The Weird Company (9 page)

In time, I shall mourn for the loss of my daughter Asenath Waite, whose body I now possess. But for the thing that killed her; the thing that supplanted her infant mind and stole her body; the thing that now rants and screams in terror in the attic; the same thing that now occupies the aged and dying body of Ephraim Waite; the thing that I once knew as Zulieka Marsh; I will shed no tears. Soon my memory will be restored, and the rendition of Ephraim Waite shall be complete.

CHAPTER 3

From the Account of Robert Martin Olmstead
“Escape from Innsmouth”

Securing the manuscript, I made my way out of the town and back into the wilderness that surrounded Innsmouth. The voice in my head was still urging me to Arkham, and I had no choice but to comply. I had become a mechanism to carry the manuscript out of Innsmouth. Who I served and where in Arkham I was to go I did not know, all I did know was that I had to keep moving. Nothing else seemed to matter, and I barely noticed that the wind had come up, and was blowing the scent of the ocean over the earth. It was a good smell, it smelled of life, of freedom, of wonders I could never imagine. It smelled of exalted immortality and fallen divinity. It reminded me of the dreams of my grandmother, how she called me to be with her in the kingdom under the sea, and how I was so close, so close. I had come so far, done so much, overcome such odds, and now I was turning away. It was my hope that my cousin had been able to do that which I had not, that Lawrence had somehow made it not only to Innsmouth, but through it and beyond. As for my quest to return to Innsmouth and from there head into the sea, it had been interrupted. I had been diverted, but I knew not why.

No sooner had I cleared the village proper did I realize the error in my plan for escape. Within the environs off Innsmouth the buildings and rolling hills served well to cast shadows and hide the railway from watchful eyes, but less than a mile out, the village and landscape slowly gave way first to low hillocks of sand and then these vanished, swallowed up on both sides by a vast salt marsh of stagnant black water, foul dark green muck and sparse stands of twisted grey shrubs. An attempt to travel through the marshlands was quickly abandoned as the muck, at least knee-deep, and deeper elsewhere, grabbed at my legs and threatened to swallow me up whole. I was left no choice but to stay on the railway bed, exposed and vulnerable, scurrying like a cockroach along the baseboards.

Traveling along the railway, while easier than passing through the salt marsh, was not easy, years of neglect had taken their toll and the line was cluttered with debris. In places, the low levee of crushed rock on which the railway sat had subsided or washed out into the marsh, causing the thick wooden ties to slip down on one side but jut up on the other. Thus along this disarray of steel rail, wooden ties and rocky pitfalls, I stumbled my way through the marsh, more than once falling onto the rocky substrate and cold steel rails. So intent was I on my haphazard journey that it was not until I had traversed well into the fetid fen that I began to notice the environment around me.

Reared as I was in the confines of a small city, it should come as no surprise that my experience in more natural settings had been limited, mostly just recently in my furtive travels in the last few weeks. That being said, I was slow to recognize the strange and eerie silence that dominated the boggy landscape. True there was a light but forceful breeze coming in from the ocean to the east, and this did stir up the sparse clumps of sickly looking vegetation such that the night air was filled with the low crackling hiss of dry leaves rustling against one another. This sound was accompanied by an occasional gurgling or fizzing as bubbles of dank-smelling gasses floated up out of the thick black waters and burst upon the surface. Yet these regular and intermittent sounds were the only things to be heard, along with my own plodding steps, as I fled down the tracks. No insects hummed or clicked amongst the swaying reeds. No frogs or toads chirped or dove awkwardly into the water. No birds, roused from their roosts by my clumsy steps, flew startled into the night. Even the rhythmic beating wings of bats wheeling through the night sky were missing. It seemed as if the salt marsh was devoid of all animal life even down to the tiniest insect.

