Dead Letter Bureau - Delta Green

We step away from the blood and into the light of a new day, where the monsters wear pantsuits and carry skeleton keys. A letter taped to the underside of a porcelain throne becomes a testament to a legacy of madness. In the chemical dark of a development room, the truth is exposed frame by frame: the geometry of the impossible caught on Kodak.

While a lost soul screams silently behind the flat, black eyes of a grazing beast, trapped in a prison of leather and instinct, a trap is baited with cheese, crackers, and Southern hospitality. The clean-up crew has arrived, and they are prepared to bury the secrets that the swamp refused to swallow.

Cast

Nick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and Editor

Kristina... Agent Ryan

Ryan... Agent Barone

Jordan... Agent Del

Podcast art by Studio Janie

Music and Sound Effects from Envato.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035

Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923

Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau

Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/

Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33

Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.

9mm Retirement Radio

RPG Reanimators

Black Flare

Hand on the Door

Sorry, Honey, I Have to Take This

Stories and Lies

This Line Isn't Secure

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

We descend into the cold earth to read the ledger of our own betrayal. In a room smelling of ozone and old blood, the paper trail proves that the monsters we fight were invited in by the hands that feed us.

There are fates worse than death; there is the silence of the jar, and there is the thunderous, dull rhythm of a heart that is not your own. While one soul is exiled into a fortress of leather and chewing cud, staring blankly at the stars, the survivors below uncover the architecture of a fifteen-year lie.

Cast

Nick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and Editor

Kristina... Agent Ryan

Ryan... Agent Barone

Jordan... Agent Del

Podcast art by Studio Janie

Music and Sound Effects from Envato.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035

Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923

Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau

Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/

Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33

Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.

9mm Retirement Radio

RPG Reanimators

Black Flare

Hand on the Door

Sorry, Honey, I Have to Take This

Stories and Lies

This Line Isn't Secure

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Read by Max of 9MM Retirement Radio.

The Cats of Ulthar

By H. P. Lovecraft

It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from forgotten cities in Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten.

In Ulthar, before ever the burgesses forbade the killing of cats, there dwelt an old cotter and his wife who delighted to trap and slay the cats of their neighbours. Why they did this I know not; save that many hate the voice of the cat in the night, and take it ill that cats should run stealthily about yards and gardens at twilight. But whatever the reason, this old man and woman took pleasure in trapping and slaying every cat which came near to their hovel; and from some of the sounds heard after dark, many villagers fancied that the manner of slaying was exceedingly peculiar. But the villagers did not discuss such things with the old man and his wife; because of the habitual expression on the withered faces of the two, and because their cottage was so small and so darkly hidden under spreading oaks at the back of a neglected yard. In truth, much as the owners of cats hated these odd folk, they feared them more; and instead of berating them as brutal assassins, merely took care that no cherished pet or mouser should stray toward the remote hovel under the dark trees. When through some unavoidable oversight a cat was missed, and sounds heard after dark, the loser would lament impotently; or console himself by thanking Fate that it was not one of his children who had thus vanished. For the people of Ulthar were simple, and knew not whence it is all cats first came.

One day a caravan of strange wanderers from the South entered the narrow cobbled streets of Ulthar. Dark wanderers they were, and unlike the other roving folk who passed through the village twice every year. In the market-place they told fortunes for silver, and bought gay beads from the merchants. What was the land of these wanderers none could tell; but it was seen that they were given to strange prayers, and that they had painted on the sides of their wagons strange figures with human bodies and the heads of cats, hawks, rams, and lions. And the leader of the caravan wore a head-dress with two horns and a curious disc betwixt the horns.

There was in this singular caravan a little boy with no father or mother, but only a tiny black kitten to cherish. The plague had not been kind to him, yet had left him this small furry thing to mitigate his sorrow; and when one is very young, one can find great relief in the lively antics of a black kitten. So the boy whom the dark people called Menes smiled more often than he wept as he sate playing with his graceful kitten on the steps of an oddly painted wagon.

