The Cultist entered the special collections area after I had finished reading, as I was absorbing all I had read in Thurston's account. The room had been as silent as a tomb; at the slight creaking of the door's hinge, my neck snapped towards the entrance. The man did not have the look of any academic I had ever seen. He was decidedly burly, and his bearing caused me to believe we has as comfortable on the deck of a ship as on dry land, possibly more so. I was already in a terrified state, and my mind immediately went to the strange circumstances under which Thurston, Angell, and Johansen had all died.
The sailor (as I assume him to be) fixed his gaze on me, and I immediately knew my fears about his intentions were justified. I started gathering the papers I had been reading into my bag (yes, the originals--in my haste to escape, I stole Thurston's papers. I copied them at the earliest opportunity and mailed the originals back). He approached me from behind and to the right, being seated on the aisle side of the table I'd chosen. As I closed my bag and stood up, he grabbed a table and flung it on his side, blocking my escape.
"I believe you have something that's not yours in that bag. You ought to give it me so I can return it to its rightful owner." He spoke in an accent I didn't recognize, but didn't believe to be native to Boston, but maybe further north in New England.
"I don't think you're here to collect items for the library," I retorted as I looked for an escape. I saw that he had one hand in the pocket of his coat, adjusting his grip on something therein.
"I said I would return them to their rightful owner. There are some things that don't belong in the houses of human knowledge--some things man was not meant to know." On the other side of the overturned table, he seemed to be waiting for me to make my move. I knew I couldn't overpower him, and did not want to get within arms' reach of him, lest I find out what was in his pocket. The cases of Angell and Johansen's death both involved being jostled or handled by suspected Cultists, so I felt that I'd likely be safe as long as I kept my distance.
However, I still had the problem that there was only one way out of the special collections room, and there was a table and a murderous Cultist between myself and the exit. We were alone in the room, and my shouts of fear when the table had been overturned had not attracted any help. Searching frantically for an exit, ran into the small stacks in the special collections area. I realized immediately the strategic error I had made, as my movements were even more restricted in the stacks than they were in the study area.
I stood at one end of the aisle I was on, and saw the Cultist enter my aisle. I ran up the intersecting aisle, and heard his footsteps quicken behind me. I saw a book cart full of old volumes (which I pray I didn't damage), ran behind it, grabbed the handles and run full-force towards the aisle my pursuer was emerging from. I took him straight on and after the horrifying crash that resulted I ran out without looking back. I ran straight out of the library, despite the shouts and protests of the staff, ran straight back to my car (still carrying the originals of Thurston's work in my bag), got in, and drove until I needed gas two hours later.
Thus I completed my quest for knowledge about the Cult. What little knowledge mainstream scholarly work had produced about the Cult of Cthulhu, I now had on my person. I knew as anxiously waited for my tank to fill that I must now conduct my own field work and research, searching out the Cult and gathering evidence about the machinations, about their ambitions, and about the threat that their leader presented to the American public. Barack Obama has a plan, a plan to see Cthulhu risen from where he sleeps beneath the waves. I did not understand all the details, or what other threats he and the Cult might pose to America and mankind, but I knew he had to be exposed. This is a blog of my travels, my quest, and the repository of everything I learn.
May heaven protect us all.
