The Book of Madness

By Lincoln Reed

When I opened the Book of Madness, lightning streaked outside the mansion’s window.

Thunder bellowed.

My flashlight illuminated scribblings on the faded pages as I traced my finger along a paragraph, skimming with eyes squinted, mumbling the Latin translation of ancient text. I flipped a page, propping myself against the reading table.

“You, there!” The archivist, a man with a hardened complexion, taut muscles, and a scar across his chin, rushed forward. “I told you! Off limits!”

Lightning danced once more with crooked fingers. As thunder rumbled, the estate library’s mahogany walls groaned. Bookshelves rattled, lined with leatherbound tomes thick with dust. The door to the room’s metal safe—which stored the house’s most valuable collection—stood ajar, evidence of my guilt.

He reached for the Book. I blocked his path. “A few minutes, please! I just need—”

“You won’t find a cure. Not in there.” His lips curled as he attempted to snatch the Book once more. “I warned you. If you read that passage, you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

I shoved him away and returned to the Book, reading as fast as I could.

After months of searching, I had finally located the Book of Madness, and I wasn’t going to give up now. I needed its fabled formula for eternal life, the key to ransoming my wife from death’s grasp. As the storm raged outside the window, I pictured her sunken form in the hospital bed, emaciated, weak, desperate. I had tried explaining my plight to the archivist and the estate, but they didn’t believe in my mission. No one would allow me time alone with the Book. So, I broke in under the cover of darkness.

A few more lines.

The archivist withdrew a taser and pointed the weapon like a gun. “I’m warning you. Back away. We will be pressing charges.”

I scanned the primeval words scratched in archaic ink, complete with runes and unsavory iconography.

Sanguis. Latin for blood.

The archivist called for security while I read slow, translating, speaking the words aloud: “Life beyond… death… requires… sacrifice.”

A blood sacrifice?

As I completed uttering the incantation, the archivist pulled the trigger and released two electrodes.

I dropped to the floor, stunned, writhing, gasping. My muscles constricted, paralyzing me against the floorboards. My flashlight clattered next to me, an arm’s length away.

I watched, helpless, as the Book vibrated on the table above, pages flipping and settling as black mist poured from the binding with a sulfuric aroma. A throbbing frequency pulsed through the wooden floor and rattled the walls. Thunder crashed. Rain drummed at the window. Wind wailed.

The archivist turned off the taser, retreated two steps and froze, cursing himself. “Now we’ve done it.”

Whether by the taser’s lingering effects or some cursed magic, my arms and legs failed me. My heart weighed like a brick. A cold terror froze my spine.

My eyes locked on the open Book, where a snapping and squishing preceded spidery arms emerging from the pages, hands like talons, as dark as the ink on the forbidden writing. Tentacles followed, covered with tiny mouths full of razor teeth.

The being’s tarantula arms prickled with black hairs. The appendages wriggled like vines over the table, spreading around the room, around my ankles.

I twisted and squirmed. Its grasp tightened.

A head emerged from the portal as a horror from some primordial pool, adorned with countless eyes—glittering, inky marbles. Fangs as long as swords dripped saliva. The body was that of a man’s torso—a nightmarish forgery of the Greek statues adorning the mansion’s hallways.

In stark contrast, the image of my wife flashed before me. Her loving gaze. The way we used to hold hands.

I would do anything to see her smile again. To hear her jovial laugh.

I would give my life.

The archivist pointed at me. “The flashlight! Grab the light! Close the Book!”

Leach-like mouths sunk their teeth into my skin. My yell clogged in my throat as a burning sensation scuttled up my limbs. Warm blood trickled.

The archivist let out a cry and sprang forward. He grabbed the flashlight and pointed the beam toward the hellish creature, shining it into the dozens of eyes.

The demon’s jaws opened, fangs glimmering in the light.

“Back, you fiend!” the archivist sneered.

The beast snarled and screeched against the light. The librarian continued forward, aiming the beam.

Tendrils released my legs and snapped upward, following the mass of other appendages as the creature retreated, folding into itself, clambering into the Book like a cockroach fleeing a kitchen light.

When the last hairy arm disappeared into the pages, the archivist lunged toward the volume and slammed the cover shut.

***

As time passed, words from the Book of Madness prowled my mind endlessly. No song could free me from the cursed syllables and the images of forbidden runes.

Night after night, the creature lurked in the upper corner of my prison cell, slippery limbs suckling blood from my legs, completing the ritual until the next morning. Despite the nightly terror, no bite marks lingered on my skin. By whatever dark magic, the beast drained my life force without any evidence.

I sought help from the prison physician, but the devil’s torture only worsened. The beast drained me drop by drop, just enough to quench its thirst without killing me, prolonging my torture.

Months later, when my wife visited me in prison, her face gleamed with renewed life, free from death’s cold embrace. The doctors couldn’t explain her miraculous recovery, but I knew the truth. Whenever the beast’s lust for my blood was fulfilled, I would complete my mission. I would die, and she would live.

Upon my release, I received an unmarked package. Inside, I found my flashlight and a note: If you’re still alive, return. The foul creature won’t let me sleep. If there is a cure for you and me, we’ll need to open the Book again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lincoln Reed is a writer, filmmaker, and professor. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Miami University (OH). More than sixty of his short stories are featured in online publications and print anthologies. Short film adaptations of his Havok stories “Tritanopia” and “Dark Side of the Moon” are currently in their film festival run.

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