On the third morning of the wanderers’ stay in Ulthar, Menes could not find his kitten; and as he sobbed aloud in the market-place certain villagers told him of the old man and his wife, and of sounds heard in the night. And when he heard these things his sobbing gave place to meditation, and finally to prayer. He stretched out his arms toward the sun and prayed in a tongue no villager could understand; though indeed the villagers did not try very hard to understand, since their attention was mostly taken up by the sky and the odd shapes the clouds were assuming. It was very peculiar, but as the little boy uttered his petition there seemed to form overhead the shadowy, nebulous figures of exotic things; of hybrid creatures crowned with horn-flanked discs. Nature is full of such illusions to impress the imaginative.

That night the wanderers left Ulthar, and were never seen again. And the householders were troubled when they noticed that in all the village there was not a cat to be found. From each hearth the familiar cat had vanished; cats large and small, black, grey, striped, yellow, and white. Old Kranon, the burgomaster, swore that the dark folk had taken the cats away in revenge for the killing of Menes’ kitten; and cursed the caravan and the little boy. But Nith, the lean notary, declared that the old cotter and his wife were more likely persons to suspect; for their hatred of cats was notorious and increasingly bold. Still, no one durst complain to the sinister couple; even when little Atal, the innkeeper’s son, vowed that he had at twilight seen all the cats of Ulthar in that accursed yard under the trees, pacing very slowly and solemnly in a circle around the cottage, two abreast, as if in performance of some unheard-of rite of beasts. The villagers did not know how much to believe from so small a boy; and though they feared that the evil pair had charmed the cats to their death, they preferred not to chide the old cotter till they met him outside his dark and repellent yard.

So Ulthar went to sleep in vain anger; and when the people awaked at dawn—behold! every cat was back at his accustomed hearth! Large and small, black, grey, striped, yellow, and white, none was missing. Very sleek and fat did the cats appear, and sonorous with purring content. The citizens talked with one another of the affair, and marvelled not a little. Old Kranon again insisted that it was the dark folk who had taken them, since cats did not return alive from the cottage of the ancient man and his wife. But all agreed on one thing: that the refusal of all the cats to eat their portions of meat or drink their saucers of milk was exceedingly curious. And for two whole days the sleek, lazy cats of Ulthar would touch no food, but only doze by the fire or in the sun.

It was fully a week before the villagers noticed that no lights were appearing at dusk in the windows of the cottage under the trees. Then the lean Nith remarked that no one had seen the old man or his wife since the night the cats were away. In another week the burgomaster decided to overcome his fears and call at the strangely silent dwelling as a matter of duty, though in so doing he was careful to take with him Shang the blacksmith and Thul the cutter of stone as witnesses. And when they had broken down the frail door they found only this: two cleanly picked human skeletons on the earthen floor, and a number of singular beetles crawling in the shadowy corners.

There was subsequently much talk among the burgesses of Ulthar. Zath, the coroner, disputed at length with Nith, the lean notary; and Kranon and Shang and Thul were overwhelmed with questions. Even little Atal, the innkeeper’s son, was closely questioned and given a sweetmeat as reward. They talked of the old cotter and his wife, of the caravan of dark wanderers, of small Menes and his black kitten, of the prayer of Menes and of the sky during that prayer, of the doings of the cats on the night the caravan left, and of what was later found in the cottage under the dark trees in the repellent yard.

And in the end the burgesses passed that remarkable law which is told of by traders in Hatheg and discussed by travellers in Nir; namely, that in Ulthar no man may kill a cat.

Gavin Ross, played by Max of 9mm Retirement Radio.

Some debts aren't paid in cash, and some secrets aren't buried deep enough. The sun rises on a cabin in the swamp, but the morning light only illuminates the cracks in the team's trust. A shared breakfast turns into a confrontation, and a ritual intended for liberation summons something far worse than judgment. When the sky tears open and the payment comes due, we learn that the cost of knowledge is always flesh, and the only thing heavier than a weapon is the weight of a friend you couldn't save.

Cast

Nick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and Editor

Kristina... Agent Ryan

Ryan... Agent Barone

Jordan... Agent Del

Podcast art by Studio Janie

Music and Sound Effects from Envato.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035

Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923

Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau

Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/

Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33

Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.

