Room 502

Somewher in Arkham County a man named William Kurtz had died, the victim of a fire that consumed his apartment. Now it's up to insurance agent Arthur Teller to discover the truth behind his death.....

Room 502

 

Dated August 1929:

 

It was a hot summer day when I was called into the office. At the time, I worked as an investigator for the insurance company Martin and Brooke. As investigator, I was dispatched to scrutinize and analyze the validity of suspect claims, determining whether the beneficiaries would receive the compensation due to them. This claim, in particular, concerned a man named William Kurtz, a middle aged gas station attendant working for the Texacar Oil Company. Recently, his residence had been destroyed in a fire of some kind, and with it, Kurtz. Thus it fell to me to investigate the claim, and determine whether Kurtz's lone survivor, his estranged son Conner, would receive the benefits of Mr. Kurtz's policy. As I am aware, it seems all attempts to contact Conner proved fruitless, as he had long cut off any relation with his father. I do not know whether Conner has ever been properly notified of his father's passing. In hindsight, I could have simply used my vacation time and ignored the case, but my desire to work betrayed me. Little did I know what this would entail.

 

 

I arrived in Arkham County the day next, and began by indentifying the residence in question. A small room on the fifth floor of the Motterhead inn. Room number 502.

 

 

Prior to investigating the room itself, I decided to interview the other tennents in an attempt to gain a greater understanding of Kurtz's mindset, and to learn more of his behavior prior to the incident. Most were either unwilling to cooperate or unhelpful in their descriptions. All I could discern was that Kurtz was a rather introverted and close minded individual, who rarely left his room. The only one who proved of any use to the investigation was Kurtz's former neighbor, a man only known to me by the name Abel. Abel had lost his home in the same fire that had claimed Kurtz's. According to the owner of the Motterhead, long before the incident occurred, Abel had heard constant banging from Kurtz's room, and it prevented him from sleeping, which explained his almost deluded humor when I interviewed him. At first, I suspected the fire to be his doing, a combination of sleep deprived mania and annoyance. But upon interviewing him, this idea was quickly banished. Abel was so lacking in sleep that he could barely speak or stand, let alone commit an act of arson. The interview itself was.... enlightening. It mostly consisted of stops and starts, as Abel continually fell into half lucid states of consciousness. The interview ended up being an exercise in patience for both parties.

 

The following is a transcript of the few choice moments Abel retained any form of rationality:

 

“Kurtz.... Kurtz man.” He spends several minutes inhaling his cigarette.

 

“I used to know em, we used to be.... be.... watcha.... watcha-”

 

“Friends?”

 

“Yeah, what ya said. Ya know-” He exhales, smoke cascading across his face. It was then I noticed how unnaturally slender his face was, the pale skin clinging so close to his skull you could see it bulge at several places.

 

“Lot'a people gonna say he's some kind'a fink. Spent all his time in his room. Never came out.” He throws the cigarette on the ground and crushes it under his boot.

 

“But th'ay fergot. Th'ay always ferget. He wasn't like dat.... not always...”

 

“How do you know?”

 

“Told ya I was his watchmacalit. We hung out all da time.” He fumbles to try and light another cigarette, but his hands are too shaky to do anything of worth. I offer assistance but he refuses, eventually giving up.

 

“Always drank at dat place. Talk en stuff ya know?” He points to the Rust Cover, a bar frequented by patrons of low class.

 

“What did you and mister Kurtz talk about?”

 

“The Africoon's dat's what.” I pause for a second.

 

“I... I'm sorry?”

 

“Africoons.... Arfs, Angus, Apes. Ya know?”

 

“You mean, people of color?”

 

“Yah, whatever ya civilized bunch call dem Mongeleraoids.” He spits something onto the ground. For obvious reasons, I do not investigate. I interrupted him with a cough.

 

“So if Mr. Kurtz wasn't always a shut in like you say.... what changed?”

 

“Don't know.... wait-” He fumbles a cigarette up to his mouth, but it drops out of his hand. He himself almost falls onto the pavement, but he wakes up at the last second. His face bears the look of a man who is ready, and willing, to expunge the contents of his stomach.

 

“There was.... somedin. Said he got a.... a rock? At Harrison Hills, yeah, near dat observatory. Said that he found some rock er something, said that it was gonna make us rich. Dat it had guld inside et.”

