by S. A. Sidor
Dunphy was a talented sculptor.
“It is a smaller version of Cal! He modeled for Court,” Nina said. “They worked on the South Church gargoyle. But this can’t be the church’s replacement, they need stone.”
I touched the surface of the clay, admiring the smooth curves and muscular lines. “This is a full-scale model. The final limestone block would’ve been too heavy to keep in the apartment. Court must’ve rented another place for his carving.” I noticed a second, much larger – but empty – pedestal beside the Calvin gargoyle. “I wonder what was standing here. It’s been removed, obviously.” There was a stained canvas tarp bunched on the floor. I picked it up and spread my arms. “Big, whatever it was. Dunphy kept it covered. Guess he didn’t like what he saw of his other work-in-progress. Did he ever mention working on a side job?”
“No.” Nina was opening and closing drawers. She went exploring in Court’s spartan bedroom. A neatly made bed and a night table. Against the wall, a bookcase filled with weeksold Arkham Advertisers and a Gideons’ bible. There was a closet. She struck a match and poked her head inside. She blew out the match before it burned her fingers. She rummaged through the hanging clothes. I heard a jingle. “I found Court’s keys,” she called out.
Nina backed out into the bedroom.
I pointed to the night table. “What’s that?”
She struck another match. Finding a stout black candle, she lit it. Its warm bloom revealed a carving on the tabletop. Only the outermost edges of the design remained visible, a few tantalizingly suggestive dashes and sinewy curlicues bordering on the arabesque; the rest had been gouged completely away. Deep furrows clawed into the table. Blond woodchips littered the floor next to the bed.
“Look! It says something on the wall,” Nina said. She picked up the candle and moved it over the pillow on the bed, revealing a square block of letters chiseled into the plaster above the spot where Court would’ve laid his head each night.
MONSTER
DREAMER
NO MORE
Around the letters was the outline of a house with two chimneys, like rooks on a chessboard. “It’s New Colony,” I said, feeling myself getting excited. “One letter to represent each of the windows. The blank space is the front door.” I lifted the pillow. Underneath I found a chisel. I hefted the tool. “Makes a nice weapon. I wonder why Dunphy thought he needed it.”
“Who was he afraid of?” Nina said.
“Or maybe we should ask what.” I flashed to the rats inside the net, lurching toward me. “Maybe monsters haunted his dreams. Those words might be a kind of protection. Warding off the creatures that chased him when he slept. ‘No more…’”
“Do you hear that scratching?”
I listened.
Faintly, I did hear something. Scrape-scraping without rhythm. It continued on. Not a dog or cat caught behind a door. Nothing frantic about it. Measured, deliberate strokes. “It isn’t in this room. Is it coming from outside?”
We cocked our heads to listen.
A loud crash exploded in the other room. The sound of glass breaking…
I already had the chisel in my hand. Nina pulled out her stiletto.
We ran into the studio.
“Where’s the statue?” I asked.
“It’s gone.”
“How can that be? The thing was made of clay. It was heavy.”
Sure enough, we had heard glass breaking. The window was smashed… outward. No pieces on the floor. Something had gone outside. Whatever it was had been in here with us. My hand was sweaty on the chisel. Heart hammering. I looked down into the back lot. Shards of glass sparkled on the grass.
Nina gripped my elbow. “There! Across the river. On the tracks!”
The gargoyle crouched, looking right at us. Its eyes glowed red-hot in the washed-out moonlight. It raised its hand slowly, waving steely claws in our direction.
“It can’t be! It… just… can’t be real. Impossible.” I felt a rumble in the floor.
A Maine freight loaded with lumber was barreling down the tracks.
“The train’s headed right for him,” she said. “It’ll hit Calvin!”
“Whatever that winged fiend is, it’s not Calvin… not even human.”
How could we look away?
We couldn’t.