This realization made me shudder and the unnaturalness of the place caused chills to creep up my spine. I focused on the feeling of the substrates beneath my shoes, the gravel, and then the wooden railroad tie, followed by gravel again. I focused in on the change in noise and sensation, the crunch of the rock beneath my feet followed by the dead thump of treated wood. It was hypnotic and soon I was deeply entranced in a rhythm that was rapidly carrying me across the bog. It wasn’t long before the sparse moonlight revealed that I was quickly approaching the dark line of trees that marked the transition to firmer ground. Emboldened by my progress, I casually glanced behind me and to my horror discovered that I was not alone on the line. There in the distance, dimly but clearly illuminated by the faint moon, was a large monstrous shape careening down the tracks. It was massive, and at first I took it for a bull or bear, but its smooth fluid movements denied either of these conclusions. Gasping at its speed, I turned and sprinted toward the trees hoping to lose my pursuer in the wood. Closer to dry land the rail bed was in better repair, and I was able to maintain a near run down the line. Despite my surer footing and quicker pace, I could hear the thing gaining on me.

The pounding of my feet on the dry wooden ties was drowned out by the incessant pulse of my own heart. My breathing became a ragged gasp as I drove myself to run even faster. The woods were close now and I could see the tracks curving deep into the dark hidden parts of the forest. Mere steps away I once again turned back and on the tracks behind me . . . There was a horrid wet sound as the thing slammed into me and threw me to the ground, forcing my face into the gravel rail bed. I scrambled forward, clawing my way to my feet as something heavy smashed into me. Whatever it was, it pushed me down on to the ground and then began to drag me across the railway bed.

My hands clawed at the sharp gravel and hard wooden ties, but to no avail. The thing was dragging me relentlessly backwards, back into the marsh. I screamed and suddenly I was wrenched from the ground and flung through the air at such a horrifying speed that I briefly loss any sense of myself. When I recovered, I found myself flipped around staring up into the night sky. I lifted my head and found myself staring down into the maw and eyes of the beast that was again charging down the tracks at me. In terror I balled my fists and tried to leap up and away, but to no avail. With incredulous speed the claw of the thing found its way across my mouth. There was a wet cracking sound as my jaw shattered. I spun in the air landing face first onto the ground. I grabbed at the gravel, desperate for my fingers to find purchase and drag myself away, but my strength failed me as I felt what only could have been a claw smashing into my side. The breath of the beast was fetid and stank of rot and heat. Spittle dripped from the long teeth that shone like daggers in the moonlight.

There was a noise and the beast turned slightly to face it. A short flash of light and a crack of thunder shattered the night. It was like a stream of lightning had ripped through the sky above my head. There was no heat, but a weird electric odor, and the air seemed to be incandescently blue. The bolt struck the creature between the eyes, arcs of electricity enveloped the thing, its eyes melted and it roared in agony. Its head seemed to swell and then jets of steam suddenly burst out of the skin. The thing’s head exploded into a mass of blood and bone and gore. Another bolt flew past me, and as a second explosion rocked the night, I curled into a protective ball, blind with panic and fear.

The distinctive sound of boots began moving down the railway, I relaxed and brought my head up to see the faces of my rescuers. Two large men were staring down at me. The one on the right was of Indian descent, easily over six feet tall and wearing a large red turban. His face was covered in a thick black beard and strange oversized round eyeglasses with black lenses. He body was enshrouded in thick, layered robes which made determining his exact build impossible. In his arms he cradled an odd array of metallic rods and glass tubes, the function of which I was wholly unfamiliar with.

The other man was of a stock more familiar to me, even in the pale moonlight it was obvious where he came from. His eyes were set far apart and bulged slightly, his ears were strangely shrunken, and beneath his hat there were neither eyebrows nor any other evidence of hair. He came from Innsmouth, of that I had no doubt, but beyond that he could easily have been family to the man I had watched die just hours before.

“Moses
tkrt
,” croaked the Indian, he made an odd clicking sound as he spoke in crisp almost mechanical tones, “that is not Aaron.”

The other shook his head. “No its not,” said the Innsmouther, “But I do have an idea of who this is.”

The Indian nodded and stepped over me. “I will
tkrt
take care of the feral spawn.”

I scrambled to an upright position. “Thank you for your help,” I managed to say despite my broken jaw.

The man called Moses hissed back at me, “Shut yer trap.”

“Look I don’t want any trouble.”

“Shut it!” He growled.

“I don’t want any part of this!” I shouted.

