angell’s work was clearly insane believing that Cthulhu was real and that it was a menace to the world. Now I wondered extremely hard why many people who had studied these things had gone mad. Edward, Daniel, Wilmarth, Askew, Tolbert, and now Francis had been claimed victim at least partially by this madness around the study and subject. I wondered frightened whether I myself would go mad or not from the study.
After the publication of that article Vanderwater and I became quite famous in the academic world and even in the general public when parts of our article was published in general newspapers causing a renewed interest in this folklore especially around the areas where these legends originated. We were asked to write more articles on it by the newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, Santa Ana Register, Arkham Advertiser, and the Rutland Herald. So we wrote the articles as requested. Now Vanderwater grew even more ambitious determined to write a scholarly book on the Cthulhu Cult and folklore. Vanderwater waited even more eagerly then me for Mrs. Trask’s translations and read it soon as possible and took copious notes. Oftentimes Vanderwater would not come out of his room for a whole day and his growing absences in the university angered the University President Robert Sproul who only held his silence about the absences due to Vanderwater’s study of the Cthulhu Cult which could increase the prestige of the university. I also started growing absent in the university though less so then Vanderwater. By September 1935 Vanderwater was literally obsessed with the subject reading, studying, and writing on it every day. When I visited his house in Pasadena on October 6th after not seeing him for three days to help with his studies I saw Vanderwater in his study tired and hagged writing fanatically and swiftly; I knew from the instant he was bereaved and obsessed.
Vanderwater turned toward me and said excitedly “I guess you want to know why I haven’t been out for three days. Well I’ve found some more parallels between the Necronomicon and Beyond Space and Time. Both books were written about the same time period, have similar writing styles and the religious chants are virtually the same in content!”
I realized then and there that he was becoming somewhat neurotic in his studies and I said calmly “Leland, I think you need a rest for now. I’ll study the manuscript for you.” Vanderwater grudgingly agreed and stood from the chair and went into his kitchen to make a meal. I began studying Vanderwater’s writings and the translated manuscript. Then I came accidentally upon a portion of the translated manuscript I had only just skimmed over before, it said:
“The Great Race of Yith mastered the art of travelling through time. They exchanged with the minds of others when travelling through time. They discovered the ancient secrets of the past and revelations of the future. The Great Race of Yith exchanged minds with men and these men who exchanged minds were thought to be witches or be mad by other men. However even they could not face the might of the Flying Polyps. Those mindless beings were nearly invincible and finally forced the Great Race of Yith to flee in terror to the future.”
As I read this, I vaguely thought about the amnesia of Professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee at Miskatonic University. Peaslee had during his amnesia seemed utterly unhuman to the doctors who examined him. Then suddenly Peaslee’s mind had simply snapped back to his original form quite suddenly. There were some rumours that this some mind other then Peaslee’s had been in his body. I myself did not believe the rumours but I gave more thought to it then before when I had just dismissed those rumours immediately.
After I had read this and few other portions of the manuscript I noticed it was quite late and I had to plan some lessons for tomorrow’s class so I said farewell to Vanderwater and got into my automobile to go to my home.
That night I slept and had a horrifying dream. In the dream I was in a strange system of tunnels. Confused I was crawling about in the tunnel when I saw the thing. The thing was a terrible faceless blob simply moving in an unhuman and unearthly way. Its colour couldn’t be described except it had shades of purple and orange in it. The thing had no shape; it was just ooze that moved towards me. I panicked as it came toward me. The thing got onto my body and simply absorbed it. I shrieked loudly and suddenly found myself on my bed. I looked at the clock. It was already four after midnight. I decided not to go back to sleep and read instead.
As I went to my bookshelf I wondered if the tunnels were in anyway related to my researches. Perhaps I had read about it and forgot it until it came back in my dreams. I scanned all the books, documents, and transcriptions related to Californian folklore and indeed the Cthulhu cult but couldn’t find anything. So I decided to tell Vanderwater about the dream later that day.
After I finished teaching at the university I went to Vanderwater’s house. I greeted him and told him about my dream.
Vanderwater’s face turned white and said “My God. Just last year there was a man in Los Angeles who tried to dig for tunnels in Downtown Los Angeles. He thought the tunnels were remnants of the survival of lizard men. I remember saving the articles on it from the Los Angeles Times. Let me get it for you.”
He searched his cabinets for a few minutes and took out a notebook and opened it. There was in it an article about a year old. I took it and began reading it. Apparently a local mining engineer named G Warren Shefult had been digging for tunnels in Los Angeles when he had detected gold using a motion device. He had looked for subterranean tunnels inhabited by lizard men who had fled there after an apocalyptic event several thousand years ago. There was supposed to be a city there in the shape of a lizard. Then suddenly about a year ago the contract got cancelled and the shafts filled in.
