A Lonely and Curious Country (19 page)

              "Hoover's as concerned about the froggies as anyone."

              "You spoke to him, did you?"

              "There are
monsters
walking around in our world- in our country- preying on our citizens. Our wives and children."

              "There are monsters in Russia who want to turn all of us, our wives and children included, into slaves. Monsters with tanks and bombs, monsters with airplanes." Harkaway downs his whiskey in one go. "You think our government cares about a pack of inbred freaks up in the asshole of New England- no offense, Guilford."

              I wave the comment away.

              "I won't hear this kind of talk," Pennington says. "Not from you, not from anybody." He moves as if to stand up from his barstool.

              "Look," Harkaway says. "I apologize. I'm angry and I'm shooting my mouth off. I lost a friend today. We all did. Listen, have a beer on me."

              Pennington, not looking at him. "Already got a beer."

              "Have another one. Christ knows we'll need it." Harkaway slides onto a stool and motions for the bartender. "We've a funeral to attend tomorrow."

              We live in the empty shell of an old hotel. When nor'easters blow in hard along the water, the sea will come into our home, emptying into the basement, bringing strange wriggling things in from the depths. On those storm-tossed moonless nights, I sometimes wake to hear cries, or sounds like cries, echoing over the harbour, as if something is calling to the deep water, or from it. Deep calls to deep, in the lonely hours of the night.

              I swim with my sister. We swim as far north as ancient Kingsport, following the deep water currents. We swim about the harbour, out to the tall stone where the white gulls tarry. One night, we swim up to the rocky headlands that form the bowl of the harbour, and into the caves at the water's edge. My sister takes me to the chamber where the great statue of the Father stands, surrounded by candles that never go out. My grandmother is there, and her grandmother, and hers. I am given a new name, which I may not utter, and rites are performed in the glittering waters of low tide.

              When I awake the next morning, I see the world with new eyes.

***

              The day is overcast, chilly even at noon. Gray clouds race across the sky, framed by trees whose skeletal arms are already visible behind their dwindling leaves. The funeral is a field of coats, hats held onto heads to keep the biting wind from snatching them. I stand off as far away as I can decently manage, listening to the birds call to one another. Apart from the gathering, and the rusty cries, ancient Kingsport is silent.

              Boone arrives late, parks his car at the cemetery gates, and approaches. His toadlike bulk, swaddled in a massive tan trenchcoat, plows through the windy air like a ship. He approaches me, the plumes from his cigar trailing behind him.

              "McGovern and the Arkham team telephoned me," he says. "They want you to come and take a look at something."

              I nod. "All right."

              "Something that might help us deal with the fr- the batrachians."

              "I'll go tonight."

              "Guilford."

              I turn to look at him.

              "He was very evasive," Boone says. "Wouldn't tell me anything on the phone."

              "Never know who might be tapping the lines," I say.

              "Is all of this..." Boone holds up his hands, as if groping for words. "On the up-and-up? I'm supposed to be in command here, but no one will tell me anything."

              "I'll drive down to Arkham and see. Lot of clever boys at Miskatonic."

              "I know," Boone says. "That's what I'm afraid of." He pauses. "Are you prepared to start again in Innsmouth?"

              "My cover is intact, if that's what you mean."

              "You're certain no one suspects you?"

              "I'm a shirt-tail relative of the Waites. Grandmother's side. They're used to seeing me about."

              "Mm." Boone watches the funeral service for a long moment. "You suspect anything, anything feels off, you get out of there. I can't afford to lose anyone else."

              "I know."

              "And while you're down in Arkham, see if you can get us any back-up. I don't want anyone going back in there without proper support. Christ." He looks up at the sky, as if reading the scudding clouds. "Monsters. What we do to make this country safe, eh Guilford?"

              "This is a legend-haunted part of the world, Mr. Boone. It's old, and it's full of superstitions. But by light, and rationality, and science, we'll drive them all out."

              "I hope so, boy. I surely do."

***

              The nameless old man leads me up the steps to the ruined courtyard. The sky overhead is an endless, blameless blue. The gray stone, speckled with gull shit, looks white in the glare of the noonday sun.

              "The world is so very, very old," the man says. "It was old when Mother Hydra and Father Dagon first came from Outside. It was old before time began to mark the passage of year. When the ape-men first learned to crack skulls with the thigh bone of the antelope, it was already so old. It had seen countless civilizations come and go."

              A wind blows out of the hills to the west, stirring the leaves on the trees. Beneath my feet, the vegetation is already reclaiming the courtyard, pushing up through stone with slow, patient feelers.

              "When the ape-men are gone, there will be others," the old man says. "Come from Outside, or brought up from the bosom of this Earth. Perhaps the Old Ones will reclaim the world, and drag it back through gateways of forgetting to the black abyss. Perhaps others will come from the starry oceans, swimming through the void to find us. An abyss of height and an abyss of depth. Do you ever think, child, that when you gaze at the night sky, you look not up, but
out
?"

              He traces a strange sign on the air before me, and my head begins to swim.

              -there is-

              A gap. A void.

              I wake, shivering, on the bare stone. I stretch my cramped limbs and stand. Night has come. The courtyard is empty. Up above me, cold stars look down on the citadels of Man. I look up. I look out.

