That Ain't Right: Historical Accounts of the Miskatonic Valley (Mad Scientist Journal Presents Book 1)

by Emily C. Skaftun

  Maybe I'll just copy some of these drawings, especially the raccoon, to show Dr. Hite this afternoon.

  I stood and padded over to the table with the pencils and pads. As I reached for a stubby #2, I heard another laugh behind me, from the direction of the book.

  I didn't turn. I just pulled the bell rope and waited.

  The laughter continued.

  Great. I'm going crazy. This book is everything I hoped it would be, proof of the earliest visit from Europe to North America, all I need for my dissertation to be wonderful. Except that I can't actually read the book, because the only room in which I'm allowed to read it is so weird, I start to hallucinate.

  Still the laughter continued. Then came a scratching sound, like a dog pawing at a door, followed by a series of clicks. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  At last I heard Elmsley turning the key in the deadbolt and the door swinging open.

  I felt a rush of air, so strong and sudden it nearly knocked me forward onto the table. Pounding sounds came from behind me, as if broom handles were banging on the tops of the desks at my back.

  The laughter, at least, had stopped. I opened my eyes to the empty room. Of course it's empty. I knew it would be empty. Nonetheless, I wanted to leave, and right now. I took a step towards the exit and froze again.

  The scream barely sounded human, but I recognized Elmsley's voice just the same.

  #

  I'm not really sure how long I stood there at the bottom of the stairs. I kept thinking someone else would come. Someone else had heard him scream, hadn't they?

  I dismissed the idea of its being another hallucination. My imagination could not have come up with that sound. Surely not. I've taken first aid and CPR courses, but this hadn't sounded like a fall or a sudden heart attack. It had been a scream of terror, and it had been cut off.

  Alone in the reading room, I strained my ears for something else, even the sound of Elmsley breathing, but I heard nothing. Eventually, I knew I'd have to see what had happened. There was no retreating. I could hide under a desk, or I go look.

  I checked my watch. It was now almost noon. Time to go find Dr. Hite. I covered my mouth to stifle a giggle, not so much for fear of being heard by whatever might have attacked Elmsley--and was still lurking on the stairs above me?--but for fear of never being able to stop.

  I crept silently past the first bend, then the second. I saw the blood pooling in the grooves of the stairs before I saw the body. Blood silently filled the depression until it spilled over the side, formed a tiny waterfall, and began to fill the next stair down. It had trickled its way down five stairs by the time I arrived.

  Above the blood, just outside the open door, lay Elmsley's body. At least I thought it was Elmsley's body. It was dressed like him, in his conservative suit, cut as if for a younger, healthier version of himself. It clutched Elmsley's key ring in its pale, bloodless hand. Only I couldn't truly be sure, since his head had been bitten off.

  This time I didn't bother trying to slow down my breathing. I just kept climbing the stairs, keeping to the side of the blood-filled depressions, until I reached the door. Then I stepped carefully over the body to stand on the landing.

  I heard a scraping sound behind me, coming from below. Without thinking I grabbed the keys and tried to shove the door closed. The body was in the way of course, and in my panic I couldn't bring myself to drag it away.

  There wasn't really time, anyway. A second or two later a figure stepped into view around the bend in the stairs, and I looked into my own eyes.

  Well, my eyes as they'd be if they were a pale, pale grey. But the face was my own, if you allowed milk-white hair and ivory skin. Oh, and armor that looked like it stepped right out of the Laughing Book, which now that I thought about it, might have. She held a longsword in her right hand and a wickedly serrated dagger in her left.

  My doppelgänger's eyes widened as she glanced at me, the body, and me again. No, not me again. Past me.

  "Get behind me!" she hissed. "Now!"

  I leapt poor Elmsley's body, slipped in a puddle of blood, and slid down to the next landing, where I banged my knee on the far wall. The armored girl ran past me and, with a wordless cry, attacked whatever she'd seen behind me.

  What the hell. I looked.

  The creature might be something from the Laughing Book. Maybe I'd find its illustration if I went down and checked. A dozen segmented legs supported a bloated, tubular body. On each end of the body was a head. I couldn't see much of the far one, but the near one sported a circular mouth with multiple rows of teeth, surrounded by six or seven eyes somewhat evenly spaced. The eyes appeared totally human, which leant a strange air of pathos to the beast. It seemed to be pleading with me. At its far end, the other head turned. I watched it chew and swallow.

