Ghouls of the Miskatonic (The Dark Waters Trilogy) (18 page)

Amanda Sharpe wasn’t among them, and according to her professors, she hadn’t attended her classes today. Though he tried not to be alarmed, he couldn’t help but feel a tremor of unease at that fact. Especially given his reading material over the last few days.

The book Alexander had given him sat in his briefcase like a guilty secret, its contents fabulous and hideous in equal measure. Oliver had read the book cover to cover, and had lost several nights sleep over its profane revelations. What sleep he had managed was fitful and filled with amorphous nightmares of guttural chants, slimy-skinned savages, and bloody altars draining into the sea.

Oliver’s eyes were gritty and his manner distracted from his restless nights as he made his way along the brick pathway leading to the Liberal Arts building. The academic in him wanted to ridicule the text of Shrewsbury’s book, placing it alongside W. Scott-Elliot’s
The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria
in terms of academic worth. Yet for all its fantastical claims, Oliver couldn’t help but feel there was a wretched truth to the work. He had never met Laban Shrewsbury, but his reputation among the Miskatonic cognoscenti as a greatly admired scholar warred with the strange and incredible ideas contained in the book.

The claim that a great creature from beyond time and space could be entombed beneath the oceans of Earth, and was worshipped by depraved cults throughout the world, was surely beyond belief. But Shrewsbury was a methodical academic, and his notes (though clearly written in haste and in some state of anxiety) were nothing if not complete. Oliver had cross-referenced many of the missing professor’s notes with extant works from a variety of disciplines and found too many corroborating sources to entirely dismiss the man’s incredible conclusions.

The Yopasi did not fit within this framework of devil-worshipping savages, a fact for which Oliver was monumentally grateful. The more he placed his own findings alongside those of Shrewsbury, the more it became apparent that the Yopasi had stood in direct opposition to this submerged demon creature.

Shrewsbury had rendered this creature’s name as
Cthulhu
, a word redolent with ancient evil with its abominable arrangement of syllables. Yet even amid its sheer
alienness
, there was a hint of something familiar to the word—a teasing memory lurking in the corners of Oliver’s mind, like he had once heard something similar.

The book’s frightening final chapter posited the dreadful notion that should any of these Cthulhu-worshipping cults succeed in awaking their star-spawned master, the world would end. Such an outcome was terrifying enough, but more horrible still was Shrewsbury’s contention that Cthulhu’s destruction would not be visited upon the Earth through some diabolical scheme of malicious evil, but through the simple act of his sunken city rising to the surface. As the world of men destroyed the habitats of the animal kingdom with unthinking expansion, wiping out entire species without even registering their existence, so too would Cthulhu destroy the race of Man.

That was as much notice as humanity merited within the monstrous, abyssal mind of this terrible creature of darkness.

Shrewsbury’s writings hinted that he feared for his life, and the work devolved into paranoia by its last paragraphs. Believing that swarthy men of mongrel appearance were following him, Shrewsbury had made veiled references of a plan to escape his pursuers. Whether he had met his end at the hands of some deranged cultist of Cthulhu, or had enacted his plan of flight, was a mystery to which Oliver could find no answer. If Shrewsbury
had
met an unsavory end, might Oliver’s research mean his own life was in danger? Was Amanda’s?

Indeed, were one to stretch the theory, might the destruction visited upon the island of the Yopasi be interpreted as a preemptive move in an imminent war? As opponents of this dread Cthulhu, had they been wiped from the face of the Earth in preparation for his great awakening?

This was just the same paranoia that had eaten away at Laban Shrewsbury.

But just because Shrewsbury sounded paranoid, didn’t mean he was wrong. Oliver’s skin chilled and he halted in the middle of the path, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. The fiendish text was making his imagination conjure the essence of Morley Dean’s rambling monologues from their time in Alaska to scare him with lunatic delusions of monstrous conspiracies and abhorrent
things
lurking in every shadow. Allowing his thoughts to run amok had almost destroyed Morley, and that was not a road Oliver wished to follow.

Alexander’s book had opened up terrifying new vistas of understanding, though the creeping horror gnawing away at Oliver’s sanity made him wish he remained ignorant of these new horizons. It was a blessing to live in innocence, to feel the world was a benevolent place in which Man was preeminent. To know the truth of its bleak hostility stripped away any comforting notion of natural justice and exposed the nightmarish insignificance of his species.

Oliver opened his eyes as a momentary dizziness threatened to overcome him.

His eyes were drawn to a suspicious-looking man staring at him from the trees growing around the Copley Tower. Their eyes met and Oliver saw grim purpose in the other man’s face as he left the shadows and strode toward him. Unkempt and of obvious low character, he came at Oliver with a cloth-wrapped bundle held in front of him.

Oliver swiftly retraced his route back to the Tyner Annex, but the disheveled man was quicker, grabbing his arm and turning him around.

“I really need to talk to you,” said the man in a soft Irish brogue.

* * *

Finn gripped the professor’s arm, and the man’s expression was like a panicked deer. The professor pulled his briefcase away from Finn, as though it contained gold bullion instead of term papers and impenetrable books about physics and chemistry.

“Relax, fella,” said Finn. “I ain’t here to rob you.”

“What do you want?” the man asked. “I don’t have any money.”

“I told you, I ain’t trying to rob you, and I ain’t begging,” said Finn. “I’m looking for some help. Science help.”

“I don’t follow,” said the man. The professor’s eyes continued to dart between Finn and the briefcase. Whatever was in there, the man was scared to lose it.

Or be caught with it.

“What kind of help?” continued the professor, his voice high with pumped adrenaline.

“I got something here I need to show someone with book smarts,” said Finn, holding the silver sphere out to the professor. “They tell me this place is full of smart people, so I figured I’d ask one of you fine professors. I need to know what this is, and I need to know pretty damn quickly.”