              An abyss of height, and an abyss of depth.

              Something passes overhead, obscuring the stars. Something with great, silent wings.

***

              I drive to Arkham in the afternoon, and park on the university campus. McGovern and his men are using an empty fraternity house as their base of operations, making regular forays to and from the science wing at all hours. The beer-stained boards of their ramshackle house still resonate with the unsettled, frenetic energy that comes from a concentration of young men. McGovern's team seems to be putting out plenty of their own, on top of it.

              Neiman McGovern is deep in conversation with a local priest when I arrive.

              McGovern: And this church- you know where to find it?

              Priest: No.

              McGovern: Do you know anyone who could find it?

              Priest: No.

              McGovern: If the boy could find it, there must be others. Wasn't there a crowd gathered around, when-

              Priest: I don't know.

              McGovern: Father Paulson...

              Priest: It is not a good place. You would not wish to go there.

              McGovern (standing): Piece of luck, since no one will tell me how to get there. You're dismissed. Keep in touch. We may have more questions for you."

              The priest leaves without comment. McGovern does not see his backward look, but I do.

              "Guilford!" he says, and crosses the room to shake my hand. He has to weave his way around heavy tables scattered with papers and artifacts to get to me. Beside me, close enough for me to grab it and brain McGovern with it if I had a mind, stands the carven black statue that McGovern's people took from the witch-cult in southern Maine. The University had requested that it be deposited into the Armitage archives for study. McGovern, it appeared, had ignored them.

              I shake his hand. "Looks like you aren't making many friends in town."

              "Fucking locals." His pugdog face twists itself up. "Won't say a word because their daddies told them not to. Because it's 'evil'. Because there are some things Washington wasn't meant to know. Shitbags." He is leaning on the table, pushing around papers without realizing it, putting creases in old manuscripts. Near his left hand sits an open copy of Geoffrey's
People of the Monolith
, notes scribbled in the margins in fountain pen. Next to that is a book I don't immediately recognize until I crane my head around to read the text. It's a page-for-page copy of the Wormius
Necronomicon
. Apparently there are still some things the university can't be bullied into parting with.

              "Guilford. Up here." McGovern snaps his fingers under my nose. "I want your full attention on this. Washington needs you, boy."

              I stare at him.

              "Rad Div can't spare the men for a raid on Innsmouth."

              "No kidding."

              "Washington is a busy place, Guilford. They have bigger fish to fry-" He pauses to laugh at his own joke. "Hem. Bigger fish to fry than a town full of inbred freaks." He leans toward me and lowers his voice. "Our boys are out there, right now, making America safe. There are Communists and Fascists and fucking bomb-throwing anarchists just waiting in the wings to come and take down what we've built up. To wreck this great country of ours. Think about it." He straightens. "Anyway. That's where you come in."

              "How so?"

              McGovern gives me what he probably thinks is a hard, appraising look. Then: "Are you familiar with the concept of psychological operations?"

              "No, sir."

              "Come with me. I want to show you something."

              He leads me through the tangled mess of tables into a back room that might once have been a sitting room or library. The shelves have been cleared off and piled willy-nilly with artifacts, boxes, crates, and loose papers. McGovern goes over to a sturdy lockbox, fishes in his pockets for a set of keys, and selects one. He fits it to the lock, opens the box, and takes out a pint-size lab-glass bottle full of liquid. The liquid appears clear to me at first, but when McGovern holds it up to the light, it flouresces briefly with the kinds of colors I see when I rub my eyes too hard. "Any guesses what this is?" McGovern says.

              I shake my head.

              "About twenty years ago, there was a meterorite fell to earth not far from here. It evaporated, but before it did, the bright boys here at the university got a look at it. There was something inside, some kind of chemical, something that could affect your mind. Our boys managed to synthesize it, and mixed it up with an ergot derivative, and- bang-o! Magic." He hands the bottle over to me. I hold it up to the light and watch the colors crawl and bloom over the liquid's surface.

              "Don't look at it for too long," McGovern says. "And don't get any of it on your skin. A few drops of this, and you'll go screaming, pants-pissing mad. We had a volunteer who threw himself out a fifth-story window. Just like that." He looks suddenly uncomfortable.

              "What do you want me to do with-" I pause, as implications come rolling in.

              McGovern smiles.

              "You want me," I say. "To poison the town."

              "Got it in one."

              "Why?"

              "Psychological operations, Guilford. Remember those words. You'll be hearing them a lot in future. We're playing the long game with the Reds now, and it's not enough just to have the biggest guns. We need an edge. And to have that edge we need data."

              I stare at him.

              "Think about it, Guilford. Imagine if we dropped this stuff on Moscow? Imagine if we snuck it into Stalin's vodka supply? We could turn the tide of this conflict in a day."

              "Or start a war."

              McGovern waves this away. "You haven't seen our miracle drug in action. Hell, neither have we, on any large scale. That's why we need you. How many towns out there do you think we can experiment on? How many places where nobody will miss the locals? Nobody will find it odd if they all run mad and kill themselves?" He puts a hand on my shoulder. "And, Guilford, it might work in your favor. If these froggies cause enough trouble, Hoover might just step in and give you the resources you need to exterminate them. Get you a commendation. Get your picture in the papers. How does that sound?"