The man called Moses leaped at me and shouted as his fist came down on my face, as everything went black and I lost consciousness, I was left to ponder the meaning of his rage-filled words. “Yer already a part of this! Yew’ve been a part of this since yew were born!”

CHAPTER 4

From the Account of Robert Martin Olmstead
“The Thing in the Depths”

Once, I had found my dreams horrid, terrifying even, but over the years I had become accustomed to the strange visions that filled my nights. Vast aquatic landscapes of bizarre coralline architectures swarming with thousands of ichthyic figures no longer disturbed me. That in dreams my reflection was more reminiscent of a fish or frog than a man no longer woke me in a cold sweat. Indeed, such sights had grown comforting, even soothing. So, when in slumber I once more found myself floating silent and effortless through the dark waters past Devil Reef, I let the dream carry me where it would.

Down I went, past schools of baitfish and predatory blues and even more predatory sharks. The reef itself, its crabs and echinoderms, mollusks and corals were lost as I sank deeper and deeper into the murky green. A hundred feet down and the light vanished but still I was aware of my surroundings. As I plummeted past a fleet of infant giant squid the first dim lights of the upper terraces of Y’ha-nthlei appeared. Men have created images of Atlantis, Lemuria and other fanciful aquatic cities, as if they were mere counterparts to those of men. What foolishness. There are no streets in the sub-aquatic metropoli, what need are roads to creatures who would sooner swim than walk? Y’ha-nthlei is built in vast terraces that jut out from sea canyon walls like titanic fungoid growths. Channels and tunnels honeycomb the metropolis, moving both water and inhabitants in a constant fluid stream. Shoals of Deep Ones banked effortlessly in the current, their scales and eyes glittered back the pale light of the ubiquitous lamp worms that infested the city.

The current suddenly quickened, and inexorably I was drawn down past the lowest tier into the cavern below. Down I floated, toward the faint glow that leaks from the lower tiers. This was the old city, fashioned before the first men stood upright. Age had taken its toll and the network of tunnels and channels had clogged with the organic snow that fell from above. Vast colonies of necrophagic barnacles rhythmically extended feathery tentacles to harvest great quantities of the slowly falling debris before being curled back into their calciferous pentagonal shells. Choked with debris and colonized by the strange invertebrate forces of abyssal decay, the old city still sheltered a few lingering inhabitants. Ancient anthropomorphic things waded through the detrital snows with remoras and other parasites writhing hideously in their wakes while blind crabs, monstrous with thorny points and thick spiny hairs, scuttled for shelter. No hybrids here, not in the deep city. Once the pinnacle of the food chain, they had long since ceased being predatory, their once sharp and gored stained teeth had elongated into brittle hair like sieves that transformed each breath into an unconscious act of feeding.

Then, as quickly as the old city had come into view it was gone, and I plunged deeper than any dream had previously taken me. In dreamtime I become less blind and I perceived below me the tiniest pinprick of illumination. I knew instantly that it was toward this speck of phosphorescence that I was being carried. Slowly the light source resolved into a luminescent and monstrous titan, larger than any of the elder deep ones who dwelt above in the old city, though it shared their general shape and characteristics. The pale light of the ancient corpus attracted a variety of biota that I could not classify. Whether they were fish, crustacean, or mollusk, the ancient fed upon them quite passively, for it had little choice. The thing’s upper limbs were pinned behind it, bound in a strange mass of pulpy tentacles that congealed along the creature’s spine and enveloped everything below the massive abdomen.

So intent was I on studying the poor imprisoned creature that I failed to comprehend that the thing had noticed me as well. When it spoke I shuddered, for the language was too ancient, the voice too loud, the pressure too great, but I knew that it was revealing to me a secret, something horrid and forbidden. When it finished, it drifted away, but the movement was incidental, for it was the thing to which the titan was bound, the vast mass of tendrils that pulsed and provided motivation. As it left I began to see the entirety of the horror, the ancient one, bound so tightly to that tentacled thing. It was then, as the prisoner and his prison drifted away, that I saw the details of the things that swarmed and trailed about them. There was a moment of clarity, of reasoned logic that turned from initial denial inevitably into terror.