The Iowa Horror (Fiction) by Noah Savage

The Iowa Horror
by Noah Savage

Note: I did not write this story. I found it in a puddle of slime and blood on the floor of my friend's apartment. Having read his sordid account of indescribable horror, I can only pray that Death's merciful scythe has saved what remained of his soul from the darkest nightmares that haunt our clouded world.

I was visiting my brother, Roderick, in the middle of the Iowa countryside. I had not seen him in a long while. I had heard that he had married, but I had been unable to attend the wedding, and for that I felt tremendously guilty. I intended to make it up to him as best I could, with a surprise visit, an expensive present, and the joyful news that I had been accepted by the prestigious Miskatonic University.

The weather, as I approached my beloved brother's rural estate, was dreadful. The weatherman had claimed that the storm would quit by midday, yet it was close to midnight and still the sky was naught but an abyssal black shroud from which plummeted an endless deluge of frigid rain. I was risking much to travel alone in such dangerous conditions, but so eager was I to be reunited with family that I ignored the threat posed by violent nature.

When at last I arrived at the estate, I should have been relieved, but something indescribable dulled my joy. Curiously, although it was now past midnight, there were lights on inside my brother's home. After several minutes of mustering up the courage to do so, I rang the doorbell and was allowed inside.

My brother embraced me. "Oh, Theodore, how wonderful it is to see you again. Please cross the threshold and take a seat. I shall prepare you some tea, and we will talk about old times. I cannot wait to introduce you to Lindsey. Or if you would prefer, you may lie down to rest and we will talk in the morning."

I was profoundly tired, yet some inexplicable gnawing fear at the back of my mind deterred me from accepting his offer. I do not know what frightened me so, but I could detect that something was terribly amiss. Perhaps it was the eerie lupine howling from just outside the windows, or the pale red mist that coated the gibbous moon, or how the moon shone through the unnaturally turbid rainclouds, but I could not help but sense that the source of my discomfort resonated from within my brother's dwelling.

"-e should be back any moment now," declared dear Roderick, returning with two mugs of tea. An ear-splitting crash of thunder rendered the first sound of his sentence inaudible. "-e usually doesn't get back until quite late." Another violent crash of thunder.

As I accepted the mug of tea, I looked down at the book lain on his coffee table--and dropped it, my hands driven to uncontrollable trembling by the horror of what I saw. Was it the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul al-Hazred, or the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of Friedrich von Junzt, or one of the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan? No. It was far worse-oh God, what incalculable agony haunts my recollection of this evil volume! I will spare you its forbidden name-but know, dear reader, that there are writings on this planet that describe things darker than the black miasma that floats atwixt the eldritch skerries of the penultimate abyss.

At the very moment that I dropped the mug of tea, the doorbell rang. It was Lindsey.

At this sight of the being to which my own brother had affixed himself in matrimony, I leapt from my seat and fled, shrieking like a little girl with her pigtails cut off, from the den of vice and sin into the safety of the violent, dark, and stormy night.

Already I can feel myself changing into something that is unholy. I consider--well, considered-myself a man of uncommon piety. I had read entire chapters of the Old Testament and had a Christian fish symbol secured on the back of my SUV. Yet my faith was forever shattered at the sight of my brother's spouse and I know now that no level of prayer will save me.

For Lindsey, wife of my dear Roderick, was not his wife at all, but a MAN!

By the morrow's dawn I shall be a living man no more--either I shall have mustered the courage to terminate my being or I shall have succumbed to the same unholy mutation that befell my poor brother.

I will--eek! Shub-Niggurath! The black goat of the woods with a thousand young! kl;sdlkfja;sd kaj;flkdsa ;jf;ads Cthulhu R'lyeh lkdsjf;a lkdsjf ;a!

Author bio:

Noah Savage is a student studying Linguistics and Russian Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a fan of H.P. Lovecraft and Nikolai Gogol, among other authors. In his spare time, he studies various foreign languages and teaches a weekly Esperanto class. After graduating, he hopes to become a professional translator.