The Red Stained Lips

From the journal of Kirkman Eubanks Forester. An alleged mentally sick person

My carefully laid plans to summon YrrdrGdnol from blackest Ghonshu had come together without a hitch. Assembling the induction coils had been simplicity itself, (if Jorgenson had done it 1890, how hard could it be for me in 2009?) instructions for the ritual where easily obtainable off the internet, and finding a suitable location had been quite easy. (The archway from the abandoned Old Holiness Brotherhood compound in the foothills south of Sweetwater was perfect for my purposes, and the irony of using such a location was delicious). Even obtaining a child for the required blood sacrifice had been easy. I found her wandering unattended in Wal-Mart while her mother tried on cheap Chinese sweat pants in the dressing room. I simply seized her by the hand and walked out with her. People these days don’t watch their children as they should.


My problems began when I went to the Sizemore University library to obtain the rare Portuguese edition of The Apostles of YrrdrGdnol by Doña Soledad Villalobos de Villanova. (The wife of a seventeenth century Spanish nobleman and an early occult investigator. Oddly, she was tolerated by the inquisition and was even a respected member of the Catholic Church until her mysterious disappearance from her locked observatory at the age of forty-two. However, I digress, my tale is long and my time is short.)

I had intended to check the book out, or arrange to view it and make off with it. However, the librarian, a Ms. Butler, proved to be difficult. She was sorting various cookbooks, self-help tracts and other pedestrian fare behind the great crescent shaped desk in the center of the first floor. A statuesque woman who might have been attractive had she not adapted an air of Spartan severity. Dressed in shapeless earth toned frock, and brown sweater, with her black hair pulled back in a sensible bun. Her steel grey eyes regarded me coldly from over stereotypical horned rim glasses. Her lips were plump and sensual, but twisted into a sneer of contempt, as if she could divine my purpose by looking at me. I could see her judging me, and finding me wanting. She put me on edge, and for the first time, I began to worry.

I politely enquired about Apostles, and was rebuffed. "I’m sorry Mr. Forester, but the library no longer allows the public access to that particular volume." She spoke in careful, well-modulated tones, with no inflections that could betray any emotional content. "The Apostles of YrrdrGdnol is one of many volumes we have which has attracted unwanted attention to this university. As well as encouraging irresponsible behavior among, shall we say, occult enthusiasts." "This is intolerable," I protested. "How can a university in this day and age allow a book to be suppressed in this manner? Who are you to come between a scholar and his studies?" She allowed herself a hint of a smile, and replied, "That’s probably a fair argument, but you’re not really a scholar, are you, Mr. Forester." again, it was as though she could read my thoughts and knew exactly what I had planned. Fumbling for an escape from the damning gaze of one Ms. Butler, I nervously looked at my watch. It was then I noticed the late hour, and became concerned that someone might hear the little girl struggling in my van and alert the authorities. It’s not like I needed the manuscript, I had downloaded and printed an English version and brought it along, but I felt His Pustulent Masterfulness would be more pleased if I summoned him with a proper grimiore.

Night had fallen by the time I reached the compound. I had driven my van up the hill as fast as the overgrown muddy track would allow. The last rays of the sun had disappeared as I pulled up to the old archway. I had camped here all week; to be certain no one came nosing around at night. The environs were sufficiently creepy to repel even the boldest of nocturnal meddlers. I set up the coils quickly; the practicing I had done paying off as I deftly made all the connections and attached the power cables to the stack of car batteries in my van. Soon the coils hummed softly and pushed back the darkness with an amber glow. I whisked the bound child out and positioned her at the prescribed distance and orientation to the arch. I placed my printout of Apostles before me, framed on the left by a copper wire I had twisted into the sign of Jhebbal Sag, on the right by the hatchet with which I intended on dispatching my sacrifice. Clearing my thoughts, I began to read the first line that would call forth the Elder one:

"In black, viscous Ghonshu, YrrdrGdnol suppurates in majestic mucopurulents."