 

“What happened after that?”

 

“What do ya think? Stoped going out, just stayed in. Others would come and put food undaneth, didn't even hear him except for the banging. Just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, BANG!..... and the screams....”

 

“Screams?”

“Silent screams, screams of fear, ya wouldn't hear dem on there own, only if you listen.... only if ya get past da banging.....”

 

“Did this happen all the time? Like the banging?”

 

“No... no.... only da night before dat blue fire.”

 

“Blue, fire?”

 

“Yah, guess whatever was indere was really cooken eh?” He lets out a half halfhearted laugh. Immediately his skin turns pale, and his eyes lifeless.

 

“I'm done.”

 

 

Following my.... “conversation” with Abel, my notepad had been filled to capacity, but only small pieces of the transcript could be deciphered into any form rational thought. The idea of a racist who stayed home alone in his apartment day and night did nothing to convince me the accident was legitimate. The fact that the fire was blue did peak some measure of curiosity within me, but at the time I simply chalked it up to Abel's sleepless stupor of a mind. The banging is what I focused on. Clearly of Kurtz's own creation. Perhaps depression, or schizophrenia. It would explain his odd behavior prior to the incident, and his previous leanings toward racial hatred may have played a part in some form of suicidal self-loathing. Upon making this deduction,  I decided that my preliminary investigation was complete, and that the time had come for me to investigate the room itself, hopefully bringing a swift end to what I thought at the time to be a simple case of arson.

 

Could I do it again, I never would have stepped foot in that room.

 

 

My interview with Abel had consumed more of the day than expected. By the time I entered the apartment, the sun had already faded from view, necessitating the need for a flashlight. Unsurprisingly, the apartment was charred black from the fire, so much so that I feared I would fall through the floor to the room below. Though the fire had been put out two days previous, the room was still caked in an oppressive atmosphere of heat, resulting in me removing my coat so as to give me some hope of survival. Almost immediately upon entering, I noticed it in the center of the room, seemingly untouched by the fire. A small, strangely geometric rock. It looked round, but had impossible edges everywhere. It hurt my head just to look at it. But that was not the strangest feature it possessed, for it was cracked open in the middle. Not in the way someone would break a rock open with a chisel, rather the crack was smooth, as if it had been cut with utmost precision, or it would, if the inside of the rock possessed some form of scratching. Instead, it looked similar the hollow shell of an egg. The area around it was complete untouched by any sign of fire, and the rock, in opposition to the overbearing heat that surrounded it, was cold to the touch. Immediately, my mind drew back to the rock Abel had said Kurtz found. Perhaps this was that rock? At the time though, I was concerned only with determining the cause of the fire, and cared little for anything else that did not directly contribute to its discovery, which is why I returned the rock back to where it had been before. To this day, not keeping possession of that rock, and with it, proof of my claims, has been my greatest regret. Further investigation of the apartment, and what it held, told much of Kurtz. Singed pictures of his son littered the floor, as did pages from Mein Kampf. The apartment was barren, save for a bed and horribly burned husks of food. Even the Fridge, which had remained relatively unharmed, contained no food. It was under the floorboards near his bed that I discovered a pile of several severely burned guns. At the very center of the pile, right next to where the floorboard once was, lay an almost featureless clump of metal. I would not have thought anything of it had the remains of a gun barrel not have jutted out at the edge, leading me to the conclusion that the clump I held had once held the form of a small gun. A pistol most likely. The bullets for said guns were nowhere to be found, yet thousands of melted shells littered the floor, all concentrated around the strange rock. I found it odd that a simple fire could manage to melt both a gun and its many bullets into nothing but bland lumps of metal. Yet again my mind was drawn to Abel, and his claim of blue fire. However, this did nothing to aid my investigation, so once again I banished the thought from my mind.