A second before the engine made mincemeat of that gray-green monster, the gargoyle pumped its powerful wings and flew up to the smokestack. Grabbing hold, it flattened its body – a streamlined demon – and crawled on its belly over the hot-as-Hell boiler, the sandbox, and the steam dome. When it got to the cab roof, it spun around, sitting up. The gargoyle threw its head back. Although we couldn’t hear it, I knew it was laughing at us, whooping madly as it rode the southbound like a bronco-busting cowboy out of Arkham.
Chapter Fourteen
After we watched the gargoyle disappear, we stayed there by the shattered window, not thinking any more about who might be seeing us. Not thinking, period. I knew we were in shock; numbness filling up our bodies like sand, weighing us down, making us move slowly, think slowly. I couldn’t believe what I’d witnessed. Yes, I’d seen the net blob come to life and harass me on the bridge, maybe it even planned to swallow me up like it did to those greasy river rats.
But this encounter felt different.
It was much worse.
Maybe because I couldn’t doubt it. I didn’t have the luxury, if that doesn’t sound too funny. Because we were both there together, Nina and me.
And the two of us couldn’t be crazy.
“That really happened. Didn’t it?” she asked, not in a whisper, forcing her voice to sound firm. Nina was taller than I am by a good two inches. She had an athlete’s confident posture. Her physical strength was never in question, but this was not a purely physical threat we had confronted. Our reality was under attack.
“Yes, it did. I don’t understand how, or why. But it happened as surely as I’m still standing here with you. We’re in a rehabilitated Georgian mansion on the banks of the smelly old Miskatonic River in Arkham, Massachusetts. My family’s lived around this moldy old town since before the Revolutionary War. I was born here. Tonight, the moon is putrid but it’s still shining. Not a cloud in the sky… and we’re both real. We are here.”
“I’m shaking. Can you feel me?”
I hugged her tightly. Our hearts thundered. “I feel you as surely as I’ve felt anything.”
“You’re shaking too, Alden. So this is no dream.”
Not a nightmare. Reality. Our solid flesh was proof of that fact. Knowing this didn’t make things better. Dreams are something that end; you wake up and they’re finished.
Yet, even abject terror in the face of monsters reaches a lull over time. You manage somehow to get past it. The panic fades to background terror, a jumpiness. But it’s no less a threat once it gets behind you than it was when you faced it head-on. The lingering sense of the monstrous becomes worse than its actual presence. It surrounds you, and fills you with an inescapable pressure that builds and wrecks you inside and out. It’s personal, an invisible invader who might manifest at any moment. Expectation of evil is your new sickness. The worrying eats at you like acid. You and the monster become one thing, and that feels like the dirtiest trick of them all.
We were only beginning to learn this lesson in fear. We weren’t experts.
Not yet.
Her arms, my arms, loosened our holds on one another. We spoke in gentle looks until we found the power of language again. We breathed. The shaking subsided. From outside the broken window came the soft hoot of a screech owl. The grumbling motor of a fishing boat headed out for a night’s catch. Cars passing. The chuckle of the river flowing over rock bars. In the distance, a dog howled.
“Why didn’t it attack us? Why are we alive?” she asked me.
“I don’t know,” I
said. “We should get out of here.”
Nina fixed her cap on her head. “One more look around before we go. This might be the only room in Arkham we know of that has monsters.”
We scoured Dunphy’s apartment. This time with the lights on. It was when we were leaving that we found the message. It couldn’t have been more obvious.
The gargoyle had scratched it on the inside of the door so we wouldn’t miss it.
CALvin RiTe
NinA TArrinGTon ALL Den Oaks
WiLL Die by the HAnd of the ONe who CALLs the FALLing sTAr Thru The GATe
TwsTer of The CoiL
The Un-Sun
yoOYUVABDAA
“He isn’t much of a speller, is he?” I said, joking to hold my fear at bay.
“Except for that gibberish at the end, he gets his point across.”
