Ghouls of the Miskatonic (The Dark Waters Trilogy) (36 page)

Then she cursed, wondering how long she’d been out of it.

Amanda was counting on her. Every minute was crucial.

“I promised I wouldn’t let you down, Mandy,” sobbed Rita, climbing to her feet and making her way north on unsteady legs to the point where the island was closest to shore. She followed narrow trails of hard-packed earth, the rising sun illuminating her path as if trying to aid her escape from the ghouls.

The farther she traveled, the more Rita began to realize that she was not this island’s first visitor. Clearings with the remains of fires dotted her path, and scattered around them were curious collections of random ephemera.

A woman’s high heel wrapped in an emerald pashmina.

A broken string of black pearls.

A dented brooch with a red flower in the middle, a scrap of sequined cloth still attached.

Mixed in with the debris of flappers’ outfits, Rita saw other items, terrible objects that echoed the dreadful place of captivity from which she had just escaped. A grinning skull sat in the remains of a cold fire, the bone blackened and scorched. A picked-clean ribcage lay discarded at the edge of one clearing and a pile of bones, stacked like cordwood sat beside the kind of log you might sit on to roast marshmallows.

“Oh, hell no,” said Rita as the truth dawned on her. “This is where they killed them. They killed them and ate them here. Oh sweet baby Jesus, no.”

Terror flooded her at the thought of the ghouls feasting on the living by the light of dancing fires. This was their killing ground, where God only knew how many girls had been tortured and murdered for these sick bastards’ amusement.

Though her body was drained beyond the point of exhaustion, Rita ran through the darkness of the island toward the north shore.

* * *

Rex took a mouthful of coffee, then wished he hadn’t. He and Minnie had been up all night cooking up some pieces to keep Harvey off their backs, and had drunk pot after pot of the stuff. The story they’d promised the irascible editor was turning out to be far more outrageous than they could have ever believed, and Rex wasn’t sure Harvey would buy into all this talk of ancient gods and forbidden cults.

They’d filed some puff pieces about the inability of the cops to catch the murderers and the effect it was having on Arkham. It wasn’t hard to see how scared the townsfolk were. There’d been a couple of lynchings where “concerned citizens” had beaten up some poor unfortunate caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. A few immigrant windows had suffered bricks thrown through them, and one tenement had been set on fire. The building was supposed to be abandoned, but Rex had heard on the grapevine that some bodies had been found in the basement: hobos, fugitives from the law, or something worse?

In Arkham you never knew.

It was just past ten, and Lucy’s was quieter than Rex had ever seen it. Only a few working stiffs sat at the counter, and most of the booths were empty. The few folk that were in avoided eye contact and spoke in hushed whispers, furtively glancing over their shoulders to see who might be listening in on their words. Looking through the painted window, Rex could see the street beyond was virtually deserted.

Ghost streets.

Rats deserting a sinking ship.

Is Arkham the ship?

What happens if it goes under?

It was only a short walk from the offices of the
Advertiser
to Aunt Lucy’s, but Rex would have expected to see a few pedestrians on the street. Automobiles hadn’t yet taken over Arkham like some doomsayers predicted they would in every city in America.

Minnie appeared with two plates of apple pie topped with fresh cream and placed one before Rex. She sat down and took a forkful of her own slice with a smile of relish.

“Bit early for pie, isn’t it?” said Rex.

“It’s never too early for pie,” said Minnie. “Besides, we deserve it after all the work we put in last night. Not how I usually like to spend the night while I’m awake, but never mind.”

Rex took a slice of pie and nodded. “Not bad. Pie in the morning. Could be the start of something, Minnie.”

“You and I sharing breakfast together?” said Minnie with a tired smile. “People will talk.”

Rex laughed. “This ain’t a big town, Minnie. Talk is all people do here.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence as they ate their pie and drank their coffee while they waited for Stone, Templeton, and Grayson to arrive. They were early, but that suited Rex just fine. It would give the pair of them time to mull over all that had happened the day before, the fantastical things they had heard, and the monstrous nature of the dark forces at work in Arkham.