 

At this point, the sound of creaking that emerged from the wood as I walked upon it began to try my patience. Every coherent thought I would create would be drowned out by the endless creaking. Here I actually wished to fall through the floor, if only to end the ceaseless noise that emanated from the burnt wood. Quite ironically though, it would end up leading to the final piece of the puzzle. I quickly discovered that areas that suffered the most damage creaked louder than the others. Following the steadily increasing noise, I discovered in the floor, some ways away from the bedroom, a sizable hole. Near it was more ash and charring then anywhere else within the apartment. With the flashlight as my guide, I plunged my hand into the hole, and retrieved the burnt husk of what was once a gas canister. The final piece. While it had been faded by flame and ash, the logo of Texacar Oil, Mr Kurtz employer, was still visible. As I had hypothesized, Mr Kurtz had created the fire himself, using gasoline that he had acquired from his employers. Whether Kurtz committed suicide, or simply got caught up in a failed scheme to illicitly receive an influx of insurance money was irrelevant. The mystery was solved, and my task complete. Yet even still, some aspects continued to defy sense. Why did Kurtz resign himself to his room in his final days? What was the rock and why had it not been touched by the fire? Moreover, why was the fire blue? My mind raced to uncover the answers, but my thoughts were again interrupted by the creaking.... the constant, unceasing, creaking. I directed my anger toward the floor, accusing it to be the cause of my annoyance. A chill ran down my spine as I came to realize....

 

I had stopped moving. Something else was causing the floor to bend.

 

 

 

Slowly, I turned around to the source of the maddening sound, and what I saw is beyond any description that one of this world can give. Even now my mind aches whenever I attempt to recall its grotesque features. It was a mass of black flesh, smooth, rough and scaled in equal measure. Its pure black palette broken only by the innumerable eyes it possessed, all glowing a sinister shade of red. It may sound unbelievable, nay, impossible, but every second I gazed upon it, its size, shape and width seemed to change. At times, it would appear impossibly thin, before being the size of the room. Then, in short order the size of a mouse, before repeating. Tendrils and other such appendages extended from every part of the creatures body. Never still, always writhing and moving in a manner that would bring even the hardiest of souls to the verge of sickness. The only part of the creature that seemed to stay constant were its legs. They appeared to be the size of an ordinary man's legs. In all likelihood, the creature could walk like a human, but it refused. Posing in a manner like an animal. A cruel mockery of nature.

 

I could not move, nor breathe, I could barely think. I was gripped with unbearable fear. I felt it grow within me, absorbing organs as it pleased and leaving me nothing but a hollowness inside of my mind. Before I could react properly, something emerged from the creature, exactly what I may never know, and rendered me unconscious.

 

 

When I awoke, I at first considered the horror but a dream. A cruel jest concocted by my mind that had passed all levels of decency. To my misfortune however, this was no dream. I awoke to a burning sensation in my right leg. When I turned my head to uncover its source, I discovered the creature, burrowing the closest thing it had to teeth into my leg. My body froze as the sharp sliver of pain paralyzed me, nearly rendering me unconscious once again. I felt the creature's teeth dig into me, their serrated edges grinding upon my flesh and bone. The pain was excruciating, and like the creature itself, indescribable. I wished to scream, but my fear left me with nothing but a growl, a silent scream. The very same William Kurtz had uttered on the night before he died. Unlike Kurtz however, I was determined to survive my encounter with this impossible creature. As luck would have it, the beast had failed to relieve me of my flashlight. Wasting no time, I crashed the flashlight into the beast's head. Its grip released upon my leg, and it fell backwards from the force of the blow. Adrenaline running through me, I struck the creature again.... again... again.... again.

 

As the blows came in higher frequency, the sicking sound of the flashlight upon the creature’s flesh came faster and faster. Finally, in a feat of strength I have yet to replicate, the culminating blow hit in what I assume was the middle of the creature's head, causing several of its eyes to burst. A red mist fell over the room, leaving droplet's all along the walls and upon my clothes. The empty sockets oozed blood of the color blue. The creature let out a bloodcurdling scream, and broke the flashlight in two. Realizing that I could not find victory in this battle, I ran. My blood soaked right leg hobbling as fast as it could. Fear ran through me. Several times I could feel the creature's tendrils attempting to tear at my back, missing by only inches. Finally, I was able to escape, and in welcome surprise, the creature did not dare follow me outside of the room. Expressing my relief in the form of a cynical laugh. I quickly made my way down the stairs, my right leg still throbbing, and drove away.