9mm Retirement Radio

RPG Reanimators

Black Flare

Hand on the Door

Sorry, Honey, I Have to Take This

Stories and Lies

This Line Isn't Secure

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

There are lies we tell with our tongues, and there are lies we tell with our bodies—dragging ourselves through the mud to feign a salvation we do not deserve. Inside the sanctuary, the laws of biology have been repealed. A feverish hunger demands a sacrament of brass and fire, a hot casing swallowed to silence the singing in the veins. We peel back the skin of the mission to find the rot of betrayal waiting in a fifteen-year-old photograph. The healer descends into the earth to sleep, leaving the patients to wonder if the cure is simply a slower, heavier form of death.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035

Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923

Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau

Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/

Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33

Cast

Nick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and Editor

Kristina... Agent Ryan

Ryan... Agent Barone

Jordan... Agent Del

Podcast art by Studio Janie

Music and Sound Effects from Envato.

Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.

9mm Retirement Radio

RPG Reanimators

Black Flare

Hand on the Door

Sorry, Honey, I Have to Take This

Stories and Lies

This Line Isn't Secure

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Read by Jordan

Written by Nick Sayers

Memory is a complex thing. Do you remember something, or do you remember someone telling you about the thing? And does it matter? I don’t think anyone told me about these memories. Some things carry a weight that is hard to shrug off.

Like any true American horror story, it starts off in healthcare. My mother had colitis. Colon cancer.

My dad would drop my sister and me off at our great-grandma's and disappear for hours or days. We’d play Uno, watch black-and-white TV reruns, and play with Legos. I still remember the texture of her carpet on my feet. When I close my eyes, I can smell the cheap pizzas she would cook for us. No one told me those memories; they are mine.

My great-grandmother took us to church every Sunday, which was a nice break from her one-bedroom apartment. She’d feed us breath mints in the pews to keep us quiet while the service happened. Years later, I’d help carry her coffin between those same pews. She was the first loss in my life. My mother almost took that ribbon instead.

Sometimes my dad would take us up to Seattle while my mom was in the hospital. The visits before her surgery were the peaceful ones. She’d try to put on a smile, give me a bedside hug, and do her best to talk to me. To a young child, it was all confusing. My parents explained they had to cut out a bunch of her stomach parts and fuse other parts together.

After the surgery, it was the first horrific scene. I was allowed to visit. My mother, who kissed my head, yelled at me when I did something stupid, and held on to me every day, had monstrous tubes going into her nose. They were long and snake-like. I couldn’t believe it was her with such serpentine plastics haunting her nasal canals. She tried to speak, and it sounded like a demonic perversion of my mother. As a child, I wondered if she’d be like this forever. I am sure it felt like forever to her. Seeing her sitting up in this alien, sterile, and gloomy place haunted my dreams for years. The most haunting moment was a day my dad ushered me out of the room so I didn’t have to bear witness to her pain. Too much for a child. And too late for me, because I was a witness.

My mom was groaning strangely. It was like an animal. What transformation had she undergone? My dad stood up and tried to speak to her, but the groaning persisted. Her head flung back, the tubes a mockery of human biology, still hung from her place, going to an unknowable location. She made a guttural screech and a strange croak. A witch turned toad? My imagination had so many explanations, but the reality was, well, worse. She started to throw up. Those incomprehensible tubes in her body were a bypass from her throat. As my mother started to turn into a shrieking animal, a strange, colored, viscous mix started to fill the tubes, as her vomit forced her liquid diet out of the feeding tube. I was dumbfounded, chin ajar, frozen. My dad said something like “Okay.” Then ushered me out of the room. As we walked down the hall, I could hear this creature that used to be my mom wretching over and over again. Surely, she was going to die, I thought. I am assuming she wished she had just died in that moment.

When you realize your parents are just human like other people, your childhood irrevocably changes. That person you rely on to regulate you, hold you, protect you, is not a god. They are not immune. They are susceptible to all sorts of horror that comes from cell anomalies and genetic hauntings. Selfishly, I never wanted to see her like that. I wanted her to live forever. For if she can die, so could I. Selfish childhood thoughts in hindsight, but a profound paradigm shift at the time.

