The Karl of KthuRove
With the American Midterm Election underway, I just thought all those coming back to the polls or waiting to go could do with a good old fasion’d sci-fi/horror story. I apologize for any grammatical errors or typos, but I do not edit, and that is why I am not a professional paid writer… yet.
The Karl of Khrovtho: Plan W From Outerspace
Of such great powers or plans there is unthinkably one plan… a plan from such a vastly distant era before such… animalistic and orgiastic tendencies were lost, perhaps, in shapes and forms so far removed in our barbaric past by our evolving state of humanity and culture… plans of which the poetry of the insane and the legends of the politicians alone have slapped together such a wild wet dream and called them architects, heroes, and geniuses of all sorts and kinds…
- Brundleby Slapsauce
I. AN APPROACH TO… ELLIPSIS
Never in my the deepest corner of my wildest imaginations would I ever think what I have seen could be seen in this lifetime. I have seen beyond the shadowy veil of that blankets the dinner-theater stage of insanity. I have seen up into the deepest rafters were the sandbags of madness hold aloft it’s velvety texture of psychosis. I listened to the freakish dialogue from grim gaping maws of the phantasmal actors during their demonic performance of Death of a Salesman. I have tasted the chicken ala king of horror. In short, I have seen the truth.
Truth in the form of a complete and unrepentant cycle of the unending wheel that is reality. The essays and theories of theologians and philosophers had been mere punch and judy guesses at what is at the heart of fabricating the walls that surround us. A Truth to which even those aesthetes deep with their cold mountain hovels have had faint dreams of in their shamanistic revelatories would fear. I have seen it.
As a lecturer of Ancient Cryptopolitical Science it should come as no surprise since the truth has been my life long pursuit. Now my only wish and pursuit is to drive the truth from my mind and memory, having sought out day time tv, game shows, talk shows, gallon after gallon of triple fudge ice cream, and other known brain altering drugs, I continue to see that round bespeckled face whose grim machinations plot the tearing of the thin curtain which separates the sane from the insane. Long nights and early mornings have I spent nose deep in the records and ledgers and the histories and grimoires of the Senates and Tribunals of bygone civilizations. Long have I spent translating and decoding the edicts of the tyrants of the Near Orient and the Kings of the Minor Kingdoms of Dark Africa. But how Locke and Hume rationalize the multi-dimensional mind of Rumslgalezza or does Paine deal with the Cyclopean Non-Linear Rhetoric of Cnhnytrhrom? Most of all where does the madness of The Horrid Plan W of Khrovtho fit in with the Social Contract…
I am leaving the path of rationality and reason faster and faster, and even now I here the walls mutter and the stairs creek… they are coming for me. I am hunted.
My knowledge of the whole affair begins in the summer of 2006, with the death of my esteemed colleague Albert Smith-Blanchecoate, Professor Emeritus of Ancient Cryptopolitical Science at Potomac University, District of Columbia, whose hallowed halls look across the cold murky river whose shores are lurked upon by the unseen psychotic creatures waiting for their master’s call. Professor Smith-Blanchecoate was a expert in the field of the Sumerian Electoral College, and published widely in the subject of campaign laws of the ancient zombie cults of early Polynesia. He was a common name, being often called upon to endorse legislative reforms and comment on incumbency in the bicameral legislature; thus his death at 89 is recalled by few outside of the beltway. However the mystery surrounding his death made national cable news for almost 15 straight hours. Albert had returning to his Annapolis home when neighbors report seeing a financial-looking WASP who had come from one of the dark colored Range Rovers which were so popular with the young conservatives these days. The WASP accosted Smith-Blanchecoate, the neighbors say, at which point Smith-Blanchecoate fled into his home and the WASP began cackling and burst into flames. Neighbors went to check on Smith-Blanchecoate several hours later and found that he had collapsed in his study, a small diary clutched to his breast. The coroner was perplexed, there was no sign of wrongdoing or ill health and the cause of death was listed as natural. Albert Smith-Blanchecoate had died of a heart attack, and as confused as a was as the rest of the Beltway, I did not question the findings, but now, with the truth in hand, I must of course guess at a more sinister cause.
