The Horror at the Roof of the World and Other Frightening Fiction

By Richard W. Johnson

Within these stories you will find the terrifying consequences to the search for immortality, the Devil uses Thanksgiving Day to go recruiting, a horrifying visitor from another dimension meets a man running for his life, a young boy finds the perfect tool for revenge on everyone who’s been bullying him, someone playing a video game is given a deadly curse, a man’s irrational fear of newly-built houses proves to be rational after all, and something from beyond the stars holds an isolated seaside village in a centuries-old grip of terror.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard W. Johnson
• Release date: Dec 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311901224

Richard W. Johnson

I attended the 1981 Clarion Writers' Workshop and have published short stories, poems and essays since then. Most of my life has been spent in the wine industry--both in the wholesale and retail ends. I owned a wine and beer wholesale distributorship from 1995 to 2004.

Book preview

The Horror at the Roof

THE HORROR AT THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

and Other Frightening Fiction

Richard W. Johnson

Copyright 2014 by Richard W. Johnson

Contents

THE HORROR AT THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

THANKSTAKING DAY

THE TRAVELER FROM THE POOL

THE FAUCET

A MONTH OF SOMEDAYS

GROWING PAINS

THE SLEEPER IN THE SAND

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

THE HORROR AT THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

Part 1

Of the singular fate concerning my tragic friend Alexander Stoneman, the curious reader shall find little in the way of published facts. The Portland Oregonian printed a paragraph that dealt with his sudden and unexplained disappearance with a scant few lines of desultory reportage. The Daily Astorian gave the incident a bit more depth but still avoided any of the gruesome and horrific details regarding the events of that tumultuous night, and what fantastic and unutterable things were seen and heard during the search for Stoneman on the high, wild slopes of Neahkahnie Mountain above the blighted hamlet of Manzanilla, Oregon.

I first became acquainted with Stoneman when we both entered the College of the Siskiyous as freshman many years ago. He was a man of an historical bent in his studies, specializing in the bizarre and mysterious, while I was determined to become a painter in the vein of Blake, Bosch, Munch or Doré—men who brought to life scenes of the macabre and repellant. I was gripped by the fervor of untutored youth and wanted to shake the tired foundations of what passed for acceptable art in the world, and Stoneman sought nothing else but to ferret out whatever hidden secrets the earth kept buried in its private bosom. Not for either of us was the crowded, bustling campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene or the more bucolic atmosphere of Oregon State University in Corvallis. We wished to conduct our explorations into the vast frontiers of higher education in more serene surroundings where we might forge our own paths, and the College of the Siskiyous, situated as it was in the quaint old fur trading and fishing town of Astoria in the top Northwest corner of the state, afforded us just such an environment.

Stoneman came from old timber money. His people had been lumber barons for several generations, and there was already an eldest son attending Stanford University studying business administration and being groomed to take over the family empire. Alexander, as the spare son, had been pampered by his father since childhood and thus was given the caprice of doing as he wished when it came time to choose his educational path. A vast trust fund saw to his wants most adequately, and his accounts were always up to date and his purse constantly full. He was a thin young man with straw colored hair and a pale, sallow complexion. His eyes were a dark, earthy brown and sat above a narrow, patrician nose. His fingers were long and delicate and given to nervous trembling when he became animated.

The College of the Siskiyous was a small, cramped campus whose buildings crowded upon each other as if to keep the outer world and all its attendant perils at bay. The structures were all erected of dull brown brick, pitted over the decades by air heavily laden with corrosive salt sea spray that crept in from the ocean and slid down the tree-carpeted mountains to envelop the campus in a continuous gloomy mist that only abated with the onset of summer. Stoneman and I trod its bramble-laden paths and dusty hallways that first year as inseparable comrades, convinced that fate had brought two such brilliant minds and free spirits together for some magnificent and as yet unknown purpose, and thus was a lifelong friendship christened between Alexander Stoneman and myself, one Jeremiah Martins.

How well I remember one frigid winter night in our first semester. We had just returned to our rooms after attending a ball given to honor one of the school’s professors who had that month received a prestigious scholarly award. A massive storm had come barreling in from off the vast untamed Pacific and was drenching the town with its powerful gusts and driving rain. The wind outside was bitter cold and tried its hardest to find the thinnest of cracks in the walls and window frames of our cozy dormitory room. The deluge lashed against the glass with determined fury. The walls of our quarters danced with the light from a blazing, cheery fire. As we listened to the howl of the tempest surrounding us mixed with the ticking of our ormolu clock above the mantle and kept ourselves warm with successive pots of dark, strong coffee liberally laced with fine brandy, Stoneman spoke openly to me of his peculiar interests and the arcane course of studies he intended to pursue during his collegiate career.

See here, Martins, he began, when a man is in my enviable position of having all his needs met without effort on his part, surely he has a debt to the universe to enrich his mind to the best of his abilities and thus be prepared to impart what he has learned to augment the lives of his fellow men, should he find minds able to appreciate and implement the wisdom he might bequeath to them. Fate has cast me in this situation--I freely admit I have done nothing to deserve the august perch I enjoy, and therefore I have taken it upon myself to seek out and discover such secrets of the world that I might in some small measure offer recompense for a life others less fortunate would consider to be squandered in indolence.

And where shall this noble mission of yours lead you? I said with a smile as I took a healthy swallow of coffee. Shall it be philosophy that tempts you? Shall it be medicine that lures you to become a caregiver to your fellows? Perhaps becoming a teacher appeals to you; that you might thus pass along the knowledge you acquire to generations yet unborn?