I continued in this way for some time, reciting the litany of necrotic grandeur. And slowly, to my rapturous delight, the darkness within the old, whitewashed wooden archway began to congeal. Curdling and clabbering into a physical presence. Not like smoke nor like oil nor like any earthly substance. This corporeal blackness oozed and crawled forth from the archway like some corpse-bloated maggot of ebon neverness. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I let forth a cry of sheer delight as the first tentacle emerged, testing the cool night air as a bather would test the bath with a toe. I hefted the hatchet, and approached my wide-eyed whimpering sacrifice. YrrdrGdnol would wish to savor the aroma of the child’s brain before he dined. So I needs must open the skull for that.

Then came a dull crushing noise from the direction of the van. Whirling around, I saw a dark spider like form crouching on the roof of the vehicle. What was this? I wondered, another aspect of YrrdrGdnol? But no, it seemed to have come from the wood opposite the arch. Suddenly it leaped from the van, bolting over me and lading between my chosen sacrifice and the coiling tentacle of The Festering One. There, illuminated in the light cast by the induction coils was a creature more bizarre than any dreamed of in the fevered imaginings of a Poe or Lovecraft. Its silhouette was that of a tall and somewhat voluptuous woman, formed as to delight a Sultan of Scheherazade. However, its flesh was scaled head to toe like that of a crocodile, and blood red in color. Great burning orbs served it for eyes ribbed, bat-like ears jutted from its head, above these, two slender horns swept backward along the sides of the head, mingling with a long flowing black mane.

The she-demon knelt over my sacrifice, and with a few quick motions freed her and set her on her feet facing the muddy trail leading away from the compound. The creature spoke, in English, with a voice like razors on flesh. "Run." she said to the little girl "Run away." with a whimper, the child did just that.

Then those burning eyes fixed on me. It was then I noticed the only other remotely human aspect of the monster. Centered in a patch of corpse pale flesh under the razor sharp beaklike projection of her nose, was a pair of full sensuous lips reddened as though stained with the richest of red wines, or some less palatable sanguinary. These red-stained lips curled into a sneer of utter contempt as the thing addressed me. "What were you thinking? Just what did you hope to accomplish here?" never in my life have I felt the need to explain my actions to anyone, but that night, before this creature of nightmares, I could not help but answer. Stammering, I replied, "I wanted….I wanted to KNOW."

That hellish mouth made to reply, but was interrupted when the she-demon was seized about the neck by the all but forgotten Yrrdrgdnol. Here was good sport! The Festering One would make short work of this interfering entity; I could recover the sacrifice and answer my long held questions. But no! As she was dragged toward the swirling darkness in the arch, the demoness turned toward her attacker, and gripped the tentacle around her throat with steel clad talons. Her feet were braced wide and had sunk deeply into the muddy turf. Leaving ruts showing the three or so feet she’d been drug, but, by God, she’d been drug no further! With an inhuman shriek of rage, she began to pull backwards on the tentacle that had captured her. And slowly, to my utter disbelief, began dragging YrrdrGdnol from the arch!

The first tentacle released her throat and began trying to pull against her. A second, thicker one came forth from the inky cloud and began entwining itself around her body in a manner that would have caused Desade to turn away in disgust. This only angered the demoness further. Her red-stained lips peeled back from her teeth in a hateful grimace and with a sickening sound like wet cabbage being ripped apart, she wrenched the tentacle in her hands free of its eldritch moorings. Its torn end whipped out from the arch, spurting purple ichors that reeked of rotting onions in all directions. Casting the still writhing member aside, she seized the larger tentacle that had wrapped about her, and with strength unknown to this plane, walked backward from the arch, inexorably dragging the dread old one from his shadowy dimension. More and more of Yrrdrgdnol became visible. The induction coils, pressed beyond their limits, exploded at that point in a nova of flame and sparks. Illumination of the scene was provided then by a sickly purplish glow from around the arch. The exposed portion of the tentacle was now thick as a small car and writhed with cilia.