Days. Weeks. I’m not sure. We were back. My mother was pumped full of drugs. She lay on her side, maybe to avoid vomiting through her feeding tubes. This was the first time I saw what the butchers had done to her. A massive cut in her stomach smiled at me from cracks in her hospital gown. It was a mocking smile. The doctors truly butchered her body. The split in her was held together by thick staples. A sheen of plastic tape ran down it, reflecting the unnatural light with every shift in her broken body. I imagined they spilled her out for the surgery, everything in her slopping onto a metal table, where they continued their mockery of her flesh, carving out bits of her they wanted, dropping pieces of her on sterile trays. When it was all over, they had to put her back together like a puzzle. Their gloves and masks were covered in blood as indistinguishable chatter between them buzzed around the room. The butchers weren’t good at puzzles, so they put things back wrong, which is why she was changed; she wasn’t my mother in that bed. They made her anew, not a rebirth, but a strange amalgamation of what she once was. I hated them.

I wanted my dad to hate them, too. He spoke to the butchers in hushed tones, like some conspiracy. Worry was always etched on his face. He’d sit cross-legged looking out at the gloomy Seattle sky for eons, while I sat next to him. He knew it was too much for me to be there sometimes. He’d buy me candy and soda from the vending machines.

One day, he bought me Rolos, one of my childhood favorites. I’d rip off the paper, then delicately pull the golden foil off each cylinder of chocolate and caramel, enjoying more than just the candy. I noticed there was a hole in the top of one of the Rolos. I showed it to my dad. He took it from me with a serious face.

“It might be poisoned.”

I believed him. He then threw it in his mouth, and I was scared for him. “Here, give me another one," he said.

He showed me a hole in that one, too. Why was he eating them? “I’ll make sure there is no poison in them.” After a third, he rubbed my head and told me they were probably safe to eat, so I ate them. They had to be safe.

It wasn’t the years of medical debt my parents struggled to pay, the selling of a business, or settling for a lower-paying job that I’m sure tore my dad apart inside. No, it was the poisoned Rolos that stayed with me.

Years later, I realized he just wanted some of my Rolos.

Special guests: Gwen and Wyatt.

Human throats cannot sing some songs, melodies that require the snapping of bone and the reshaping of the soul to articulate truly. We find ourselves at the intersection of medicine and monstrosity, where a dying man seeks a cure in the geometry of the unnatural.

To survive the swamp is to accept its infection. A pact has been offered in the static. A hollow jar waiting to be filled, a tapestry demanding one final, terrible thread. The lines between the healer, the patient, and the disease have dissolved. What remains is only the hunger for a heavy metal communion and the terrifying realization that the only way out of the labyrinth of the flesh is to shed it entirely.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035

Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923

Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau

Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/

Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33

Cast

Nick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and Editor

Kristina... Agent Ryan

Ryan... Agent Barone

Jordan... Agent Del

Podcast art by Studio Janie

Music and Sound Effects from Envato.

Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.

9mm Retirement Radio

RPG Reanimators

Black Flare

Hand on the Door

Sorry, Honey, I Have to Take This

Stories and Lies

This Line Isn't Secure

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

In this episode of Dead Letter Bureau, the hosts introduce Delta Green and guide new players through gameplay mechanics. The narrative unfolds as players explore a dark and mysterious world filled with moral dilemmas and unexpected twists. The story follows two characters, Barone and Emmett, as they navigate a series of investigations, uncovering secrets and facing challenges. The atmosphere is thick with tension, and the players must work together to solve the mysteries that lie ahead. As they navigate through the horrors of the past, they grapple with their sanity and the moral implications of their actions.

Cast and Crew

Nick Sayers... Handler, and Editor

Zach... Agent Emmet

Ryan... Agent Barone

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035

Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923

Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau

Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/

Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33

Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.

9mm Retirement Radio

RPG Reanimators

Black Flare

Hand on the Door

Sorry, Honey, I Have to Take This

Stories and Lies

This Line Isn't Secure

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Silas played by Caius of 9MM Retirement Radio.