Below the words was a series of symbols which were becoming familiar to me. Part of me was happy to see them. They helped to pull the pieces together. Figures I remembered from the Mediterranean coast. Wax drippings on a church floor. Now this.
“What are you doing?” Nina sounded as edgy as I felt.
“Looking for paper,” I said.
Inside a drawer I found a sketch pad and a charcoal stick. I tore off a couple of sheets and held them up on top of the etched symbols. “Help me. Here.”
“What should I do?”
“Press the corners down. I’m making a rubbing. I’ve seen these signs before.”
I passed the stick over the newsprint. Symbols began showing up on the page like a secret message. “This one’s a fork with three prongs. I’ve seen it the most. Then there’s a spiked crown. Not always the same when it shows up but close enough. Here’s a shooting star. That’s new. But I saw it earlier today. This last one looks like the letter U balanced on a triangle. Maybe it’s a cup? With two ovals inside. That’s the one I saw when all this started.”
“Where did you see these signs?”
“At South Church. In wax spread on the church tiles. I think they might spell out a kind of curse or something. When I looked at them, I felt funny in my head, like I might faint.” I was almost finished with my copying. “Tear me off another sheet, would you, please?”
“Do you think someone used them on Court? To make him fall?”
“They might’ve. I wouldn’t have wanted to feel disoriented on the roof. It reminds me of a festival I visited in Spain. Oddest thing I ever attended. The principal player wore a spiked crown. These forks were present too, carried around a bonfire circle by little goblins. People dressed as goblins, I assumed. Strange fiesta. Pagan. Very ritualistic. They burned effigies in a mock sacrifice. Massively unsettling. Boundaries were crossed. It left me feeling strange for days.” I saw him again, the tall man in the full head mask. The crowd chanting. Then I saw Balthazarr in another crowd, sitting in the front row at the Houdini show. Was that really him, there and backstage? Why was I thinking about Juan Hugo Balthazarr now?
“Ritual sacrifices!” Nina drew me back into the moment. “That is creepy.”
“Careful. I want proof that we can show to an expert when the time comes.”
“Who’s an expert on this?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps we can find out.”
I completed the last of the rubbings.
“Alden, I’m frightened. Human killers are one thing. Supernatural monsters take things to another level entirely. That gargoyle isn’t supposed to exist. Should we stop?”
I checked the copies I’d made to see if they were legible. “Look, I’m scared too. It would be insane not to be. I thought you wanted to look for the net blob. To discover any connections to those unexplained deaths. But if you say you want to quit–”
“I’m not saying ‘quit.’ Only let’s think things through. After the gargoyle… reading this message… I don’t know if I want to know more. What are we getting ourselves into?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. But we have to keep going, Nina.”
“Why?”
“Because the first time I saw these symbols was on the beach at Cannes. Preston drew two of them in the sand with his foot.” Saying that out loud felt peculiar. A kind of betrayal.
But who, or what, had I betrayed? Balthazarr leaped into my mind again. I saw images floating in the air of Dunphy’s room. Mirages of infamous Balthazarr paintings. Fantastical creatures. Physics-defying acts. The world tearing itself apart, melting and shredding. Provocative. Unnerving. To live in that man’s mind had to be a cosmic adventure. The images faded. I hadn’t really seen them. They’d come from my memories of his paintings. My stressed brain projected them in the air like shadow figures on a wall.
Nina shook her head. “You sound utterly mad. What’s Preston got to do with this?”
Preston. I shook off my fuzzy thoughts. “I don’t know how he fits. But he must. Maybe it’s like automatic writing. Turn the mind off and let the body draw. He didn’t realize what he was doing. It originated in his unconscious. Maybe he’d seen them somewhere. They obviously made an impression. I plan to ask him. Tell me something. What is the Colony?”
Nina frowned, puzzled. “It’s an artistic collective. This is the Colony’s home.”
