by S. A. Sidor
We pushed. The doors moved enough for us to squeeze through. Inside the library, I showed them the bookcase and the hidden entrance it concealed.
“What’s happened here?” Preston asked.
“Sorry, I’ll pay for it. What I must show you is inside and up,” I said.
“You’re lucky we didn’t call the police. You’d be arrested for vandalism,” he said.
Minnie forced her way to the front. She peered into the ragged hole I’d made with Nina, then she spied behind the door into the gap. “It is a secret passage. Preston, please don’t scold him. This is going to be the most memorable party I’ve ever had.” Before I could stop her, she raced into the opening, her tiny feet thumping up the stairs, feathers brushing the walls as she went. Preston ducked through, chasing after his bride-to-be.
“Wait! Wait!” I tried to caution them. But it was of no use. I had lost control of the situation. Where was Nina now? I wondered. I hoped she was on her way home, safe and sound. Reaching the top of the passage’s black steps, I followed after Preston and Minnie.
Preston’s candelabra glowed, torch-like.
It stopped near the telescope.
I caught up, out of breath. “I’m sorry, Minnie. Preston, I should’ve warned you what to expect. How bad it really is. No one should ever have to see a thing like this.”
“See what?” Preston shone his light on the floor. He pushed aside the wheeled set of steps. He lit up the astronomers’ ladder. Walking around the room, he proceeded to illuminate the ropes and pulleys, the work tables, and the rails that circled the dome.
“There’s nothing here, Oakesy. Nothing.”
Preston was right.
Clark’s body was gone.
I thought I must be losing my mind. But there could be no mistake. Here was the very spot I stood with Nina. I crouched and touched the floorboards.
Minnie went over to her beau, and he gathered her in his arms.
They’re standing where Nina and I stood, where we nearly kissed not a half hour ago.
Where was the body? Where was poor old Clark?
“Wait. Clark was dressed as Friar Tuck. He had a robe. A staff.” I ran over to the coat pegs. But his costume was gone. I wasn’t making things up. I wasn’t that drunk. Was I? No. And I wasn’t alone when I found Clark either. “Nina saw him too.”
“Who?” Preston said.
“Nina Tarrington.”
Preston looked gobsmacked. “By Zeus! I haven’t heard that name in ages. What’s gotten into you, Alden Oakes?” Preston wasn’t angry with me, confused was more like it. Puzzled at my erratic behavior. “Maybe you’ve had one too many. That Canadian hooch has your head in a spin, my old friend. Sit down. We’ll find you some water or hot coffee. Are you feeling ill? Does he look ill to you, Minnie?” Preston drew Minnie tight against him.
He put the candelabra up near my face.
I winced at the brightness.
“He’s very pale,” she said.
I did feel sick. My head banging loudly. The light bothered me. I pushed it away.
“He said he saw Nina. Did you hear that, Minnie? Is she even back in town?”
“She was here tonight. At your party,” I answered.
“Here? I don’t think so.” He stared at Minnie. “Can you imagine her showing up?”
“You saw her with me at the bonfire,” I said.
Minnie looked surprised. She shook her head emphatically.
“My shy friend, you called her.”
Minnie thought about it. “The mummy girl?”
“Yes. Mummy queen. Nina was here. She and I discovered Clark together.”
“I don’t think that mummy was Nina, Alden,” Minnie said. “Clark’s not here either. I haven’t seen him. His father called to say he’d hurt his back playing polo and he wouldn’t be able to make it tonight. Isn’t that right, Preston darling?”
Preston nodded. He looked like he felt embarrassed for me. Pity welling in his eyes.
“Nina was here. She absolutely was,” I repeated. “Clark was here too.”
Talking mostly to myself. I couldn’t have dreamed the whole thing up. That was crazy. Crazier than what I thought I’d witnessed in Spain. Rituals and sacrifices. This was Arkham, and I know Arkham. That’s what I tried to tell myself.
“Go home, Alden.” Minnie pulled a sad face. “Preston, have your driver give him a lift. He looks so very tired.”