All worthwhile pursuits to be sure, Stoneman replied, and whoever of our classmates selects any of those fields makes an honorable choice and merits my utmost respect. But no, such pedestrian pursuits are not for me. I tell you this, Martins, that I have long felt myself destined for something greater; something outside the normal, pedestrian curricula the multitude of students partake of to fill their minds.

Then pray tell me what drives you, Stoneman. Whither your dreams and your destiny?

As he was about to reply the storm attacked our rooms with such unexpected vigor and ferocity we were both startled out of our comfortable spirit of bonhomie. The window panes shook and seemed about to spring from their settings. The turbulent air moaned through the rafters above our heads like the tortured cries one might hear emanating from the abyss of perdition.

A deep melancholy seemed to overtake Stoneman. He went to the window and placed his palm against the quivering glass and let his gaze take in the sight of several of our fellow classmates hurrying across the exposed quadrangle below as they sought shelter from the riotous elements of Nature that engulfed them. How fragile we are, Martins, he remarked. How like the leaves of the trees we mortals are before such forces as now torment us. Our lives are as but meager candle lights trying to stay lit in the face of such overpowering primeval elements. How unfair that sounds to me. Here stands man at the summit of the world, reaching out towards the Divine through the impenetrable dark, and the spark of his life can be snuffed out as if it was merely an afterthought of a capricious deity. What purpose can that serve? What is the point of accumulating knowledge throughout one’s lifetime if it can so easily be blotted out of existence? My whole life has brought me to one inescapable conclusion, Martins—human life must be prolonged and made invulnerable to the dangers of the natural world. Immortality, Martins. That is the siren call that fills my soul. That is the goal that drives me onward. The method, the potion, the elixir—whatever name you give it, that is what I mean to find.

O how horrifically prophetic those words sound to me now! Would that I had had but a cupful of brains that night and tried to dissuade my friend from his treacherous path. But there we were, two young men resplendent in our evening finery, suffused with good food and drink, gleefully defying the elemental forces that raged around us. We stood at the pinnacle of youthful arrogance, and from such a peak no man ever has a clear-eyed view of the world beneath his feet.

I thought his dream preposterous and as much told him so. But surely such an aspiration has been with man since he first drew breath, I said. How many must be the number of sages who have sought that very thing since history began? If such a compound existed, mustn’t it have to come to light before now? Mightn’t some antiquarian genius have discovered such a formula and passed it down to subsequent generations?

And who is to say that it hasn’t been discovered, Martins? he retorted. We think ourselves the zenith of humanity because we live at just this particular point in time, but haven’t civilizations risen and fallen countless times before now? Who knows what tantalizing secrets were lost when they fired the great library of Alexandria? What sort of proscribed knowledge lays entombed deep in the subterranean vaults of the Vatican, forever to be kept hidden from the light of day? What diverse knowledge passed out of human ken when the Spaniards marched roughshod over the empires of the Incas and Aztecs in South America? No, my friend, if you ask me if I believe the secret to immortality has been found sometime in mankind’s past, I would say I believe just that. I am convinced that immortal beings walk amongst us who used to be mortal men. And ask yourself, if you had managed through years of hard work, deprivation and great effort to discover such a secret, would you wish to share it wholesale with the world? Would you tax the resources of the planet by unleashing upon it a horde of immortal men and women? Far better to keep such a secret to yourself and dole it out only to those you trusted and deemed worthy of such an unparralled bounty as you moved along your eternal timeline.

What? You would deny your fellow beings such a boon?

Most assuredly. Think upon it for a moment. You are an immortal man. Your life stretches out before you like a magnificent panorama. As the years flow by you acquire experience unimaginable, and with that experience comes wisdom unfathomable. The greatest thinkers in human history are as children before you. Surely this is the most important decision you could make; to find a creature that you deem worthy of the greatest gift in all creation—eternal life.

This is the purest of flummery to be sure, but I certainly hope that if you ever stumble upon this marvelous elixir of yours that you spare a draught of it for an old college chum, I said, raising my coffee cup in an invitation to toast. Stoneman clinked cups with me and said: I swear to you, Martins, that if ever I find what I seek yours shall be the first name I’ll call.

Part 2

Lter that year Stoneman began to take time off from his classes to travel up and down the Oregon coast, seeking out the most obscure and forbidding antique shops and used book stores in a continuous hunt for whatever myths, legends and lore he could find about anything strange and unusual within the boundaries of his range. He corresponded with libraries in Portland and Oregon’s other university cities, plying their librarians with fervent pleas to provide him with whatever forgotten or long-buried materials they might have that could shed any welcome light upon his researches. By spring his absences from school were attracting the most unwanted attention from his professors, and messages of warning started to accumulate in our rooms like so many portents of an onrushing calamity.

It was on a bright, brisk afternoon in early May that I returned from taking my lunch in the school commons when I heard voices raised in argument coming from my room. I paused to listen before entering, lest I interrupt: it was Stoneman and his father engaged in a loud and rancorous quarrel. I was loath to impose myself upon such an emotionally charged scene between a father and his son, but just as I turned to leave I heard the older man hurl forth the words wastrel! and mountebank! and a moment later the door burst open with such sudden violence that it shuddered on its hinges. Before me stood Stoneman, his eyes blazing with rage and his frame trembling in agitation. His hand clutched the doorknob as if he meant to tear it from its setting. As he attempted to rush from the room he unexpectedly bumped into me. "Confound