“A commune? Like Barbizon, or Byrdcliffe in New York?” Why was a gargoyle statue coming to life here? Dunphy was an artist. Isn’t bringing art to life what artists do? It felt like I’d taken hold of a string. But I couldn’t see what was on the other end of it yet.
“I suppose it’s the same idea. A special place for creativity. What are you getting at?”
I wasn’t quite sure myself. But I kept pulling on that string. “Why do you live here, Nina? Where do you fit into the picture? Who invited you to the bohemian village?”
I saw the anger flare in her. The muscles of her jaw pulled taut. Her eyes narrowed.
“I applied. I’m as much of an artist as anyone here. As much as you, too.”
“You’re not a novelist, playwright, or a poet. You don’t write for a newspaper. Who’s familiar with your work? Who sent you the invitation?”
Nina reined in her anger and thought back. “I received a letter from the Colony Board of Judges. They said I’d been recommended.” The weirdness of it struck her for the first time.
“Who recommended you?”
She walked to the shattered window. Looking out at the night. Seeing her reflection. “They never told me. Recommendations are kept confidential from the applicants, they said. I’m writing a study of crime in Arkham. Chronicling Arkham’s social decay. I’ve had a few excerpts published as articles in journals. I figured someone influential read one of them and liked it. I want to write a book. That’s what I’ve been doing here since I arrived. It’s my project.”
“What better way to keep an eye on you and your project than to bring you close, where they could watch you. I’m not threatened by you, Nina. But who is?”
She brushed her fingers along the broken glass hanging in the window. “What you said about Preston a minute ago, did you mean it? Do you think he’s involved in this madness, these events?”
“I can’t say. But he knows more than he’s admitted. He’s acting bizarrely. At first, I thought he was spooked by the upcoming wedding. But I think it’s more than that. Something is eating at him. He wants to tell me, but he doesn’t know how.”
“Preston was the one who got me in here,” she said, defeated. “I’m sure of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I applied to join New Colony, he greased the skids. He made certain my application was approved.” She jerked away from the glass. She’d cut herself. A drop of blood welled up. She popped her injured finger between her lips.
The light in the apartment felt too harsh. The shadows, too dark.
I was lost. I felt as if I’d been rolled down a hill in a bar
rel. What was she saying? Which way was up? Preston and New Colony? I didn’t follow her implications.
“What does Preston have to do with whether you’re Colony-approved?”
“It’s his money that paid for it. Or his father’s, to be more precise. Fairmont Senior. Along with someone named Carl Sanford. They bought this block and transformed it. They’re behind the New Colony Foundation. They decide who gets in and who doesn’t. It’s a confidential process, very hush-hush. Cloak and dagger stuff. The Colony Board of Judges allegedly decides, but it might be one or two people. Who really knows?”
I laughed, but the noise I made was hollow. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I figured Preston never gave a damn about the arts.”
Nina came closer. “If it was his idea that I move to New Colony, if he invited me, then what does that mean? I only wanted to write my book. I never questioned being here. I like it here, Alden. The people I’ve met don’t feel weird to me. But…”
“But what?” I asked.
She gave me a look of grave recognition. The broken window gaped behind her.
“Who invited you to return to Arkham, Alden?”
I folded the rubbings and slid them into my coat pocket.
“We have to talk to Preston,” I said.
Nina nodded. “First, we need to warn Calvin. According to that door, he’s in as much danger as we are. The gargoyle wasn’t an assassin. He was a winged messenger.”
Chapter Fifteen
On the street, Calvin and Christophe were long gone. I looked back across the road at the Colony mansion. Lights glowed in the apartments. On an unseen phonograph, King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band were playing the Dippermouth Blues. It looked so normal from the outside. Just a nice building where people lived. Except I knew it was different. These people were all artists, handpicked by a mystery cabal. Monsters appeared in their midst. Perhaps I was being overdramatic.
I regarded Nina. “Why would Preston’s father sponsor an art commune?”
