The Mountains Of Madness
Part 2

Danforth's eyes and nose proved better than mine, because he was the first to notice the strange aspect of the debris after we passed through many half-clogged arches leading to rooms and corridors on the ground floor. It didn't look like it should after countless thousands of years of desertion, and as we carefully lit more light, we saw some sort of swath seemed to have recently been traced through it. The irregular nature of litter blocks any definite markings, but in more delicate places there are suggestions for dragging heavy objects. We used to think there was a bit of a parallel trail, as if a runner. This is what makes us stop again.

During that pause we caught — in unison this time — other scents in front. Paradoxically, it is a not-so-scary and more frightening smell — is not too intrinsically frightening, but it is very terrible in this place under known circumstances, Gedney. . . . Because the smell is regular gasoline and regular — gasoline every day.

Our motivation after that is something I will leave to the psychologist. We know by now that some horrifying extension of the horrors of the encampment must have crept into the burial site of these aeon nights, he said, hence can not doubt anymore the existence of the condition without name — now or at least recently — right in front. But in the end we let the burning curiosity — or anxiety — or auto hypnotism — or the vague thought of responsibility towards Gedney — or what not — push us. Danforth whispered again about the prints he thought he had seen in the passageway that turned the ruins over; and the vague music piping of — is potentially of tremendous significance in light of Lake's dissection report though very similar to the cave-mouth echo of the windy peaks of — which he thinks he did shortly thereafter half heard from the unknown depths below. I, in turn, whispered about how the camp was left — about what it had lost, and about how the madness of a lone survivor could imagine the unimaginable — wild journey across the terrible mountains and down to the previously unknown bricks.

But we cannot convince each other, or even ourselves, of something certain. We had turned off all the light as we stood still, and vaguely noticed that the heavily filtered upper day imprint made the darkness not absolute. After automatically starting to move forward, we guided ourselves with the occasional burst of our torches. The disturbed debris formed an impression that we could not remove, and the smell of gasoline grew stronger. More and more damage met our eyes and hampered our feet, until we soon saw that the way forward would stop. We were too right in our pessimistic guesses about the rift being glimpsed from the air. Our tunnel search is blind, and we won't even be able to reach the basement where the openings are open.

The torch, which flashed over the strange carved wall of the blocked corridor we were standing in, emitted several doors in various states of the barrier; and from one of them the smell of gasoline - enough to drown the other smell - comes with a major difference. When we looked more steadily, we saw that there was without a doubt a small and recent cleanup of that gap. Whatever horrors lurked, we believe the direct path to it is now clearly real. I don't think anyone will wonder that we wait for enough time before making any further moves.

Let me be clear. The scattered things, as far as substance is concerned, were all from Lake's camp; and consisted of strangely opened cans as we saw them in the ravaged place, many spent matches, three picture books more or less curiously, empty ink bottles with illustrated and instructional cartons, a broken pen, some with strange pieces of fur and tent fabric, used electric batteries with a directional loop, folders that come with our tent-type heaters, and a sprinkling of crumpled papers. It was all bad enough, but when we tidied up the papers and saw what was inside, we felt like we had achieved the worst. We have found certain unexplained papers in the camp that may have prepared us, but the effect of the scenery down there in the pre-human dome in the nightmare city is almost too much to bear.

Crazy Gedney might make those point groups mimic those found in greenish soap stones, just like the dots on those crazy five-tipped mounds of tombs; and he might be able to make rough sketches, though, haste — varies in its accuracy or lack — which outlines the neighboring parts of the city and traces its way from the place represented circularly outside our previous route — the place we identified as the large cylinder of the tower in the sculptured and as the vast round bay flashed in our aerial survey — to the current five-pointed structure and mouth-tunnel inside. He may, I repeat, have prepared such sketches; for the people before us were clearly compiled because our statue came from a final sculpture somewhere in the glacial labyrinth, he said, but not from what we have seen and used. But what this blind man could not do was execute those sketches with a strange and convincing technique, perhaps superior, despite the haste and carelessness, he said, against the carving of any chisel from which they are taken — typical and undoubted techniques of the Old. The only self in the heyday of the city died.