I pondered on Vanderwater’s couch. I thought of the tunnels in my dream. I wondered whether it was related to the newspaper article. However the creatures in my dream resembled some strange trans-dimensional being while the legends held the denizens of the tunnels to be lizard like. But of course they could be wrong.
There were several newspaper articles on the tunnels which Vanderwater had saved and I asked Vanderwater for it. I drank coffee as I scanned all of the articles. As I read more I wondered about another connection. Perhaps it was related to the ancient antediluvian legends of Sarnath and of the nameless city in the middle of the deserts of Arabia concerning lizard men as related in the most remote parts of the Necronomicon and the Book of Eibon. Even then, those books had cited long lost manuscripts such as the now lost (except for some fragments found in Tibet) Pnakatonic Manuscripts.
Soon after talking to Vanderwater I bade farewell to him and drove to my home. It was almost midnight by then, so I turned on my electric lamp and began reading some translated portions of Beyond Space and Time. I almost shivered when I read this portion:
“It has been found that men near the district of Zung-Lo have discovered certain tunnels of the utmost antiquity. These tunnels are in the most ancient legends which I have read from certain ancient manuscripts found in Tibet. For these tunnels are the gateway between the world of men and the inconceivable dimensions that is beyond Earth. It is from these tunnels where certain creatures not of this Earth go from their mountain hiding spots where they watch the world of men to the countryside and towns. In the mountains near Zung-Lo the men have discovered those tunnels. Most importantly however the men have gone mad and killed many villagers around the area. Perhaps the shocks of the discovery or certain things have gained control of their minds….”
Was this what had happened to the miners near Tustin half a century before as related by Henry Walker? That idea frightened me. Perhaps they had seen those terrible things I saw in my dreams. I had not gone mad from seeing those things but I had seen it only vaguely and hazily.
With increased hurry I decided to write letters to Wilmarth, Nathaniel and Wingate Peaslee, Danforth (having recovered from his insanity), Dyer, Pickman Upton, Daniel Upton’s son. Ward Phillips, an eccentric writer and dreamer from Providence, RI, and Randolph Carter of Boston, MA another eccentric who had returned after a mysterious six year disappearance in 1934. I asked all of them to come to Los Angeles to help me in my investigation of these matters. Also I intended to take them to the Santa Ana Mountains for the Cthulhu Cult rites on Halloween but did not tell them since that would have made many of them unwilling to go. With great, rather impatient eagerness I sent those letters even offering to house them in my own dwelling.
The responses began coming. Carter, Phillips, Dyer, and Danforth could not come for various reasons. However Wilmarth, the Peaslees, and Upton all promised to come and the three jointly got on a train on the 25th of October. Meanwhile I had asked both Abra and Caleb Trask to come to help on the translation. I also asked Henry Walker to come to tell his testimony. Mr. Carter however did send me a large package containing translated manuscripts on various matters related to my researches. I shuttered at what Mr. Carter had sent, concerning the occult information beyond the mind’s comprehension.
Soon afterwards on the 29th I personally greeted Albert Wilmarth, Nathaniel Peaslee, Wingate Peaslee and Edward Upton at the Los Angeles Train Station after they had arrived from Arkham. I graciously thanked them again for making the long journey to Los Angeles to help in my academic pursuits. Professor Vanderwater was there also to greet them and the five of us immediately drove on my automobile to my house in Whittier.
When the six of us got there I beckoned them to the study where I had set up enough chairs for everyone. Then I began speaking; explaining to Wilmarth, the Peaslees, and the young Upton about the translation of Beyond Space and Time and shewed them the translations which they read with eyes opened wide. Peaslee muttered something about the Great Race of Yith, for you see he had gone an expedition to Australia to uncover certain stone ruins on July of 1935.
However before the translation discussion went off too long I asked about the mental health of Daniel Upton to Edward Upton. His response was saddening for he said that Daniel remained delusional still and convinced of everything he heard during the events of 1933 which culminated in the death of Edward Pickman Derby. Then Vanderwater began a short speech on the tunnels he theorized were under Los Angeles.
Edward Upton, a young but a brilliant scholar in occult studies spoke up in a half-jest tone “Lizard men, eh? Wasn’t that legend in the Book of Eibon about that doom that came to Sarnath? Perhaps it was the lizard men of primordial Valusia.”
As that discussion continued the Trasks knocked at my door, I excused myself and went to greet them. I let them in and introduced them to the three scholars from Arkham. They both greeted each other and Upton peered at the tome Abra Trask carried with eager curiosity and interest. Someone else, a stranger to Upton may have thought he was rather interested in the attractive Abra Trask but I knew better for you see he was nearly asexual in taste and was fascinated by obscure, eldritch tomes such as this. Soon afterwards did Henry Walker also come and I introduced the Miskatonic professors and the Trasks to him.