“I’m not tired. I’ll walk home.” Is this what cracking up feels like? But I wasn’t cracking up, was I? No, I’d had too much to drink perhaps. Got a taste of some bad bootleg that scrambled the inside of my head. It would clear up soon. In the morning I’d be myself again.
“The air might do you some good,” Preston said. “Do be careful. Arkham can be dangerous at night.”
I searched outside for Nina. Maybe she was hiding somewhere nearby, watching for the police cars to pull up, sticking around just to see if I’d made it out unscathed.
I checked for her by the fire pit. The fire was dying. I tried to pick out any trace of that hefty log Clark tossed in the flames, but everything was embers. Ashes.
No sign of Nina anywhere.
So I left.
Chapter Eleven
Ever walked home late at night and thought someone might be following you? I don’t mean muggers. I had a few of those on my tail in Europe, looking to roll a drunk and steal his pocket money. As a man, I’ve never had the same worries women deal with whenever they hit the streets alone, particularly at night. I’m talking about something different. What I mean is someone is following you, and only you. They haven’t picked you as a random target or a victim of bad circumstances. They wanted only you from the start, because you are you. This was a specific brand of stalking I felt that night. Somebody wanted me, Alden Oakes, badly.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I left the observatory in a bad mood. Minnie was right about my feeling tired, but I was experiencing more than that. I’d had my head messed with. I was furious. If I had been pranked, I wasn’t getting the joke; nothing about it felt humorous. I saw that oozing neck stump and it was not fake. Clark was dead. But how had they erased the crime so quickly? It was like magic. Something Houdini might’ve pulled on his audience. But with Houdini’s act, the audience was in on the game. They knew they were being tricked. That was half the fun of it. My experience finding the headless man left me confused, worried I might be losing my mind. Not really, though. I wasn’t insane. Mostly, I was angry at myself for having been manipulated. Who had played me? Who killed Clark?
Why?
After checking my cigarette case and finding it empty, I walked down Crane Hill feeling fidgety. Restless. A carload of Miskatonic U fraternity boys swept past, hurling out insults and impinging my clown heritage and the marital status of my parents at the time of my birth. I gestured at them, immediately regretting it when their car pulled to the curb at the next corner. Several dark shapes exited. They were waiting. I am no stranger to fistfights, having spent enough of my youth at boarding schools and, later, in gritty, illicit barrooms where the masculine pecking order is maintained. I avoided violence when possible. Artists by nature tend to be a hot-tempered, impetuous lot. I was guilty on both counts, though I hoped maturity had improved my judgment. The car moved on. I felt a surge of relief. The boys had simply relieved themselves, leaving a puddle on the sidewalk and a trio of empty beer bottles littering the grass.
The night air had grown wet. Cold fog snuck between the buildings, snagging like cobwebs on the hedges and trees. Without thinking, I found myself veering west. Going downhill to the river. The sludgy black Miskatonic flowed on, mistakable for tar, its odor hardly less noxious, though fishier.
At the apex of the bridge crossing the river at West Street, I paused. I didn’t need to travel this way. My house was on t
he same side of the Miskatonic as the university. But I wanted time to cool off. The river had always been a good place to think, at least during daylight. I never came here at night. Huge warehouses hunkered behind me. Warped piers wandered into the water like suicides. Only a few boats were docked tonight. Scores of gulls slept on the birdlimed warehouse roofs. A tangled pile of fishing nets lay heaped against a brick wall like a formless blob, oddly sparkling under the lights, as if it were covered with a thousand tiny, winking, jeweled eyes. I couldn’t imagine eating anything that lived in this polluted sludge. Waves hung dirty lace collars on the pilings. A thick layer of muck the color of leeches sprouted everywhere the water lapped. I caught a darting movement on the dockside: a rat. Ugh. I couldn’t help but think “Plague!” whenever I saw one skittering by. This plump specimen went about its business, paying no attention to me.