“Maybe it’s the tiredness or the caffeine kicking in, but the more I think of all we heard yesterday, the harder time I have believing it,” said Rex as he laid down his fork.

“You don’t think there’s anything to it at all?”

“I didn’t say that,” replied Rex. “I just mean that it’s a lot to believe. Going from thinking the world is a pretty normal place to finding out it’s anything but takes a bit of getting used to. I think it’ll take time for it all to sink in.”

“I know what you mean, but I think I’ve had longer to get used to it than you.”

“How so?”

“Those pictures I took last year, the ones I burned? They weren’t the first like that I’ve taken. I’ve always had an eye for the creepy and the bizarre. Did you know my dad took me to Arkham Asylum when I was thirteen?”

Rex almost choked on his coffee. “He did what? Why?”

“I’d saved all my allowance for a year, and got myself a camera from Walter’s Optics. But I didn’t want to take family portraits or photographs of our dog. I went out and took pictures of dark alleys, road-kill, and the creepy guys you see hiding in the graveyard. Looking back, I can kind of see where Dad was coming from, but at the time I didn’t understand why he couldn’t see the things I was seeing. To keep my folks happy I stopped taking photographs of the things you only see out of the corner of your eye, and just snapped stuff for the family album. They bought it, but I could still see what was going on behind the white picket fences of the town. I just didn’t take photographs of it.”

“And what was going on?”

“The kind of stuff we heard yesterday,” said Minnie. “I’ve always known Arkham wasn’t like other towns, and now I know why. I’m not going to turn away from it now. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

“So you’re a paid up believer now?”

“Yeah,” nodded Minnie. “I think I always have been. I just didn’t know it.”

“Good enough for me,” said Rex. Alexander Templeton entered the diner, followed a few seconds later by Gabriel Stone. The two men joined them at the booth, accepting Rex’s offer of coffee, but declining the chance to have pie.

They said their good mornings and exchanged pleasantries with the awkwardness of strangers until Stone looked at his watch and saw that it was twenty minutes past the agreed time for their meeting. Oliver Grayson still hadn’t shown up.

“Anyone heard from the professor?” asked Stone. “The other one I mean.”

No one had, and Rex got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He scribbled in his notebook.

Missing.

Gone.

No longer of this Earth…

* * *

Stone left to check on Oliver’s house while Rex, Minnie, and Alexander hurried to the university campus to see if he had spent the night engaged in research and simply lost track of the time. Stone drove his Crossley to Easttown, while Rex and the others piled into Rex’s battered Ford to the Miskatonic campus. In lieu of finding Oliver they agreed to rendezvous at Lucy’s around midday.

Rex parked up on College Street and slammed the door as he got out.

“Me and Minnie will check the professor’s office,” he said. “We got charm and beauty enough to bluff our way past any secretaries, right?”

“Sure Rex, but which one of us is which?” asked Minnie. “On second thought don’t answer that. You’ll only embarrass yourself.”

“I’ll check the library,” declared Templeton. “There’s a good chance Oliver may have become engrossed in one of Armitage’s restricted books. I will meet you back at Lucy’s, agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Rex.

He and Minnie walked briskly toward the Liberal Arts building, finding the streets as empty here as they were throughout the town. Students were just as prone to fear as anyone else it turned out.
So much for the rebellious spirit of today’s youth
, thought Rex.

They climbed the steps to the building, noting a glazier replacing panels to the side of the grand entrance door. Inside the checkerboard foyer, they found Oliver’s name and room number on the staff directory. A couple of university custodians manned an inquiries desk, but they were engrossed in an animated discussion and paid the two reporters no mind as they made their way upstairs.

Three floors up, Rex was out of breath.

“You need to get in shape,” said Minnie.

“Slightly paunchy is a shape,” said Rex. “Just not a fashionable one. You’ll see. I’m a trendsetter and one day everyone around here will look like me.”

Minnie ignored him and strode down the carpeted hallway until she reached Oliver’s office. The door was open, but Oliver wasn’t in. Two matronly ladies were cleaning up some spilled papers and Rex began to fear the worst when he noted the expressions of concern they gave him as he knocked on the doorframe.