Having no direct heir’s or close relations, his distant family, far removed cousins and non-academics all, asked me, his closest colleague, to go through all of his work and research and files and do with as I pleased. If only I could somehow stop myself then. If only the academic lust for knowledge did not drive me forward so. If only, If only, If only… I had not found the box. The box was not hidden in any mysterious sense of the word. It was kept in a locked safety drawer at the bottom of the late professor’s desk to which I had been given the key. The box itself was not unusual in anyway shape or form, made of modest treated cherrywood and unmarked without seal or sigil. Inside the box contained memos, newspaper clippings, official reports of all kinds: police, coast guard, and fashion. All spoke of strange incidents, happenings, and dealings which the professor had heavily notated with three recurring names. The CULT OF NY-OCYN, PLAN W, and KHROVTHO. At first I thought it fanciful, perhaps the professor was working on a new book about some obscure Sumerian politico cult, I certainly had never heard of any of these terms before. Perhaps the professor was dabbling in Fiction and doing research into real events. Who knew? The box’s contents had peeked my curiosity a little, but I put it out of mind until that fateful day… some weeks later…
II. THE BLUBBERY MADNESS
A WASP in his 30’s with 80’s slicked back hair and a black suit and cool wrap-around sunglasses was standing next to my car the next day; clearly he was waiting for me since when he saw me approach he straighten up and jogged towards me; I felt a hidden fire smolder behind his shaded eyesight. He pushed his leather valise into me and just below a shout said, “Stay away from that box, if you know what’s smart, egghead. Just looked what happened to all your friends who got tangled up in Plan W. You don’t know what’s good for you, keep your nose clean egghead.” Before I could retort he let go of his valise and jogged off into the street, yelling “Ai! KHROVTHO NGH NY-OCYN NGH WH”. A bit perturbed, my head down, I held both his valise and my own wondering what to do when the answer presented itself. There was a loud screech of rubber on asphalt and as I turn I saw a large Pro-Life van fly directly into the path of the WASP knocking his head clean from his shoulders. A woman screamed and I felt a sickly sensation into the pit of my stomach. Crouched over on the hood of my car, still clutching both valises, I did all that I could to keep myself from emptying the contents of my stomach onto the front bumper of my eco-friendly hybrid.
III. I WENT HOME AND I POURED OVER THE CONTENTS OF THE BOX
Never before had I beheld such an obvious cabalistic fabricated plan. Even in my darkest hours of study of the ancient tribunals of the B’hmial tribes of West Africa had I seen such subversive and pervasive use of power. Each case alone presented no mystery; a podunk politician, a congressman in some backwoods bayou congressional district, a stumper from some former territorial possession with an unpronounceable and dark Indian name, meeting some fit of seeming madness suddenly changes the moral outlook of their policies and swings conservative. It happened slowly, and in all walks of life. Incumbents, challengers, greens, libertarians, suddenly with some fit of madness disappear leaving their family and loved ones only to turn up days later with a new hairstyle and outlook on life. Some witness report seeing flashing lights and incoherent chatting coming from their homes late at night before the change. The good professor had even mapped out the location of each incident. From the ancient homes of the unfederated clans of the Pasaqwa Indians in the Pacific Northwest to the haunts of the Sioux and Hopi and Navajo who reverently gerrymandered their tribal borders, back north to the dark forests of the french trappers, who made their own laws, sharp south once again down to the shores of the Gulf, now dark with the miscegenated and mixed voodoo religious of the Swamp People of ancient Cimmeria and the White Ghost People of the Dark Continent, and finally turning northeast, sharply one last time, a line terminating in the far flung corner of the Iroquois Empire, the coldest ports of New England, at the very mouth of the Miskatonic River in western Connecticut. I saw with my own eyes a horrible an misshapen W etched out on our great country, a W forged back at a time I imagined was well before our noble forefathers had forged out their own law and order.
Categorically each politician was disposed of, whether by an elected mob or a mob election. One of the more detailed investigative reports by State of Virginia special Detective Constable Francis LePoop
“We entered the residence of the prominent politician at [ADDRESS] County at 1700 hours to a crying hysterical woman who was later identified as . We found three children, a boy and two girls, ages between 6-10, huddled in the kitchen. Except for the kitchen and living room the rest of the house was in darkness. We searched the downstairs and then proceeded upstairs when the youngest girl start screaming. One of the patrolman and Officer Stanwix went to check on her while I continued to search the upstairs. At the far end of the hallway at the top of the stairs there was a partly open doorway from which I could hear a shuffling feet. Upon entering the room I saw the body of laying face up on the floor, I was able to identify due to his local celebrity.”
What follows was blanked from the public record, and was written in notations in was written in the Professor’s own hand. It appeared that he had contacted LePoop himself to fill the holes of the story, but after a few days of trading phonecalls I was able to contracted the Detective Constable and confirm the details. He was very calm over the phone, but his voice faltered when he came to the retelling of that night:
“I noticed the body for only a moment, before I saw IT. It was small… maybe the size of a large boy. It was standing at the open window, and silhouetted against the street light. It was horrible. The anatomy was all wrong. It was obese but stood on skinny legs. From it’s large jowly head came a long snake like proboscis. It was human in shape with a large humpback but had large dead glassy eyes that it starred at me with. It held me in it’s gaze perhaps for only a moment, and then leapt out the window and disappeared down the street and into the darkness of the night. The sighting of this… thing was later seconded by the little girl who had screamed out, she saw it moving towards the house from outside the kitchen window. The whole family was tense that night because the father was ranting and raving all day about how, ‘The Children of KHROVTHO will come to collect!’ There was something about an important vote and party politics but it got complex. The wife was hysterical and couldn’t give a level headed statement, and since the coroner’s report found no reason to suspect foul play, there was no further investigation. ”
IV. THE TITLE BENEATH THE FLOOR
The most recently dated account came from this spring, written completely in the professor’s own hand it came from a young congressional staffer who the professor tracked down himself and wrung out the full story, perhaps which only the professor and myself have ever heard. The boy had left page work abruptly after reporting what was only by Congressional security as “a late night disturbance on the Senate Floor.” In reality the whole events of that night took place beneath the Floor of the Senate.