Out over the water, squatting in the middle of the river, was the reason I had come here. The Unvisited Isle. The place where the Boy Scouts tramped their boots upon the charred bones of the Galinka twins, and where the police nabbed Nina after her excursion in the pilfered rowboat, if she was to be believed. Why shouldn’t I believe her? Because Preston and Minnie told me she wasn’t in attendance at their party? I knew she was. I talked with her, and stumbled onto a dead man with her standing at my side. Drunken Preston and Minnie were unreliable witnesses. Though I’d been drinking too, of course. I knew what I had seen. It was absurd to think otherwise, to question myself would be to question my very sanity. I wasn’t ready to do that. Honestly, in retrospect, I was only a little drunk.
Squeaking off to my right…
Two more rats were having a polite conversation about the quality of leavings on the shore this clammy Halloween night. Woolly fog collected over the water. I turned up the collar of my clown shirt. To my left, on the other side of this moat, ran the Boston and Maine Railroad tracks, the same site where a collegiate Clark had dumped off his bicycle and split open his knee.
I thought about what Preston had said.
Obviously, I wished Clark were still alive.
Only, I knew he wasn’t. True, I hadn’t spoken to him at all during the evening prior to his demise. I didn’t verify the identity of Friar Tuck. But the man in the monk suit looked just like Clark. Maybe a little more jowly than how I remembered him. Surely it had to be him.
Chattering…
A line of rats now – a night patrol I guessed – advanced along a warehouse loading ramp. The pageant of them sent a chill into me. The docks are notorious for rats, but seeing them in action was repulsive. Their hungry eyes bulged with intelligence; those pale, hairless tails like dirty pulled roots bobbing above the alley, suggesting pestilence. No creature of this Earth should instill a reaction of pure disgust. But I was no philosopher or saint. Rats gave me the willies. I sidestepped farther along the bridge until I was a decent distance away from the rodent activities.
I needed to find Nina.
But where to look for her?
I knew she lived wherever Courtland Dunphy was staying when he perished.
It shouldn’t take much research to locate her. We needed to talk. Had she barged her way into Preston and Minnie’s party uninvited? That was brazen but forgivable. Perhaps her curiosity had gotten the best of her. She seemed to have that problem on a regular basis. Driven by a need to know. I respected that. More importantly, I wanted to tell her about Clark’s missing corpse. In all the excitement it hadn’t occurred to me before, but I felt certain that he belonged on Nina’s list of recent eerie deaths in our city–
What were those rats doing?
I peered into the hazy light surrounding the warehouses.
That heap of fishing nets. The rats were jumping into it. One after another. And they seemed to be disappearing. It had to be an optical illusion. The number of rats going in was startling. Where were they vanishing to? There must be quite a tasty treat nestled down in that jumble of knotted twine to make them dig themselves in so deep. Something rotten and delicious, and no doubt delectable. I shivered again. I swore I heard the rats chewing.
The sound reminded me of the gnawing noises we’d heard in the observatory.
When Clark’s head was removed.
Rats?
No, it couldn’t be…
Had they absconded with his body and cleaned up afterward?
I laughed. The boom of my voice on the otherwise silent bridge was alarming. I had always entertained notions about individuals who laughed loudly at their own thoughts.
Yet, here I was.
The pile of netting shook. I figured that was possibly natural, given how full it was with inner rats, but what struck me was how unnatural it seemed, a quivering, vibrating, jittery pile of woven–
Those tiny jeweled spots on the nets, at first I thought they looked like eyes, well, now they seemed to act as eyes, because the blob of nets lifted itself off the ground and stood on two sloppy… legs… and the net creature… walked away from its resting place against the wall… Its amorphous head, which sported more eye organs than the rest, swiveled to face me. I swear it looked out over the slick water and picked me out where I leaned on the bridge rail in the fog.
And it beckoned.
I know, I know. How could that be? Impossible, you say. But I tell you, a snarled roll of netting separated from the bulk of the shifting, permeable mass. It was an arm! The arm waved to me. I startled, and then my startlement stretched out into a sense of queasy panic.
Come here, Alden.
