Free Cthulhu Lives!: An Eldritch Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft by Greg Stolze, Tim Dedopulos, John Reppion, Lynne Hardy, Gabor Csigas, Gethin A. Lynes Page B

eyes, but couldn’t. He tried sitting with his back to the stone, but couldn’t keep it up for long. He tried to distract himself by reading, playing the guitar, rampaging through Twitter, but his attention kept being drawn irresistibly back to the stone.
    “OK, time out,” he said at last. “This is not happening. I admit that this is a puzzle, but you ,” he pointed accusingly, “are just a stone with some forgotten writing on. I may be trying to find out about you, but I am not obsessing. Not .” He pronounced that last word with determined finality.
    “Mind you, I am talking to you,” he continued. “OK, that does it.” He heaved the chest of drawers in front of the stone, pulled on his headphones, and selected the loudest track his iPod had to offer. He would not stare at the stone. He would not stare at the stone. He would not...
    Somewhere past midnight, he moved his chest of drawers out of the way, sat on the end of his bed and stared at the stone. Eventually, he reasoned later, he must have fallen asleep, and whilst he was asleep he dreamed.
    This time the dream, or the memory of it, was more vivid. He heard again the voice calling to him from some huge distance – a distance in time as well as in space, he now perceived. The voice wanted James to come to him. It was insistent, and not unkindly. “Come,” it said. “Come...” There were other words, too. He did not understand them, but instinctively recognised them as the words carved on the stone.
    In the dream, he was surrounded by shapes and colours, nebulous forms that seethed and twisted and coiled round each other. They had no recognisable pattern, yet hinted at things just beyond his imagination. The colours had vivid and indescribable hues, impossible shades that belonged to no spectrum, visible or invisible. Colours that had no place in reality.
    “Come,” the voice said again.
    “Who?” he managed.
    “We are the Eternal. We are the Gate.”

    ♦

    For a moment, when James awoke, he wasn’t sure where he was – mainly because he was lying on the floor. Christ, I didn’t even make it to bed this time. He’d also now slept in the same clothes for two nights running. Even for a first year student, this was going too far. He looked at his watch. Nine fifteen. Just under two hours before he had to meet Angus.
    He staggered to the bathroom and took a long shower. Afterwards, he shaved. It felt good to restore his chin to pristine smoothness. He got down on the floor of the bathroom and did some press-ups, just to prove that he still could.
    Wrapping a towel round his waist, he headed to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Sam looked up from his cereal and wished him good morning. Dave sketched a wave whilst examining the inside of the fridge. Shower, shave, tea. James felt reinvigorated, so much so that when Ralph – also wrapped in a towel – burst into the kitchen and indignantly asked who’d had all the hot water, James just smiled.
    “Five minutes,” Ralph yelled at him. “You know the rules. And when are you going to do the washing-up, I’d like to know?” James suggested Ralph do something biologically unlikely.
    He went back to his room and managed to dig out a clean pair of boxers and two socks that nearly matched. By the time he walked out of the front door, he felt ready for anything.
    Two minutes later, he returned for the bottle of tequila.

    ♦

    Angus was waiting on the green. Even from a hundred yards away, he looked guilty. They made the exchange. The counter looked less impressive than James had expected. Angus briefly explained its use, so nervous that he forgot his Scottish accent. “If it reads up to here, that’s normal background. Ignore it. If it reads past here, run like hell. And if it reads here , then you’re in the core at Sellafield, and your troubles are over. OK?”
    “Piece of cake.”
    “Right. My arse is on the line, here. I might need this bottle just to steady my nerves. I don’t know why