Madison Gets Bandaged

Madison Gets Bandaged at Mount Sinai After the Cube Incident

             By the time Madison had seen a doctor, the lacerations on his neck were still open and he was beginning to fear for infection.  What the hell had happened?  The cube had nearly killed him in his apartment.  Put aside the question of why for a moment . . . what the hell was it?  Unlike anything he had ever seen . . . the eldritch markings, the Hadean-lacquered metal look (like brass stained in oil) its intermittent phosphorescent shimmering.  Some type of clockwork booby trap?  What manner of deranged mind of a thoroughly corrupted psyche could conceive of such a byzantine macabre device, let alone propagate it?

                  The Desert Eagle had now saved him more than once. 

                  Meanwhile, the Cube’s value must be immense but, even Madison’s exceptional savvy could not entirely repress the chasmic negative aura the thing carried.  So heavy indeed.  No metal (or substance at all for that matter) that Madison could think of on Earth could be so heavy.  The thing was hardly larger than a baseball and yet surely weighed in excess of fifty pounds.  The same proportion of weight Madison was sure he would feel on his soul should he unleash such a dreaded scourge into the networks of commerce in exchange for his thirty pieces of silver (even if he did sell the bell for a similar price - - in a sort of inverse way).

                  Regardless, there was no tempered thought that could rationalize letting Boyce have it.

                  The night in the hospital did little to provide a restful sleep.  His dreams were plagued with nightmares - - and, once again, similar to those he’d had before.  The same place . . . always back at that same place . . . Salem Harbor.  Why?

                  The dreams had started just after his return to New York from Salem almost five months ago.  First, they were only a scene, the water in the blue dusk, the moonlight shimmering across the rippling surface, but, later, there was more, out, over the water, something immense, something grave.  He’d see down below the surface into its cold overwhelming and lonely depths.  He could see it down there . . . perhaps on the basin of the harbor, flickering magenta flames.  Was there really something down there?  At the bottom of the harbor?  Hadn’t Hartwood said something about that after chartering that fishing boat?  Well, it was no use anyway, short of a séance there was no way following up with Hartwood about it.

Later, the dreams , over the past weeks, began to change, Oscillates started to lurk in the shadows on the docks, just like the night he arranged for the sale of the bell -- only in these dreams, there was no one else . . . no passersby’s, no comrades, only himself and an ever growing number of those wretched shadows . . . keeping him from a peaceful rest.

Now, as of this night, the dreams have gotten worse still, those vile wretches of men, if they were men, or some foul aspect of them, had begun to reveal something of their true nature in his visions.  Perhaps it was the unfamiliar surroundings, the dark lonely discomfort of the hospital bed or the continued pain of the lacerations on his arms and neck left by the cube’s jagged chains and piercing hooks or all these things together but, whatever it was, the stress had pulled back the veil, if only slightly.  Their corrupted arachnoid forms occupied some aspect of reality imperceptible to the eye of man in the narrow visual spectrum of light which evolution or some god has determined to allow us to perceive . . . and, Madison now supposed, an analogous phenomena explained the apparent absence of the matter which composed the rest of their physical bodies or substance as well.

Perhaps this all sounded mad.  No, indeed, they were only dreams, he was not mad but, it was beyond doubt that he was fascinated, fixated perhaps.  Something was down in the basin of that harbor, Hartwood had seen it and if it didn’t carry intrinsic objective value, at least confronting it may allow him to free himself of these increasingly horror inducing night terrors. 

But he could not yet freely abandon the situation with the Cube, whatever he had to do with it, he was its caretaker for the moment and knew he carried with him the full weight of responsibility for its disposition.

This brought his mind back to why.  Hadn’t he read the texts he found in the library correctly?  The instructions, the book with the references to “Daoloth.”  Feeling his neck then looking down at his blood-stained shirt the answer to that question he supposed was fairly obvious; clearly, he hadn’t.  But there must be something to it.  Indeed, the craftsmanship, the elaborate emblazonments, its solid, impervious structure and its snares . . . all of this suggested, to Madison’s mind, that it was undoubtedly a vessel of some sort, a container for something spectacular, implying it must be possible to open it - - and, he would have to find the answer or some instruction on how to unlock it . . . but properly this time.

It was decided, he would first have to secure the Cube, that much was urgent insomuch as he was already aware he was not the only antiquities hunter on the move for it - - however, once secured, opening it could wait (if needed) because he now felt compelled to get back to Salem Harbor without further delay, to this purpose he felt involuntarily compelled.

Luckily, retrieving the cube shouldn’t be difficult, he lauded himself for his profound foresight, even in such a time of frantic panic.  He had wisely secured the Cube with the Desert Eagle in his safe and should be able to remain at ease as to the security of their location until his return to his apartment . . . he had spent a lot of money for that safe, two inches of solid steel and a lock capable of withstanding at least 5 tons of force . . . what was there to worry about?  What on Earth could exert immense enough strength to rend it open and compromise his pieces? 

Nothing he has ever seen or could imagine.