The Thing on The Doorstep

It is true that I fired six bullets into the head of my best friend, but I hope that with this account, I will be able to prove that I am not his murderer. Undoubtedly, such a statement will make me appear even more insane than the man I shot in his room at the Arkham Asylum. But only after narrating my story in full, will readers be able to weigh each of my claims, correlate them with known events, and question how I could have acted otherwise when faced with the evidence of that horror: the thing on the doorstep of my house.

I had known Edward Pickman Derby since his childhood. Eight years younger than me, he was precocious enough to share my interests even when, at sixteen, he was only eight. An only child, rather frail in constitution, he was adored almost oppressively by his parents, who fretted over his poor health and kept him tightly bound to them. He was never allowed to go out without the company of a governess, and rarely played freely with other children. All this undoubtedly fostered a fervent and strange inner life, so that imagination became the boy’s only path to freedom.

Edward’s eccentric genius developed significantly and, at eighteen, he published a collection of hallucinatory poetry titled Azathoth and Other Horrors, which caused quite a stir. However, his life remained cushioned, devoid of self-confidence, and dependent on his parents.

At the age of thirty-eight, Edward met Asenath Waite. She was dark-haired, petite, and pretty, but with something unsettling in her expression. She belonged to the Waite family of Innsmouth, a ruined and nearly deserted town, notorious for grim legends. Ephraim Waite, Asenath’s father, was known as a great scholar of magical arts.

Edward met Asenath at an intellectual gathering and was immediately fascinated by her. Despite old Dr. Derby’s attempts to prevent his son from marrying Asenath, nothing could stop Edward. The wedding was celebrated the following month. After the honeymoon, Edward seemed changed, more serious and thoughtful, with an expression of genuine sadness.

In the two years that followed, I saw Derby increasingly less often. Sometimes I had to wait fifteen days before hearing the familiar three short knocks followed by two more at the front door. When he came to see me, he was less willing to engage in our old conversations. He had become unusually reserved about his studies in the occult and avoided talking to me about his wife.

It was in the third year of marriage that Edward began to hint clearly that a confused sense of fear and dissatisfaction afflicted him. He spoke obscurely of the need to “reclaim his identity.” At first, I paid little heed to these allusions, but after some time, I began to question him cautiously, remembering what I had heard about the hypnotic power Asenath exerted over her school companions. My questions both alarmed and comforted him, and once he murmured something about a serious talk he wanted to have with me later.

Edward also hinted at terrible gatherings in remote places, at cyclopean ruins in the heart of Maine’s forests, beneath which wide staircases descended into the abysses of the darkest secrets; he spoke of labyrinthine mazes that through invisible walls led to other dimensions of space and time, and horrifying personality exchanges that allowed explorations of remote and forbidden places.

Derby had been married for more than three years when, that August day, I received a telegram from Maine. The chief of police in Chesuncook wired that a madman, covered in mud, had staggered out of the woods and, in the grip of a crazy delirium, had invoked my protection. That man was Edward, and he had just managed to remember his own name and address.

I found Derby in a cell at the local police station, teetering between delirium and apathy. He recognized me immediately and bombarded me with a torrent of senseless and incongruent words. “Dan... Thank God! The well of the shoggoths!... down six thousand steps... the abomination of abominations... I never wanted her to take me there, and yet I found myself there... Iä Shub-Niggurath! The form was rising from the altar, and there were five hundred shouting... The Hooded Thing was moaning 'Kamog! Kamog!'... it was Ephraim's secret name in the Coven... I was right there, where she had promised never to take me... one minute I was in the library, and then I was there where she had gone with my body... in the most blasphemous place, the sacrilegious well where the Kingdom of Darkness begins and the Guardian watches the Threshold... I saw a shoggoth... it changed shape... I can't take it... I will kill her if she sends me there again... I will kill that being... her, him, that thing... I will kill it! I will do it with my own hands!”

It took me an hour to calm him down, but eventually, he quieted. The next day I procured some decent clothes for him in town, and we set off together for Arkham. Once his hysterical rage had subsided, Edward became taciturn but, when we crossed Augusta, he began to mutter confusedly to himself, as if the sight of the city awakened unpleasant memories.