The night is thick with the promise of violence and the fellowship is broken in the dark. One man speaks a forbidden tongue to the uncaring stars and is answered by a terrible birth. Another is broken and carried bleeding to a house of false sanctuary where a doctor with a crooked spine offers a salvation made of mercury and pain. The blood is spilled and the metal is swallowed and the road narrows to a single point of suffering.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/576NbWAEm1uOBDxlW1F4Os?si=c7228e49ddb94035

Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-letter-bureau-delta-green/id1826992923

Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadletterbureau

Find transcripts: https://dead-letter-bureau.captivate.fm/

Talk to us on Discord: https://discord.gg/2RFYaWHm33

Cast

Nick Sayers... Writer, Handler, and Editor

Kristina... Agent Ryan

Ryan... Agent Barone

Jordan... Agent Del

Podcast art by Studio Janie

Music and Sound Effects from Envato.

Here are some other shows we love! Search them up.

9mm Retirement Radio

RPG Reanimators

Black Flare

Hand on the Door

Sorry, Honey, I Have to Take This

Stories and Lies

This Line Isn't Secure

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are ©Nick Sayers, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Read and performed by Max from 9mm Retirement Radio, go give them a listen now!

Nyarlathotep By H. P. Lovecraft

Nyarlathotep . . . the crawling chaos . . . I am the last . . . I will tell the audient void. . . .

I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.

And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences—of electricity and psychology—and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare. Never before had the screams of nightmare been such a public problem; now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale, pitying moon as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges, and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky.

I remember when Nyarlathotep came to my city—the great, the old, the terrible city of unnumbered crimes. My friend had told me of him, and of the impelling fascination and allurement of his revelations, and I burned with eagerness to explore his uttermost mysteries. My friend said they were horrible and impressive beyond my most fevered imaginings; that what was thrown on a screen in the darkened room prophesied things none but Nyarlathotep dared prophesy, and that in the sputter of his sparks there was taken from men that which had never been taken before yet which shewed only in the eyes. And I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Nyarlathotep looked on sights which others saw not.

It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless crowds to see Nyarlathotep; through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into the choking room. And shadowed on a screen, I saw hooded forms amidst ruins, and yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments. And I saw the world battling against blackness; against the waves of destruction from ultimate space; whirling, churning; struggling around the dimming, cooling sun. Then the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst shadows more grotesque than I can tell came out and squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest about “imposture” and “static electricity”, Nyarlathotep drave us all out, down the dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed aloud that I was not afraid; that I never could be afraid; and others screamed with me for solace. We sware to one another that the city was exactly the same, and still alive; and when the electric lights began to fade we cursed the company over and over again, and laughed at the queer faces we made.

I believe we felt something coming down from the greenish moon, for when we began to depend on its light we drifted into curious involuntary formations and seemed to know our destinations though we dared not think of them. Once we looked at the pavement and found the blocks loose and displaced by grass, with scarce a line of rusted metal to shew where the tramways had run. And again we saw a tram-car, lone, windowless, dilapidated, and almost on its side. When we gazed around the horizon, we could not find the third tower by the river, and noticed that the silhouette of the second tower was ragged at the top. Then we split up into narrow columns, each of which seemed drawn in a different direction. One disappeared in a narrow alley to the left, leaving only the echo of a shocking moan. Another filed down a weed-choked subway entrance, howling with a laughter that was mad. My own column was sucked toward the open country, and presently felt a chill which was not of the hot autumn; for as we stalked out on the dark moor, we beheld around us the hellish moon-glitter of evil snows. Trackless, inexplicable snows, swept asunder in one direction only, where lay a gulf all the blacker for its glittering walls. The column seemed very thin indeed as it plodded dreamily into the gulf. I lingered behind, for the black rift in the green-litten snow was frightful, and I thought I had heard the reverberations of a disquieting wail as my companions vanished; but my power to linger was slight. As if beckoned by those who had gone before, I half floated between the titanic snowdrifts, quivering and afraid, into the sightless vortex of the unimaginable.

Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.