The Old Blog in the Desert

Parnell had spent much of his morning searching around several rock outcroppings in the eastern side of the Nevada desert. The geologist had found very little of interest and was preparing to head back to the University, when he noticed the strange petroglyph tucked deep inside a rocky crag.

“How did you get there?” he asked, voicing his curiosity.

He did his best to photograph the carving, but because it rested between to flat surfaces with very little room between them, he resorted to the older method of recording what he saw. With a pocket sketch pad and a small pencil stub, Dr. Parnell drew the icon and then using a locking metal measuring tape, wrote down the difficultly-placed dimensions.

As he squatted, trying to find a better angle at which to view the thing, the ground beneath his feet began shifting, then falling away. Parnell dis his best to jump away from the opening maw of blackness, but instead found himself cascading into its unknown depth.

He landed hard on a flat, stony surface, with the blow delivered to his head, rendering him bloodied and unconscious. For how long he laid there, Parnell did not know, but once he became aware, he looked about, only to see that he was now surrounded by massive cyclopean stone formations, each hand-hewn into an entity, unrecognizable to him.

Then he saw the movement; Parnell was not alone. Also in the enclosure were a number of beings, each wearing identical brown robes. “What’s going on?” he asked.

No answer came. Slowly, Parnell rolled from his back and moved to his knees. Then he heard the unified fulminations of, “Voquulo Zaa-q’ran,”cried with a building vigor.

Fearful that he’d discovered the secret, hidden meeting place of a death-cult, Parnell slowly and quietly drew his folding-blade knife from his pocket and held it in preparation of a quick opening in his personal defense from a coming attack. Meanwhile, the gathering chanted, “Voquulo Zaa-q’ran,” in an ever increasing volume and maddening pace.

From the group, one separated themselves, moving deftly to the center of a marked out, well lit spot upon the floor. The flames of the torches cast ominous shadows about, that left Parnell slightly dizzy as the figures gyrated spasmodically about the lone figure.

Suddenly, all movement ceased and the lone figure drop the robe, revealing a naked woman beneath the malevolent looking covering. And jus’ as suddenly, another figure, taller, more masculine in movement, stepped forward removing the woman’s head from her neck, with the flashing flick of an ancient long-blade.

Then the chanting of, “Voquulo Zaa-q’ran,” began again. Parnell jumped to his feet, searching desperately for an escape route, but before he he could take a step, the ground started agitating, causing him to fall.

As quickly as it began, the roiling stopped, only to be replaced by an echo of rock grinding and shattering and the luminous emission of an ominous greed light. The massive slabs also started to glow the same hideous hue.

The group continued its chanting ever, louder and in quicker rapidity. Then without notice, they went silent as one of their league growled, “She is awakened.”

Once more the ground began to shake as the cult members stepped back, revealing the growth of a large fissure, causing the lifeless body of the woman, to topple with a sickening plop into the bowels of the open earth. But what crawled from the fissure is a thing of night-terror, as two monstrous hands, dark and bony, came into view.

Those hands hauled a massive black and shadowless creature from the fissure, causing Parnell’s mind break. He watched in growing fright as the cult approached the thing, speaking to it feverishly in a tongue long forgotten by the language of time. Then they began to run away, shrieking and screaming in utter confoundment and without success, as each were seized by slimy tentacles, sucked into the shapeless, malformed mass and violently assimilate into its being.

That’s when the creature, Zaa-q’ran noticed Parnell and spoke, the voice menacing, like that of a predator who knew that it had cornered it’s prey: “Come here and become one with me.” It then leaped forward, however an unseen force prevented it from unleashing it’s horrors on him, maintaining Zaa-q’ran within the man-made circle.

Parnell ran down a darkened hallway, without giving proper thought to how he had found it, or where it may lead all the while laughing and crying hysterically; that’s how search and rescue members found him. He soon he was locked away, albeit temporarily, the Judge has said, in a mental institution.

“Oh god,” Parnell cried into the long, dark hallway of the hospital, “I can hear him. Zaa-q’ran is coming for me. I can hear her. Let me out!”

Nurses heard his panicked and shrill screams and immediately went to check on him, where they found Parnell curled helplessly in a fetal position, barely conscious and chanting: “Voquulo Zaa-q’ran.” Meanwhile, somewhere further down the long, lonely hall of the asylum, the deep, guttural echo of laughter could be heard by other patients and those willing to listen.