Thus into the night did we discuss these matters. Peaslee told of his expedition to Australia in July and what he claimed to see there. I had read his account and though it mere rants of a delusional man but now I was not sure despite Wingate Peaslee’s insistence that it may have been a case of dreaming while sleepwalking. Caleb and Abra Trask along with Mr. Walker not extremely well-versed in these matters listened with curiosity to the intellectual discussion with Mrs. Trask only interrupting to comment on her translations.
Then did Mr. Walker give his tale on the mining incident with an addition he had been unwilling to discuss before.
“Well, good sirs and madams one of the people in old Tustin knew too much. His name was Walter Crane a man about ten years older than me and a foreman at the mines. He was very educated-graduated from Miskatonic from what he told me. Walter was curious in such things as the local legends and went up into the mountains in his free time to investigate what was going on in those Santa Ana Mountains. One day he spoke of beings from another planet but he also told me that they were merely servants of the Magnificent Ones who were not even of this universe.”
Wilmarth turned pale when Walker spoke of this and darkly mumbled to Upton “So, the Mi-Go are merely servants of others.”
Walker continued, “So Crane decided to go and seek the Magnificent Ones and he ordered several miners to dig for evidence of them in the morning of the attack. It was that day that the miners went down from their workplaces and went into town and slaughter began.”
Walker trailed off as he turned pale once more as he remembered those horrific events. I could understand him full well from even what little he said. At any rate, no one pressed on in the questioning of Walker and then the main talk began.
I told everyone present of the Cthulhu cult’s ceremonies in the Santa Ana Mountains during the holidays of Candlemass, May Day, the Summer Solstice, Halloween, and the Winter Solstice. In this I proposed that on the 31st that the people present here go and observe the ceremonies-secretly since the sect was intolerant of outsiders peering into their rites. This made Wilmarth agitated and he declared flatly that he would not go and was opposed to any of us going. The elder Peaslee and Walker were more cautious in their opposition while the rest of the people present except Vanderwater and the younger Upton while sceptical still were obviously nervous about doing so.
Some debating began as Wilmarth tried to dissuade all of us from not going and Vanderwater loudly denounced Wilmarth as being superstitious.
Vanderwater ranted; “You are all mediaeval peasants and stuffy old aristocratic ladies I say! Being afraid of some cults and whatever monsters they may worship? This is the Twentieth Century! Is it in your blood? Do you still have that old Puritan fear of witches and daemons that caused them to hang nineteen witches and wizards and press old Giles Cory to death still running in your veins? And Wilmarth! And Peaslee you too! Are you insane? There are no such horrors! Peaslee’s case was a sleep-walking nightmare certainly while Wilmarth’s case was that Akeley or whoever it was insane and you got caught up in the delusion with him. Good Lord and you are still professors? I just hope you don’t end up like Mr. Upton’s father or Askew’s nephew and end up killing cultists or something and getting sent to a madhouse.”
Vanderwater took some breath and continued more calmly; “This is however a good opportunity to make further anthropological and sociological investigations in these new religions that’s been springing up in Los Angeles for the last twenty years or so. Indeed to capitalize on our investigations and in concurrence with writing articles and perhaps a scholarly book finally uniting all this matter: the Cthulhu Cult, the folklore, the Necronomicon, and those other restricted books I’m going to call a reporter from the Los Angeles Times who’s a close friend of mine to report on this and publish it in the newspaper.”
That rather surprised for I hadn’t expected Vanderwater to call in a reporter but I quickly voiced in agreement on this. As usual the same divide had happened with Wilmarth, the older Peaslee, and Walker being opposed to it. After another debate the group voted and it was decided that a journey to the Santa Ana Mountains would be made with a reporter going with us. However Wilmarth, the elder Peaslee, and Walker remained opposed to it and refused to go. However after some more negotiations it was compromised that they would stay behind in the automobiles in case something unexpected happened.
The next day on the 30th Vanderwater, Upton, the Peaslees, Walker, Wilmarth, the Trasks, and I drove to the main office of the Los Angeles Times to meet the reporter who would come with our small group. Vanderwater, Upton, and I entered the office to meet the reporter. The reporter was a moustached middle aged man with a rather aristocratic demeanour and his name was David Ford. He shook hands with the three of us and we all discussed common matters for about half an hour in the office before we decided to go out to lunch. Ford invited all the other people in the group to join us for lunch.
Ford treated us to a lunch at an inexpensive but good cafeteria at South Figueroa –its name was the Original Pantry Cafe. Vanderwater there also revealed another plan
“I think we should hire what you would call ‘muscle’ or ‘protection’ in case that the cultists do grow violent against us. That hopefully should sedate at least some of Peaslee and Wilmarth’s fears about the cultists. Now I have a personal contact with a private detective-his name is John Dalmas by the way and I will be going up to his office to hire him this afternoon. Hopefully you won’t mind and I’d like Eaton to go with me.”
I agreed with him and while the rest went back toward my home in Whittier I got in Vanderwater’s automobile as he drove me toward Dalmas’ office. The two of us got out and walked in.
A very amauterish effort, sadly.