  Then the girl stood between us. She hacked at one of the eyes with her sword, but apparently just to distract it. As it wailed, she dove below and used the serrated dagger to open its belly. Viscera burst from the thing's gut, poured over my savior, and flowed down the stairs. As the bowels came apart, Barnabas's gnawed and blood-covered head popped out. It began to roll towards me.

  That got me moving. I retreated to the reading room, which thankfully contained only the furniture and the still-open book. I slammed the book closed, then realized I was still clutching the keys. The stacks! I could hide there for days, I was sure of it.

  I tried the first one I grabbed, but it didn't even fit in the lock. I tried the next, and the next, and ...

  The sound of boots coming from the stairs made me spin around. My gore-covered savior slipped past the desks--getting slime all over the backs of chairs--and grabbed me by the wrist, though not ungently.

  "We have to go."

  I nodded. "I know." I held up the keys.

  She grinned, then noticed the book and frowned. "I might have known. Take that."

  I grabbed the book and tried to hand her the keys, but she'd already opened the door.

  "It was unlocked?"

  She nodded. "The vrak-larunn." She must have seen my blank look. "One of its heads can pick locks." She took my wrist again, dragging me into the stacks. We rushed past volumes I'd have gladly taught freshman history for a year to peruse for a single minute. Yet given what I'd just witnessed, I had no trouble keeping up.

  An ancient-looking iron door was set into the back wall of the stacks. My guide pulled out a key of her own, unlocked it, and ducked inside. It led to a narrow, low-ceilinged tunnel of bare stone, one step up from a natural cave. And it was dark.

  Not wanting to touch her gore-covered armor, I followed the sound of her footsteps. She led us down, then up, then finally out onto a hillside in another world.

  #

  The landscape, while alien, reminded me of my native Miskatonic Valley. Rolling hills stood in the same basic configuration, covered in the elms, willows, and pines of home, but the stone had the pale shade of the blocks back in Special Collections. And the sky ...

  Though cloudless, it stretched chalk white from horizon to horizon. The sun, if that's what it truly was, could barely be distinguished--a bright sphere of white surrounded by the dead-white sky. I tore my gaze away. It felt as if that star might seep into my soul and drain my life and energy as it had the sky's.

  Naturally, I recognized it all from my dreams.

  "Where are we? And, if I may ask, who are you?" Not to seem rude, I added, "I'm Abigail Phillips."

  My guide turned and, to my relief, smiled. Despite the gore and the ivory skin, I recognized that grin from the mirror. Genuine happiness. "I'm Avigraal d'Arrukam. We should be safe now for a while."

  I returned the grin. "I, uh, want to thank you for saving my life."

  Avigraal shrugged, as if she did this sort of thing every day. Maybe she did. "My pleasure. It's not often I get to rescue myself, or at least my analogue." She cocked her head sideways, looking at me. "You are from the other Arrukam."

  "Arkham, you mean?"

  She nodded.
"That's how you say it in your world, I suppose. Come. It looks like rain."

  She led me downhill into a stand of dogwood. Just beyond we came upon her horse, or what passed for one. Pale, like his rider, with a zebra-striped mane. He had claws instead of hooves and the sharp teeth of a carnivore. Avigraal patted his neck and swung herself into the saddle. She held out a hand to help me, and I climbed up easily enough. I had no choice but to put my arms around her as we rode, though at least the coating of viscera seemed to be drying. A bit. I tried to ignore the smell.

  Despite his feet, Avigraal's beast felt like a real horse, even after she urged him into a canter. He moved in near silence on the wooded path.

  For the first time since I heard the phantom laughter, I felt safe. Perhaps that's why I started crying. Huge sobs shook my body, one after another. Avigraal said nothing, offered no comfort beyond her presence, but that was enough. I clung to my pale double until the tears dried and the rain began. At first, the rain seemed a comforting thing, the patter of water on leaves reminding me of my own Miskatonic Valley, of my home. Then we broke from the cover and began to get drenched. I had nothing more protective than jeans and my sweater, but Avigraal reached into a saddle bag and pulled out a wool cloak.

