The Story Of LaRoque

[AndrewPryor]

1
The sun bore down relentlessly, making the hair on the man’s head feel hot. He wiped the moisture from his upper lip, sweating as he walked to the pharmacy to acquire his sole respite from the madness slowly and surely taking hold over him. He pushed past a faceless, blue collared man buying cigarettes and slipped the prescription hastily to the wizened old man attending. “I also need a few… other things as well…” the man said, placing a folded note carefully on the board along with the prescription. “Belladonna“ he muttered under his breath, placing a heavy leather bound book with metal clasps on the counter.
“Anyone who needs aconite is surely trying to poison one, or commit suicide,” thought the pharmacist, and he did not want to be party to someone trying to end theirs, or someone else’s, lives. He was about to put his protestations into reality when the man spoke firmly, “I assure you I need this for a certain…experiment. You see this book, here? It pertains to ancient…chemistry.” The pharmacist fondled the metal clasps on the tome, “De Vermis Mysteriis…sounds German to me…here is your Morphine, 100 grains. Your other goods…one dollar”
“Thank you” he replied as he left the pharmacy. “Thank you, indeed…” thought Victor LaRocque.
2
The spell had not taken. Whatever was after him was gaining hold of everyday matter. He could see its distortions in his vision. He could smell its mephitic vapor. It would not let him rest on his laurels of years of occult study, demonology. Things no one could dream of had spoken to him. He had held discourse with extra dimensional beings. They had called him by name, those who held dominion over the astral plane. All of this seemed to be not enough. Victor LaRocque was desperate. The incantation had not taken! He repeated it, putting different emphasis on certain syllables. “V'hu-ehn n'kgnath fha'gnu n'aem'nh. V'glyzz k'fungn cylth-a v'el cylth-Cthulhu k'fungn'i. I'a ry'gzengrho. I'a Hydra.”
“If I live through this…” he thought. De Vermis Mysteriis lay in front of him, opened to a yellowed page. A silverfish scurried from the binding as the sweat dripped from his wrinkled brow to his lap. Suddenly the color drained from his face. A scraping at the walls began. Hurriedly he produced a glass syringe and cork-stoppered bottle of morphine from his shoulder bag. The colors in the room swirled as he inserted the needle into his vein. This was all he could do to keep from going mad. Now, as the labyrinthine structures of light pervaded his vision, he whispered softly, “You are here…”