 

 

Due to this incident, my stay in Arkham County would be significantly longer than originally planned. This would eventually cost me my employment, but it did not matter... not anymore. I attempted to find Abel once again, hoping his testimony would fill in the few loose ends that remained. All I would find was a bloated, waterlogged corpse. According to the police, his lack of sleep had ultimately been his downfall, as it would cause him to fall off the edge of a pier and drown in the water. I however, believe that Abel was unable to comprehend what happened that night, and chose to take his life, rather than face the horrors that the true world possessed. Considering recent events, I could not, and still cannot, denounce him. Simply because Abel had passed though, did not mean he was not still useful. Following the lead he had given me, I drove to Harrison Hills. There I spoke with a researcher for the nearby observatory that Abel had also mentioned. He reveled that four months prior to the fire, his observatory had witnessed a small meteorite crash into the hills. He and his colleges had found it odd that the meteorite, despite its small size, had not burned up in the atmosphere. They sent a team out to try and recover the specimen, however, by the time they reached the crash site, there was not a thing to be found, expect for ash and disappointment. He explained that it was likely an error from their instruments, and that the meteorite had simply burned into nothingness like the rest of its kin. I thanked the doctor for his time, and went on my way.

 

 

I do not claim to be all knowing, nor that the version of events I have determined is correct. But for all I was able to uncover in the months I spent in Arkham County, this is what I discovered: Sometime ago, a meteorite landed in Harrison Hills, Kurtz was near the hills at the time, believing for unknown reasons that the rock would contain gold, he chose to take the meteorite before the team from the observatory could find it. Kurtz took it back to his apartment... where it hatched. The hatchling creature, in some way, tortured Kurtz, driving him and inevitably his neighbor Abel, mad. Kurtz, out of desperation, attempted to shoot the creature multiple times, when this failed to achieve any effect, he chose to use the gas he had acquired from his employer to try to burn the creature alive. This failed as well, killing himself in the process (though I doubt that Kurtz did not plan this). Due to a reaction with the creature foreign biology, the fire turned blue, the same colour as the creature's blood.

 

This is what I believe to be the truth. What else there is to the story, if anything, I will likely never know. The issue of what to do about the creature that infested Room 502 was one that troubled me for several months. At times, I considered simply taking a shotgun to its head and ending it, other times I considered burning it, until I remembered Kurtz's failed attempts on both accounts and banished the thoughts. Many times, I ravished the idea of simply fleeing and letting someone with more skill and courage then I deal with this creature. Ultimately, fear was the deciding factor, and fear determined that I flee.

 

I have not returned to Arkham County since. The fate of the creature, the town, and its residents are unknown to me. Since then, I have traveled to many places, telling my tale to anyone who would listen, only to be denied at every turn, or left to ponder my thoughts from the view of a padded room. I have found myself in many Asylums and other such institutions. Each one plannting the idea of insanity inside my mind. That what I witnessed was not real, that it was only the ramblings of a sick mind. But I know what I have seen, I know the truth, and that is why I am writing this now.

 

No one would listen, no would heed me, so I hope that this will serve as warning to all who would travel to Arkham County. A warning to all who would try to meddle and tamper in things they could never understand. Please, do not go to Arkham County. Do not go to the Moterhead Inn.

 

And for the love of god....

 

Do not enter Room 502!

 

 

-Copy of the last recorded writing of former insurance investigator Arthur Teller before his suicide in 1930.

 

The piece is assumed to be an autobiographical account of Teller's first schizophrenic episode.

 

The piece was never published. Newspapers and other informational outlets refused it, believing it to be utter fantasy. And much to Teller's chagrin, suggested it be published in magazines like Lovecraft's stories. It’s commonly believed that this heavily contributed to Teller's suicide.

 

Despite Teller being declared Schizophrenic many times over, no one had ever been able to confirm or deny Teller's claims. Especially when it comes to his account of the creature in Room 502. The Motterhead Inn remains in business to this day, yet for reasons never revealed to the public, Room 502 remains untouched, and many brochures and travel guides don't even mention the Room at all.

 

The piece was considered lost after Teller's assets were sold in an auction. It recently turned up at the doorstep of journalist Ben Foster in 2014. The document contained many retractions and other eliminations of words and facts, the preceding was the best Foster and several others could make of what remained.

 

 

The original, uncensored, document, has never been found.....