When we passed through Portland, the muttering became more distinct; I then strained my ears and caught a barrage of insane accusations against Asenath. The state of mental imbalance to which the woman had driven him was manifesting itself in all its gravity, as Edward had woven an entire web of hallucinations around her.

Upon arriving at my home, I decided to host him for a while, regardless of Asenath’s reaction. Later, I would help him obtain a divorce. However, as time passed, Edward continued to deteriorate. His mind was tormented by horrible visions and a terror that seemed relentless.

One night, I received a call from the Arkham Asylum. Edward had been urgently admitted after a furious delirium episode. When I visited him, I was greeted by his wild screams and terrible whispers: “I had to do it... I had to do it... That thing will take me... it will take me... Down there... down in the dark... My mother! My mother! Dan! Save me... save me.”

No one could say if he would ever recover, but I still hoped. Unfortunately, not long after, I received a letter written by Edward himself. The message was clear: “Dan, go to the asylum and kill it. Destroy it. It is no longer Edward Derby. It is Asenath; she managed to take me, even though she has been dead for three and a half months. I lied, saying she had left. I killed her: I had to. It happened suddenly; we were alone, and I was in my true body. I took a candlestick and smashed her skull. She would have taken me forever on the eve of All Saints' Day. I buried her in the farthest corner of the basement, under some old crates, and then erased all traces. The next morning, the servants were suspicious, but they had such secrets to hide that they did not go to the police. I chased them away, but God knows what they will do, along with the others in the cult. For a while, I thought things were settled for good, but then I began to feel a tear in my brain. I knew what it was; I should have remembered. A soul like hers, or like Ephraim’s, does not part from the body and can live after death until the body has decomposed entirely. Asenath wanted to take my body, swap it with hers, take my body and put me in her buried corpse in the cellar.

I knew what was happening: that’s why my nerves gave way, and I was committed. Then it happened: I found myself suffocating in the darkness, in Asenath’s rotting carcass, down there in the cellar, under the crates where I had put her. And I knew she must be in my body at the hospital, forever, because it was now All Saints' Eve and the sacrifice would take its diabolic effects even without her presence. She was already in my body, healed, about to be discharged and ready to threaten the world. I was desperate, I had to get out of there at all costs, and I managed it. The decay is now too advanced and prevents me from speaking, using the phone... but I can still write. I will somehow try to bring you my message and warning myself: kill that demon if you care about peace and the world’s good. Make sure it is cremated. If you don’t, it will continue to live, body to body, forever, and I cannot tell you what will happen. Getting rid of Black Magic is terribly difficult, Dan. Goodbye, you have been a true friend. Tell the police whatever you think is appropriate: I regret investing you with such a mission. Soon I will rest in peace: this “thing” won’t last much longer. I hope you manage to read this note. Kill that thing, kill it.

Your Ed

When I finished reading, I was overcome with a wave of horror and nausea. I had to act immediately. I rushed to the Arkham Asylum, determined to end that horror. Upon arriving at the hospital, I made my way to Edward’s room. The body lying there, now at peace, no longer belonged to my friend. It was a corrupted carcass, inhabited by something malevolent and unnatural.

I took my gun and, without hesitation, fired six shots into that body’s head. Each shot echoed like a liberation, an exorcism against the horror that had overwhelmed my friend. the body lay still, devoid of life.

When I returned home, the putrid stench of Asenath lingered in the air. The police, alerted by my call, arrived shortly after. They were horrified when they discovered Asenath's body in the basement. The investigators tried to explain the events with rational theories, but I knew the truth.

I wrote this account in the hope that someday, someone might understand what happened. Perhaps I will be judged insane, but I hope my story serves as a warning. There are horrors beyond our comprehension, and sometimes evil transcends the boundaries of life and death.

I did not kill Edward Derby. Instead, I avenged him, and in doing so, I freed the world from a horror whose continued existence would have unleashed unspeakable terrors upon humanity. There are dark zones of shadow beside our everyday paths, and sooner or later, a malevolent being finds a way to break through. When that happens, a person must strike before even considering the consequences of their action.

I cannot forget that the man I shot that dreadful night once belonged to a humanity I knew and loved. If Edward Derby had merely been a faceless alien possessing my friend's body, my decision would have been less agonizing. But the final horror is that even the alien entity was something that had once been Edward Derby. I had shot a thing on the threshold. I had shot Edward Derby, who was once the dearest of my friends.