Great Old Things, a vertigo fanfic

Madness.

And this isn't your typical, run of the mill loony-bin type of madness we're talkin about. I'm talkin about complete and utter, tear your eyes out, brains running out your ears kind of stuff.

That's the sort of thing their lot traffics in.

They'd meet in secret places, long since forgotten by regular folks. Places stuck in time as the modern world goes whistling by. Secluded forest glades. Dark, dank swamps. Deep under mountains. South Pacific islands that even today remain undiscovered.

They'd meet and bang on drums and play cursed flutes making a terrible din which just might be mistaken for music if you listened close enough. They would scream and chant and revel in naked sweaty madness, performing ritual sacrifice to honor old dead gods long since forgotten by the rest of the world. Then they all join in a massive orgy, all of the followers becoming of one mind and one body. Nothing but a writhing, glistening mound of flesh.

Normally I'd be all for an orgy. But they almost always end with a high priest lighting the twisting mass of bodies ablaze. All that death for the glory of their great old dead things.

Now I never much paid them any mind. They were weird, but they mostly kept to themselves. Never hurt anyone. Well anyone but each other at least. But that's when things got dodgy.

Started hearin' rumors. Seein' things in the newspapers. It was small at first, like it almost always in when the shit's bout to hit the fan.

The great monolithic structures dotting England were vandalized. The phrase "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'thulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" was painted all over the stones with blood and piss and shit.

Reports came over the wire from Haiti. "200 DEAD IN MASS SUICIDE: VOODOO RITUAL SUSPECTED" was what the papers said. Bloody reporters wouldn't know voodoo if it came up and turned em' into a zombie. I looked at the picture. To much blood for voodoo. And again the same phrase "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'thulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" was there.

The primitive tribes that lived on the island dotting the Pacific became increasingly secluded and violent, as did the tribes of the Amazon. Watching the tellie I learned about a particularlynasty incident involving a team of documentary film makers being roasted alive. When the Venezuelan Army caught up with the nasty little pygmies still had bits of white flesh stuck between their teeth.

But what really clued me into what might be going on was the suicides. They happened en masse. Blokes would throw themselves from their loft windows or into on-coming traffic. And they weren't just any sort of regular person. They were writers. Artists. Sculptors. They would wake up from horrible dreams in the middle of the night and hastily write or draw or make whatever they could to channel what had just run through their heads into the physical plane.

Then just like that, soon as they were finished, they snuffed themselves.

Now it didn't take a rocket scientist, or hell, even some expert in the occult to see the pattern. Every one of those creative sons of bitches were tied together by a common theme, other than offin' themselves that is.

Left behind at every scene, be it written down or painted or molded in clay, was the phrase "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'thulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" and a grotesque figure of a winged monster with sharp claws and an octopus like head.

Now normally I wouldn't of messed with it. I'd let the Phantom Stranger or the Spectre handle whatever big mystical baddie that was depriving the world of shitty modern art. But then the same thing happened to me.

In my dream I'm deep under the water. Its dark, and its cold, and I feel like the whole world is pushing down on me. And as I walk across the ocean floor, dead thing floating down from the surface to their final resting place, I stumble and begin to fall. Down, down, down, even further. Must've fallen into some deep ocean fault line because all of the sudden there was this brilliant light.

Then the light started to fade and it turned into an eerie incandescent glow. And the light silhouetted massive stone buildings. The shape of em was unlike anything I'd ever seen. The curves of the bloody things…it didn't make sense for them to be standin.

Then the stones started to shift and a blast of bubbles shot from behind a massive door carved with foreign runes even I hand't seen before. And then I heard horrible chanting coming from mouths that couldn't possibly be human.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'thulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"

Then the darkness inside the doorway got deeper. Great clawed hands thurst forth and started to pull whatever they were attached with into the open sea. And the thing bellowed so loud and so deep that it was like evey cell in my body began to shake. And finally the horrible winged monster stepper out of the darkness as the chanting got louder and louder.

I woke in a cold sweat. I tried to scream but it still felt like I was trapped deep under the waves, so far from the light and warmth of the sun. It was no wonder all those sodding hacks had wanted to off themselves after seeing that thing. I've seen some pretty grotesque things in my day, but that…that has got to rank near the top.

I get dressed quickly, searching every nook and cranny of the room for a ciggie. There was a lot I'd have to do. Lot of people I'd have to get in touch with. Should probably get in contact with Aquaman somehow. If anyone'll know if there's giant stone buildings deep under the ocean it'll be him. I should see if Swamp Thing knows anything. The Green has been around for a lot longer than anything else.

It's raining outside. 'Nother beautiful London evening.

"Twenty Silk Cuts and a book a matches please luv. Ta."

What in God's name have you gotten yourself into this Constantine old boy.