I gasped. Words! It used words! With my sleeve I wiped at my face, thinking somehow the fog was altering my vision. Clearly, my eyes were strained. I must’ve had something in them. Residue. A salty drop of sweat. Contamination from an unknown source. Perhaps a wisp of toxic fog drifted off the rippled surface of the Miskatonic. A smear of distortion from… what exactly? I had no answer. Despite my rubbing, the sight before me did not alter for the better. No. It beckoned again.
Come closer, Alden. Don’t be afraid. I’ve something to show you. Now, listen to me.
I heard it speak. It had no mouth. But I heard it talking to me. Uttering words in a warm, syrupy baritone that was so soothing, so utterly charming. You’d put your trust in this voice. Although, I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. The net blob was responsible, but the sounds were emanating from everywhere at once. They assailed me from all directions.
That’s good. You keep walking. I’ll wait right here for you.
Keep walking? What did it mean by that?
With a sudden, snapping realization, I perceived that I was nearer to the blob. I looked down. My feet shuffled slowly, but doggedly, toward that… knotty thing. Good heavens! I was obeying it without knowing what I was doing. I forced myself to halt. My hand shot out, grabbing the iron bridge rail for support.
“No,” I said.
Why do you forestall the inevitable? Who are you to challenge me?
“Who are you?” I shouted.
You know who I am.
“I… I don’t…”
You do know. I am no one. I am you, Alden. I am no one and I am everyone.
“That makes no sense. Leave me alone.”
You called me. I always come when I’m summoned. You wanted to see. See me, Alden.
“I never called you. Even if I did, it was by mistake. I’m telling you now to go away.” My voice sounded weak, as if I were losing the ability to resist. Or worse, the desire.
That is one thing that will never happen. No one turns us back after calling. No one.
It pulled at me then like a magnet that attracts flesh and bone. I felt my body being sucked toward that mound of eyeball-covered, rat-filled, fish-rot-stinking, fibrous threads.
With two hands I grasped the bridge. My fingers slipped on the wet rails. I tightened my hold, my knuckles turning whiter.
The net blob
sighed. Its breath of putrid water and vile, greasy mud enveloped me.
If you will not come to me, I will come to you, Alden. I will come for you. We will. All of us. You see us now as you wished, and you will join soon. All makes one. You. Us. In the stars…
It dragged itself along the dockside; the mass of old nets trailed cork floats, broken clamshells, sprigs of decomposing weeds and algae yanked from the Miskatonic’s riverbed.
I screamed. Cold sweat ran over me like chilly water scooped from below the bridge.
Was there no one else on the docks at this hour? Nobody guarded the warehouses? Not a single bug-eyed, beleaguered bookkeeper who labored at this late hour with his coffee and cigarettes under a desk lamp? I guess not. Because I screamed my throat raw, yet no one came to my aid.
We are no one. We are coming for you.
The net blob hitched itself along, hauling forth its girth with maximum effort. It shambled onto the bridge. How sluggish it was, but how impressively persistent. The smell overpowered me. Every breath was a taste of slow-cooked garbage, featuring entrails, ripe and green. A halo of flies buzzed around it, ignoring the cold to feast on morsels hidden in its collapsing chambers – its honeycomb of well-aged slimes – slurping at the lumpy, fecund jelly of its malodorous taint.
The lights on the bridge shone through the blob. Inside, the rats tumbled round as if they were spinning on a wheel. Somehow, I knew the swirling energy of their lifeforces fed and propelled this monster. The motion of their rat bodies animated its horror.
If the blob were to consume me, then I would power it like the rats did.
I was not about to let that happen.
I let go of the bridge.
The blob opened its arms and ballooned hugely to catch me.
Be with us. One of us. Be one with us.
I let it pull me close, but in that final instant before its hug would snag me inside its ropy folds, I sprang across the bridge. My muscles strained. Teeth gritted. Rebounding off the rails, I lost my breath in a rush but landed on my feet behind the monster, where its mysterious attraction exerted no pull on me. Go! Run! I told myself. My panic charged me with energy.
