Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24450775-20150518203758

(Okay, I did something, and now this is readable. Awesome) As I sit down to write this, I am suddenly unsure how to begin properly. I guess I should start by telling you about myself. I’m a librarian, part time. I loved literature, especially the classics, and I guess that’s a good thing, otherwise I might not have noticed when things started going all wrong.

I guess it technically began with the old book that was anonymously donated. By anonymously I mean they dropped it down the book return shot. Not an ancient book either, or anything like that, you understand, just a well handled paperback book of Lovecraft’s classic stories. The pages were wrinkled, and slightly discolored, but otherwise in fine shape. And since we were so low in Lovecraft’s department (his books were popular with book thieves) I decided to keep it for our stacks.

Perhaps things would have been okay if we had had other Lovecraft books. I like to think so anyway. Some like books on either side of it might have… I don’t know, contained it? Kept it company? That’s what I believe, even if I can’t articulate the bizarre thought itself.

Then again, maybe it was the books I neighbored it with that cause the problem. Maybe if I had put it with Nancy Drew I wouldn’t be writing this. You see, at the library we were celebrating dark classics for October, and had some selects on a display shelf. Poe, Shelly, Stoker. You get what I mean, those stories.

I set that old Lovecraft book near the front, besides a collecting of Poe’s poems, and forgot about it. I think it was about a week later that a patron came to the desk and asked if we had any ‘real’ books by Edgar Allen Poe. You can imagine I was a tad confused by this question, because the lady was holding a collection of Poe Poems that I had checked out myself a while back. I politely asked her to explain the issue, to which she opened the book, and quickly found the page she wanted.

Spinning the book around, I saw she had stopped at The Raven. Not a personal favorite, but I had read it a few times. I quickly scanned the page, assuming some vandal had drawn something obscene on the page or something to that end. This is what I read

‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over the Necronomicon, a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis Huitloxoptl,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

Only this and nothing more.’

“Okay,” I said to the lady “clearly this is some kind of strange typo. I’m sorry—“ I started to say, but she turned a few pages over for me. This time it was ‘The Bells.’ Another one I knew well enough.

‘Hear the tolling of the bells--

Iron bells !

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels !

In the silence of the night, as Cthulhu sleeps in R’lyeh,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy meaning of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Even Azathoth is bored of this tune.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I laughed at that one. And was rewarded with a funny look. It was obvious to me that some prankster at the printing house had done this. Then I realized that hundreds of such books had probably been ruined like this, and that effectively sobered my mood back.

I promised that lady that we would order a new copy of the book soon, and would call her when it came in. This seemed to please her enough, and I put the book under the counter to pursue later. I’ll admit I was curious what other alterations had been made to the text.

It was later during my lunch-break that I realized we had had this book for a while. It was odd no one had noticed the alien text till now, but not unexplainable. Whoever had borrowed this book previously didn’t know how the poems originally went. Or else they didn’t want to make a stir by bringing it to our attention here. Apathy will no doubt be the end of our race, or so I used to think.

Perhaps it was reading that mangled prose that made me want some real Poe. So that day after my shift I borrowed a book of his short stories. I had settled down with a glass of wine, and was reading through ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ a tale of one person who had been bullied and insulted, and slighted to the breaking point. It is a chilling tale of revenge. I was near the end of the story, where Montresor is walling up the quickly sobering Fortunato, who begins to babble, and eventually begs for his life, before breaking down mentally. This is what I read—

"Ha! ha! ha! --he! he! he! --a very good joke, indeed --an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the-- Yoggoth orr'e phlegeth athg fm'latgh, naron ee.

''"The Amontillado!" I said.''

"Goka Hastur gebog fm'latgh y-'bthnk ph'chtenff, shogg hrii ebunma uh'e, nw 'fhalma nnnsyha'h ron. Hai hupadghog lloig sgn'wahl, nw.”

"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."

"The Elder Gods are dead.”

"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"

Needless to say I no longer believed this was a simple prank, as I felt a slimy chill run down my spine. I flipped through the book, and found other warped passages, and alien texts. They seemed to be more numerous towards the back, as if the strange changes were infecting the book, oozing through the book at a slow, but confident pace. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but that was the feeling I had at the time.

Going to the library the next day, even though it was my day off, I grabbed a pile of books off the display where I had originally set the Lovecraft book, and skimmed through them all. Each one showed signs of what I can only call the disease. A literary sickness that was evidently contagious.

I checked out all the books, and burned them in the empty dirt lot behind my apartment. Especially the book of Lovecraft stories. Oh, I looked through it. Nothing unusual about it’s stories. Why would there be? It was the carrier after all. I thought I had taken care of it. I would have to replace the books out of my pay, but I felt it was worth it. I thought I had halted this alien blight

I was fired from the library two days ago when I dumped all the horror books in a pile at the library, and tried to set them on fire. I was too late you see. The infection had spread to mystery, romance, God, even to the children’s section. I knew the books couldn’t be saved when I saw a librarian reading ‘Dick and Jane, and Nyarlathotep' to a circle of children during story hour.

It’s too late for those books, but not for the stories. I’m writing this to warn other lovers of literature. If you read a story that doesn’t seem right, or how you remember the story going, you have to destroy it. We can still stop this infection before it spreads to far. Before it in-ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, Phlegeth f'chtenff grah'n... 