  "Put this on."

  "What about you?"

  "My armor's Arrukamish. It won't rust from this rain. Besides, you need to protect the book."

  I threw the cloak over myself and the Laughing Book, pulled the hood over my head, then watched the rain slowly rinse viscera off Avigraal's armor. The drops were not clear, but a milky white, as if they'd picked up chalk dust on the way down. Maybe that's what made the sky white, I thought, but the rain didn't smell of chalk. Now that Avigraal was being washed clean, everything smelled of home. Even her mount smelled like the horses of my childhood.

  In the distance, our destination sat at the valley's base: the medieval Arkham of my dreams, bright castle where the university stood in my world.

  "Arrukam, I presume? It's beautiful."

  "Heh. From a distance, for certain. You did well back there."

  I chuckled ruefully. "Sure I did. I slipped in a puddle of blood, fell down the stairs, and ran away." My knee still ached a bit, a silent accuser of my cowardice.

  "You knew enough not to get between a vrak-larunn and its prey. You had no armor, no weapons, no training I imagine, not in your world."

  "I've had a few years of aikido."

  She turned and gave me a quizzical look.

  "A martial art. It involves throws and rolling out of falls. Not that you'd know it based on today."

  Avigraal laughed. "I'm sure they don't teach you to fight on wet stairs."

  "Well, that's true."

  "They should."

  "I'll mention it to my sensei next time I'm in class, assuming I ever get home."

  "I think you might. We'll ask the duke. He can help you. Just don't lose the book."

  "The man who wrote it. He visited Arrukam, didn't he?"

  "Yes. From across the sea."

  "And from my world."

  "Might be. Ragnol the Lost."

  "The lost?"

  "You'll see."

  "Wait, are you saying the author of this book is still alive? It's over a thousand years old!"

  "Time between your world and mine flows strangely."

  "So years could pass back home while I'm here?"

  "Or less than an hour. I could not say. You will see, if you make it back."

  I stayed silent for the rest of the ride, rolling that thought over and over in my mind. I'd make it back, I resolved at last. I couldn't afford to act like I had on the stairs, or even before then when Elmsley had locked me in. I'd push back the fear and keep my center, as my sensei would say. And I'd be clever.

  We passed farms and a few desultory herds of sheep before we crossed into the town proper. There, everyone had pale skin and white hair, like Avigraal. Their clothes were a bit more colorful, if worn and faded. They looked like a mime troupe from a Renaissance faire, albeit a dolorous one. No, not dolorous--hostile.

  "Why are they staring at us?" I whispered.

  "Hush. Keep the cloak tight about you. They see your skin and hair and do not trust your humanity. They are peasants. They know nothing of Arkham."

  I did as she said, yanking the hood as far forward as it would go and burying my face in her back. Still, I heard the angry whispers, saw their glares from the corner of my eye.

  We rode past the castle gates into a courtyard that looked like Misk U's humanities quad. She reined in her beast on the far side, in front of the administration building, only here it was the main keep. We dismounted and, as the rain had stopped, left the cloak with the groom who took her beast. I followed her inside.

  We passed through an atrium. Armored guards opened thick bronze doors, and we entered the great hall. Compared to everywhere else I'd seen in this world, the room held a riot of color. Above a gallery, high stained glass windows lined the walls, painting that white sky a dozen bright shades. I quickly turned from them, though, with their graphic scenes of knights and monsters killing and dismembering one another.

  We passed a few dozen courtiers, dressed in elaborate finery of many fabrics and textures, all white but bathed in the many colors cast by the windows. Though dazzling, they didn't compare to the figures at the dais on the far side of the room.

  One looked like me, in that he had Caucasian skin, brown hair, and deep blue eyes. After our ride through Arrukam, the colors seemed strangely demonic even to me. The man wore motley of jet and gold, though with an air of long-suffering dignity. An iron chain ran from his neck to a bolt at the foot of a throne carved from a single block of that fossil-filled stone.

  On it sat the being who must be the duke: a hooded and robed figure whose body appeared made out of shifting, shimmering sand. It rippled across his featureless face to breezes I could not feel, and it glittered like mica.