The blood red she-monster had drug a full twenty feet of the Festering one into the cool Tennessee air, and I watch as great blisters formed and burst on the flabby, pulsating pseudopod. Such things as Yrrdrgdnol were not meant to physically exist for long in our world. Then the crowning glory. A huge ambiguous lump the size of a small car emerged from the blackness. Set irregularly in it were two pearlescent tumors, below these was a gibbering rictus lined with tiny, peg like teeth. On that night, I beheld the face of a Great Old One. As the tumorous eyes regarded me, it came to me what must be done. Seizing the hatchet, I tore off down the muddy trail. If I could slay the child, bring her back to the arch, her death would give Yrrdrgdnol the strength he needed to lay low this impudent hell spawned bitch that dared debase him.

I fell at least twice sliding in the slick red clay that permeated the area, but each time I leapt to my feet and continued the chase. Yrrdrgdnol would not be denied! I caught up with her at the bottom of the hill. At the crossroads. The child had become confused as to which way to go, and the hellish events of the night had unhinged her young mind. She stood weeping at the middle of the crossroads, oblivious to my approach. I walked up behind her raised the hatchet above me and…

I found I could not lower my arm.

Oh no, it was no last minute pangs of guilt or compassion that stopped me, I’ve not been hindered by those emotions in my entire life. I physically could not bring the hatchet down on the child’s head. I watch the hatchet fall into the red clay and heard myself screaming. I heard the sound of the bones of my wrist and forearm grinding together and shattering. I looked and saw my wrist encircled by an armored red fist. Then I was lifted bodily high into that cool night air that had proven so detrimental to Yrrdrgdnol. The stars were out. I felt I could see all the way into the center of all things. I heard the plaintive screaming of the damned and the maddening tuneless piping of amorphous idiot flautists. All bathed in the bright pulsating light of Azathoth as he spins mindlessly in the void. Such sights are profaned when beheld by one such as I, so I closed my eyes.

When I was able to open my eyes again, I found the screaming was the wail of police sirens, the pulsating light their flashing strobes. The she-demon was standing over me, the strobing blue light turning her rust-red scales black.

Red.

Black.

Red.

Black.

She turned the burning, golden orbs that served her for eyes on the child. Her voice a serpentine hiss. "Run away, I told you!” Without a sound, the little girl turned and sped off toward the oncoming police.

As I struggled to my knees, I desperately searched my mind for something to save me. A Pnakotic incantation I had read came to mind, and I dared let myself believe it could work.

"By Yog-sothoth" I croaked, scrawling the sign of Jhebbal Sag in the mud before me "By Ygolonac and Nyarlathotep. In the name of Set and Ashtoroth I command you to reveal your true name to me, child of the dark" when I had finished. Her red-stained lips slowly twisted from the scowl of disgust they had worn until now into a sickening, mirthless grin, "Idiot!" She hissed. And kicked me savagely in the mouth. I sprawled backward choking on my blood and teeth. She crouched over me, and seizing me by my lower jaw and thrusting her ironclad fingers into my throat, pulled my ear close to those hellish, red stained lips. She spoke in careful, well-modulated tones, with no inflections that could betray any emotional content. "When they ask, tell them I called myself Blood Lotus, and then beg them to bury you in a deep hole where I can never find you. Where you’ll never be found by anyone again." Then she sprang up, sailing into the air, on up into the cool Tennessee night.

This story I have typed (on the laptop Dr. Xiang has given me to help me "open up") is exactly how I told it to the police, judges, lawyers, doctors and innumerable professionals who have questioned me since my arrest. Let them call me insane or delusional or whatever it takes to let them sleep at night. I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. Not to me. It will all be over soon. Two-foot thick concrete and iron bars are no barrier to hands that have drug YrrdrGdnol from blackest Ghonshu against his will, or ripped the tentacles from his majestic protoplasm.

The window high above my cell floor has shattered.

The bars scream as she rips them from their sockets.

I can hear the hiss of the Blood Lotus.

She is here.

Soon my blood shall drip from those red-stained lips.

This was the last file saved on the computer given to Mr. Forester. He was found unresponsive in his cell. While the window glass had been shattered, there was no other evidence of an attempt at forced entry. To date, Mr. Forester has not regained consciousness and remains in a persistent vegetative state.