The Red Sign

I write this under considerable stress, as by tonight I shall be no more. I do not know who fate will curse with finding my body, if indeed any will remain to be discovered. He looked so hungry to me...
It was several weeks ago, on a misty spring morning that I ventured deeper into the bowels of the Oton Zupancich Library than ever before, and there uncovered the manuscript that would be my undoing. This was not something I would characteristically do; for the most part, I preferred to frequent the fiction section, most notably the Science Fiction and Fantasy. Yet on that morning something called out to me, and I set out amid the towering stacks of books. In truth, the book should have never caught my attention. I had intended to pass the Economics section completely, when a single leather-bound volume, which had seemingly fallen from the shelf, completely enveloped me. I picked it up as a curiosity, only to find that its subject matter held nothing in common with the workings of the financial world. I wonder if it was already too late for me, even then.
It was an occult tome which had been published almost precisely a century earlier, in 1905. I shall not write either of its name or its contents, for given my own experiences, I fear another may seek out either it or another copy. Suffice to say that it was a confused, fragmentary narrative, jumping erratically from passages in English to German and some other language I could not identify. From what I could gather, a great deal of the manuscript regarded a circular symbol referred to as an ascending node, which a sketch portrayed as a joined triangle of circles encased yet another, greater circle. This, the manuscript claimed, would allow a shrewd user to call up the deceased through the ascending node and thus gain the benefit of their counsel.
Having already decided to skip classes that day, I produced a notebook from by school bag and copied the understandable parts as best I could, vowing to try the ritual out, if only for personal entertainment, at the earliest possible chance. However, I soon found that much of the information I would need was contained within the German paragraphs, and, having never been a diligent student of that particular language, I spent several weeks creating a workable translation of a few simplistic, yet highly confused sentences. Above all, I puzzled over the repeated mention of essential salt. I decided that the presence of salt was critical to the success of the ritual, and made notes to ensure I would have a large quantity with me when I first attempted to call up something.
Finally, a day came when I was reasonably certain of my ability to perform the rite. Having no dusty attic in the apartment building which would give me the privacy I would require, I entered the communal clothes-drying room at the top floor, a bag of salt in one hand, my notes and a box of colored chalk in the other. I locked the door behind me and got to work.
The smell of the place was nauseating, mold overlaid with cheap detergent. Still I worked diligently, and soon the node was complete, drawn in red chalk on the dirty gray tiles, every circle accounted for. As the notes suggested, I removed everything but my drawers. I had not yet used the salt I was unsure what it was for, but kept it close to my person at all times out of precaution. Satisfied that the sign was complete, I sat down next to it and began to chant, hoping that the incantation had been written out phonetically and not according to the laws of some strange, unidentifiable language. It was at this point that I finally decided who I would call up. Thinking back at the times I had marveled at his many tales of cosmic horror, it seemed oddly appropriate that I should use the ascending node to call up the dark prince of the macabre.
Y'AI 'NG'NGAH, LOVECRAFT H'EE-L'GEB F'AI THRODOG UAAAH!
How shall I describe what happened after that final guttural scream? The air in the room, hot to the point of giving the sensation of a pressurized cooker suddenly became cold and sticky, and the shadows seemed to grow animated and lively, pulsing with undirected agitation. The walls of the room seemed stretched thin to the point of ripping, all straight lines gone, desperately concealing that which I now fear I will soon see face to face. Then cold hands touched my chest.
I would have screamed then, but my flesh felt mortified and numb, and I was unable to move a single muscle or breathe air through my vocal chords. Slowly, I found my neck turning, an awkward move filled with ungracious rotation.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft stood behind me in funeral garb, face gaunt and eyes dead.
Where are the salts? he asked me in a voice so cultured it was almost possible to miss the inhuman little echoes that trailed in its wake. I could not bring myself to answer.
Where are the salts? he asked anew. Where are - what is that? He pointed at my bag of salt and started to laugh, a sound so without mirth it would have chilled me had my body not felt dead already.
The salts! The essential salts! You have not prepared them! he cried, shaking vigorously like a puppet being jerked into the air by unseen strings. The essential salts - the very things man is made of!
Then he seemed to calm, and a lazy grin grew on his face. But the salts can always be made, if the need arises...
Then he was gone, and I was left alone.
I meant to leave when I felt an odd itching sensation on my left leg. I looked down, and I saw the thumb on my foot slowly grumble away into a pile of red dust, leaving behind a dusty stub that was already being eroded onward. There was no pain or blood, only a hopeless terror when I realized what was to be my fate.
It is almost over now. My legs have already been eaten away, and even as I write these words, my arm is crumbling into the essential salts the called-up has been promised. How can I still live when I saw my heart crumble away into a pile of fine, purplish-red crystal?
It has reached my