“Hello, I wonder if you fine ladies can help us,” said Rex. “We’re looking for Oliver Grayson. Is he around?”

The first woman shook her head, but it was her companion who answered.

“No, he’s not here, and if he keeps having visitors without scheduling them in the appointments book, I’ll be having words with Professor Grayson.”

“He’s had other visitors?” said Minnie.

“Yes, a student came to see him early this morning,” said the woman Rex now took to be the department secretary. “She was in a terrible state. Covered in scratches and bruises and almost hysterical. She didn’t have an appointment or anything.”

Rex looked at Minnie and the excitement between them was tangible.

“Did this girl tell you her name?” said Minnie.

“I believe she said her name was Rita. She said she had to see Professor Grayson,” said the woman, “but before I could tell her that she’d need to make an appointment, the wretched girl collapsed right here in Professor Grayson’s office. I don’t mind telling you that she looked like she’d been on the wrong end of a beating. I don’t make judgments on people, but the Lord grants to each what they deserve.”

“Very charitable of you,” said Minnie. “Where’s the girl now?”

“Dr. Morgan took her to St. Mary’s Hospital a couple of hours ago,” replied the woman, but Rex and Minnie were already running for the stairs.

* * *

Oliver’s lungs heaved with the effort of climbing the winding steps cut into the side of the mountain. This route of ascent toward the nightmare city was not designed for travelers of human proportions. Each uneven tread and riser was hacked into the rock with a creature of far greater size in mind. As such, each step required considerable effort to climb. The dying red sun did not move in the sky and the shadows never changed, fixed forever in unchanging aspect and making the discernment of the passage of time impossible. They had climbed for what seemed like an eternity, rising hundreds of feet into the mountain, yet the city of the dead seemed no closer. The crooked tower loomed over them like a grim sentinel, daring them to approach its cyclopean immensity with the promise of escape.

“Does that bloody thing ever get closer?” asked Finn, echoing Oliver’s thoughts.

“It must,” said Kate, dropping to her knees and taking gulping breaths between each word, “if we keep climbing toward it then it must draw nearer.”

Oliver shook his head as he stopped for breath. “The customary universal laws don’t seem to apply here, Miss Winthrop. I suspect we will be able to trust nothing our eyes tell us in this place, least of all scale and distance.”

“Can we trust that?” said Finn, looking back down the oversized steps to the cliffs upon which they had first awoken to this new world. A dozen gray-skinned scavengers—the beasts that picked the bones of the giant cemetery clean—had gained the cliff and were circling and sniffing the dusty ground in search of prey. One of the beasts let out a baleful screech and bounded toward the base of the steps, moving with feline grace and agility.

“Not again,” said Oliver. “Will I never be free of these damned ghouls?”

They climbed on, each step an ordeal as the ghouls scrambled over the square-cut steps far below them, squealing and braying in anticipation of fresh meat and warm blood.

“Hurry up, folks,” said Finn. “Those things are bloody fast, y’know.”

Oliver struggled to keep up with Finn. The Irishman had clearly kept fit through his nefarious activities as a bootlegger, but Oliver found himself and Kate falling behind with every passing moment. Numerous expeditions to foreign lands had kept Oliver trim and wiry, but only now was he beginning to appreciate how his stamina had waned since his last trip.

“Too much time in the library,” he said to Kate. “Not enough on the playing field.”

“Too much time in the lab,” she wheezed. “None on the playing field.”

Oliver put an arm around her shoulders and helped her up another step. “Come on, Kate. As you say, that tower must be getting closer now, eh?”

She smiled weakly, but Oliver saw she didn’t really believe him. He looked back down the steps. The ghouls had closed half the distance already. The cannibal beasts would be upon them within minutes at their present rate of pursuit.

“Where’s Finn?” gasped Kate. “I don’t see him.”

Oliver craned his neck along the length of the winding steps, hoping to see Finn looking down at them with a wisecrack or a curse on his lips, but the Irishman had vanished.

“I don’t see him,” said Oliver as an unsettling suspicion settled in his belly.

“He’s left us, hasn’t he?”

“No, I expect he’s just scouting ahead or something.”