  Avigraal crossed to the edge of the dais and dropped to one knee. "Your Grace."

  The sand under the hood shifted to the face of a grinning man. It stayed that way, unmoving, even as words issued from it. "Rise, brave Avigraal." He spoke in Modern English, as she had with me on the ride. "Have you news of the castellan?"

  Avigraal stood but kept her eyes down. "Aye. Sad news, Your Grace. The vrak-larunn reached him before I did."

  "Elmsley?" I asked, too incredulous to keep silent. Avigraal shot me a sharp look. I ignored it. "He was your castellan? Here?"

  She glowered at me. "No, you fool. His analogue."

  The duke took in the exchange in silence, but the sands shifted his face to stern disapproval. "Let your analogue speak. You brought her here for a reason."

  "Only to save her from the nightgaunts. When they smelled the blood of the vrak-larunn ..."

  "Of course." The duke turned to me. "It will not be safe in your world for a while yet. They will come and take away any who saw."

  "Elmsley?"

  "Only if he saw the body of the vrak-larunn."

  No way to know until I returned, I supposed. If I returned. "I'm sorry about your castellan."

  The duke inclined his head, faceless again. "He traveled between realms, knowing he risked the beasts of the threshold."

  The fool cackled, a strangely melodic sound. "Oh my liege, oh my liege, give Ragnol leave. I would take this pretty thing back to my king, far across the sea, the sea, the heaving sea." He stepped toward me till his chain grew taut, his smile widening. "You see, you see, the book is with me. She holds it in her hand, the book I penned, before ever I lay eyes on the Laughing Beast."

  The duke's face shifted to a mask of mirth. He reached down and pulled at the chain, jerking Ragnol back. "That isn't your book. That's your analogue's book."

  The fool frowned in puzzlement.

  The duke's face vanished, replaced once more by the shifting sands. "You remember Ragnarrl the Sad, my old fool. He found you across the sea and a world away, brought you here to sh
ow me the miracle. You killed and ate him for his troubles."

  The fool clapped his hands. "He spun on a spit. His jester suit fit! How could I have not made him die, when his clothing did fit? I ate, I ate, and the meat tasted great!"

  "And now you wear a chain, my pet. But you rhyme like old Ragnarrl and tell queer stories."

  Ragnol hopped up and down. "I do! I do! I'll tell you one too, if you give me the girl as meat for the stew!" He winked at me, and I stepped back. He didn't wait for his duke's reply, but started singing at the top of his lungs. "Oh I knew a thief, a jolly old thief, who had a daughter fair--"

  Throughout this exchange, Avigraal stood silent and stoic, but I feared Ragnol's bargain, even if the duke hadn't really agreed to it.

  "Wait!" I held up the Laughing Book, certain now that here in the castle lay the real Codex Hedersleben, the one written in my world that described my version of North America. "I'll gladly exchange this for Ragnol's book."

  The duke's face returned, this time looking thoughtful. At its appearance, Ragnol's voice faded to sullen silence.

  "Show it to me," said the duke.

  As I stepped forward, I grew aware of a commotion behind me.

  I turned to see the bronze doors open with such force they banged against the wall. A soldier entered, visibly terrified. "My liege! The children! The piper's returned them."

  The duke rose. "No!" He moved towards the soldier and fell apart. Glittering sand cascaded from his cloak. It splattered on the dais and flowed toward the door, reaching it in seconds. Avigraal drew her sword and strode after him. I stood gaping, unsure what to think. Outside came the laughter of many children, yet it had an edge to it. Animalistic. Red in tooth and claw.

  I moved to follow Avigraal, when a hand grabbed my shoulder.

  "And where would you be going this bright, bright day, stew meat?" The courtiers had fled, I noticed. Ragnol and I were alone.

  That's when I discovered that, faced with the right situation, my aikido training kicked in after all. I grabbed Ragnol's fingers in a sankyo hold, squeezed them painfully, and spiraled his elbow toward the ceiling. Shifting my weight, I moved smoothly into the omote form of the move, which easily left slack for his chain. I pinned him to the ground, his elbow locked and his fingers still in my grip. That particular hold was technically not aikido, but an older and nastier variant.