The former page was no longer living in DC when the professor found him, he had been instituted into a State of Virginia Mental Asylum far out in the western countryside of the state. After phone calls the head of the Asylum and a long argument with the resident psychiatrist I was allowed an hour interview with the shaken boy. His hair was prematurely white and his hands shook and face ticked even through the large amount of sedative I imagined they gave him. The following is his account though I have removed his long pauses and lengthy stutters:
“It was a friday night, I had been running errands all day and had drawn the short straw among the pages. You see it was staffer tradition that one page and one page only had to remain in the Capitol and usually someone would volunteer but this night there was some kind of dinner or gala and all the staffers were invited. We drew lots to see who wouldn’t get to go. I was upset but… it was my duty so I did it. It wasn’t my first night alone in the Capitol but of course I had heard rumors that it was haunted by those congressman long dead; I myself had never seen or heard anything besides the usual creeks and bumps of the night. Had I had known then what I know now, know what lives under the floors of the Senate, I would have never set foot in the District of Columbia in my whole life. What was strange that night was the absolute lack of sound. No indiscreet click or inappropriate ping, not even a rumor of noise. It was near midnight and I decided to stretch my legs and take a walk around the Rotunda when I heard low moan’s coming from the direction of the senate. Only if I stopped then, only if I went back to the page closet and forgotten about it. I wish I could burn that night from my mind, but there it is, always, staring back at me, the EYES! THE GLASSY EYES! no, I thought perhaps indiscretions were happening, so I went to look. The Floor of the Senate seemed all wrong, the air was shaking, my ears buzzed and there was a stench coming forth. A smell that will never leave my nostrils. It came forth from a gaping hole where the Pro Temps and the Vice President’s seats should have been, a gaping hole and a winding stairwell which I followed downward. I heard the moans again but more precisely it was a chant. I walked for minutes upon minutes, and could hear words in the chant but vulgar and horrible they seemed, and even now I can faintly hear in this padded cell “Ai! Ai! Kthrovtho! Ai! Ai!”
As I approached the bottom a ghastly glow became more illuminous but never brighter, and a great cavern opened up in front of me. I saw the horrid chanters then. Some clearly men, all of a seemingly Mayflower stock, in plain black suits, some cloaked and human, and the other’s… other’s ranging from grey wrinkly skinned persons with deformed elephantine features to beasts who were chained to the walls, naked, and screaming in their terrible voices, ravenous for what I could not tell. Beasts whose anatomies were all wrong, long snake like noses were arms should be, ivory tusks jutting out of giant maws that still spat with evil voices, a tooth any living thing would surely choke on. None of these creatures noticed me, all their attentions were focused on a large pit at the far back of the cavern where two figures stood alone.
One was a young fresh donkey, chained to a stake, it had gone mad and was charging this way and that, braying and yawing, trying to pull it’s stake forth from the solid rock. The other… the other.. OF course I recognized him! He was unmasked, unhooded, and even though the ghastly light marred his features and made them glow with a grey light I saw his thinning grey hair, his glasses, the jowls! and I went mad then!, I almost yelled out his name in a fit of agony but was saved when the horrid roar went up, a scream like the squeal of the noise of some distant celestial object. The Horror! Giant grey phallic trucks pulled the creature out vast pit, I could not believe the rock could sustain it’s girth, but then the natural order of this place was all twisted and upset. An orgy had broken forth from the crazed revealers and it was not before the madness that was this creature that two of it’s trucks shot forth and ripped the pour animal from it’s stake and tour it limb from limb, devouring blood, flesh and bone.
It was at that moment, quaking on the stairs, my mind and soul completely sundered from my body, that I regained my natural instinct, and ran forth up the stairs, far from the Senate, far from the Capitol, panting and raving, jittering… my perception of this universe beaten down to nothing… I did the only thing that I could remember, I called the authorities and told them something was wrong in the Capitol, and I told them who I was, and I went and lied down in a ditch and now I am here… here though safe and guarded against any Human danger, I know that now white walls or pills can protect me from it, what hope have we… what hope… those giant eyes, those glassy eyes”
V. THE MONKEY IN THE INK TANK!
And like the young page, mad and raving, I know now too that it rests there, beneath the senate floor, while its horrid Children, half-bred mockeries of nature, lurk in every shadow, replacing the level-headed policy and law-makers of our country with the mad ramblings of some monster born long before and outside the first morals of our own civilizations. Creatures bent on changing the natural order and laws of our very reality. I cannot go on much longer, not while they live and continue to supplant us. Not as it continues to spew forth its foul lies. Even now I can hear them, sniffing behind every Bush I walk past, waiting to claim me for their own, to twist me to the Karl of their foul father. But as I finish this I now smile, as my gaze goes to loaded revolver at the end of my desk… they will not take me… they will not take me!
Great story, Tim! Lovecraft woulda been… um… glad?