“Ah, I see,” said the man, staring in confusion at the sphere. “You don’t want me at all, actually. I’m not a scientist. My name is Oliver Grayson. I’m an anthropologist.”

“I don’t know what an anthropologist is, but I figure anyone with a job title that fancy has to be smart enough to help me.”

“Really,” insisted Oliver, tapping the sphere. “I’m not a scientist. At least not one who deals in things like this.”

“So how comes I find ye in a science building?” asked Finn.

“I was looking for someone,” said Oliver, before the ridiculousness of the situation occurred to him. “Not that it’s any business of yours. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

“Please,” said Finn, a measure of desperation entering his voice. “You gotta help me. I need to find out what this is or I’m a dead man.”

That stopped the professor in his tracks, and he looked around him as though they were in the middle of a booze deal and the cops were lurking just around the corner. He looked at the sphere, as though only now really seeing it. His eyes narrowed as he took in its queer strangeness, and Finn saw fearful indecision war with dangerous curiosity.

“Like I told you Mr.…”

“Call me Finn.”

“Like I told you, Mr. Finn: I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know what help I can be to you.”

“Yeah, but you know scientists,” pleaded Finn. “Else you wouldn’t have been in there, eh? Please, I’m asking for help and I got nowhere else to turn.”

Oliver stared at him, seeing the real desperation in his eyes. Finn saw the decision to help him take shape in his features and let out a sigh of relief.

“Very well, Mr. Finn,” said Oliver. “I think I know someone who can help you. Follow me, and for heaven’s sake, put that thing away. You never know who’s looking.”

“Sure thing, Doc,” said Finn.

“I’m a professor, Mr. Finn,” said Oliver. “Not a doctor.”

“Sure thing, Prof,” replied Finn. “God love you, but I think you might just save me life.”

CHAPTER NINE

You should never go to places that are frequented at night during the day. That was one of Rex’s rules, but he was breaking it by coming to the Commercial at noon. He’d been to speakeasies more than a few times, but never this one and never while the sun was shining. It made him feel acutely vulnerable, knowing that this was an illegal drinking den and he was here in broad daylight. Anyone could be watching.

A couple of days trawling the refectories and streets of the Miskatonic campus with pockets full of dollar bills had yielded the name of this speakeasy. The Commercial was apparently
the
place to go to listen to jazz and drink illegal liquor. If there was anywhere that Lydia Stone would have gone for a night on the town, it was here.

“Something wrong, Rex?” asked Minnie, taking a photograph of the club’s exterior.

“Hey!” said Rex. “Don’t take my picture in front of a damn speakeasy.”

“Aw, but you had a cute look on your face,” said Minnie, winding the camera on.

“Come on, this is serious,” said Rex.

“Yeah, I know,” replied Minnie. “Twenty-four missing girls serious.”

Rex shrugged and squinted at the nondescript door that led into the Commercial. There was nothing to pick it out from the dozens of other doors, if you didn’t count the extra locks and the screws sunk into the heavy wood at the top and bottom that indicated the presence of heavy deadbolts. And, of course, the letterbox located at eye height.

“Inconvenient for postmen,” noted Minnie.

“Yeah, but handy for anyone inside who wants to see who’s come to pay a call.”

Rex lit a cigarette, sheltering the match from the brisk wind blowing down the street. He looked along its length in both directions, seeing no one moving down the sidewalks or going about their business. The town had a strange, hinky vibe to it lately. It was creepy.

“This is creepy,” he said.

“What?”

“This,” said Rex. “All of it. I mean, how do we even know Stone’s on the level? He could be spinning us a line with all this talk of missing girls.”

“He’s not,” insisted Minnie. “I sent a wire to a guy I know in the New York office. Says he knows Stone and says he’s on the up and up. Told me the man was like a bloodhound—one of their toughest agents. Broke the Crookback Red strike in ’21. Almost single-handedly, so he says.”

Rex whistled, remembering the infamous labor union of the New York docks that had tried to resurrect the fearsome reputation of the Bowery Boys and the Plug Uglies: notorious gangs that had once filled the streets of New York with enormous riots and epidemics of violence.

“He did that, really?”

Minnie nodded. “And I looked in his eyes, Rex. I saw how bad he was hurting. He’s on the level, trust me.”

“Okay, I’ll take your word for it, but wouldn’t we have heard at least
something
if that many girls had gone missing from the university? There’s few enough of them as it is.”

“Rex, honey,” said Minnie, heading toward the door. “Shows what you know about being a woman.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I bet the deans of the university aren’t too bothered about women leaving their hallowed halls. I can’t say for sure, but I’d bet the farm they weren’t happy about letting them come to Miskatonic in the first place.”

“You think they know these girls are going missing, but just don’t care? That’s pretty harsh, Minnie.”

“It’s a harsh world,” said Minnie, knocking on the door. “Now are we going to do our job or what?”

“Sure, and here’s me thinking
I’m
the reporter and you’re the photographer.”

“I’m a woman—I can do lots of things at once.”

“So I’m learning,” noted Rex as the letterbox creaked open and a hostile pair of eyes regarded them with rather less affection than a panhandling bum.

“We’re closed,” said the eyes.

“We’re not looking to drink,” said Rex, stepping up next to Minnie.

“Then get lost.”

“Here,” said Minnie, shoving a ten dollar bill into the letterbox. It was snatched in by a pair of grubby fingers. “We just want to talk. A few minutes of your time, that’s all.”

“You ain’t cops are you?”

Rex laughed. “Do we look like cops? Hell, I’ll take a drink inside if you want me to prove how much of a cop I’m not.”

Minnie shot him a look and said, “We work for the
Advertiser
.”