If the murderous culprits believe this shit, then Garret should pretend to do so as well. Nobody ever caught anybody, except by accident, without first learning how to think like the fugitive.
One of the details that he had gleaned from the research he did was that the ritual was probably not to summon Cthulhu, but rather to summon an even more powerful entity known as Yog-Sothoth. Yog-Sothoth was also called the Lurker at the gate and was said to be 'coterminous' with our space-time, which Garret assumed meant that he occupied the same space in another universe.
If Garret believed in these creatures, then he would be afraid right now. This Yog dude was a world ender. If he made it to our world, our world would turn into some dark version of Hell. At least, that is how the story went.
Garret glanced at the clock, which said that it was nearly six O'clock, and time to head for the Starlight's End. The gang had all promised to make an appearance there tonight, and Garret had a few thoughts to bounce off them while guzzling beer.
Five minutes later, Garret made it through the door of the only drinking establishment in Holden and made for his new friends. They were sitting in the corner booth, with one empty beer still on the table, and one mostly drained in front of them.
Oscar and Jonny were sitting on the East side of the table, with Wilber and Ian parked on the other end of the table. Freya was hovering around the table as much as possible when she wasn't serving the other two customers in the bar.
Garret sat down at the South position of the table and took the liberty of draining the second pitcher of beer into his glass. He gave the high sign to Freya to refill the pitcher and settled back for an informative chat.
The conversation quickly became a conversation with two fronts. Wilber was eager to expound on his show topic from last night, which coincided with Garret's conversational needs, and Oscar and Jonny were intent on asking Ian what he was sensing, and getting the entire story of his dreams and out of body experiences from him. Garret was eager to see what tidbits Ian could come up with almost as much as he needed to cement his understanding of the Mythos with Wilber.
Garret and Wilber bantered back and forth about which of the Old Ones was the target of the murders, and Ian told the wide-eyed audience about his trove of pertinent dreams that he had dreamed in the last few days. Garret and Wilber rapidly agreed that the target was Yog-Sothoth, not Cthulhu, and Wilber proceeded to tell the FBI agent about the other alien species that Lovecraft wrote about, and the different classes of entities, such as the Outer Gods, the Elder Things, and a myriad of Servitors and demonic gods.
Once that topic dried up somewhat, Garret turned his attention to Ian, and his dreams and portents. Freya had been making frowny faces about Wilber's conversations, thinking that he was likely to generate some unrest or even fear in the citizens of the town. She seemed relieved when the conversation shifted to Ian.
"You know how this thing works with me," Ian replied. "What I see is mostly impressions and symbolism. What I can tell you is that there were humans involved with the murders, but there is something behind it all, and it is not a human."
"This case has me stumped," Garret admitted. "If you can come up with anything useful, I hope that you will let me know."
"You got it, Garret," Ian told him. "I did have one dream that I think is directly connected to the murders."
"I am all ears," Garret said. "Tell me all about your dream."
One of the two other customers slouched his way out the door after paying his tab. The other one finished his beer and looked around the bar, mostly at Freya, of course. He finally got tired of not being the center of Freya's world and ambled out of the door, no doubt on his way to whomever he saw as a viable alternative to Freya. Freya took that as a sign that she should sit down with the group, and she sat down beside Ian.
"I had a dream of shadows," Ian began. "First there were three shadows, and they moved down a rock wall and disappeared. Next, there were five shadows, and they also disappeared. Finally, there were four shadows, and they slipped into the rock wall, and became a part of it."
"Well, it sounds like your shadows are the murder victims," Garret admitted. "There were three victims in the first killing, and five in the second one. Does this mean that there will be another case involving four victims?"
"I don't know," Ian confessed. "Probably, but sometimes these things can be tricky."
"Something weird was happening in the lab today," Oscar said. "You know that I do the water chemistry for the water plant, in addition to the biology for this area. None of the STANDARD METHODS reactions and tests worked the way they were supposed to work. Hell, I got a TSS result that projected a total suspended solids weight greater than the total weight of the water and the solids. The next time, the results came out as almost pure water."
"It has been a strange day all around," Jonny admitted. "This little town has never had a mass murder of any sort before. About the worst thing that happened here before was when Mr. Gimble hit his wife for nagging too much."
"There were no fingerprints on the scene that might have been left by the killers," Garret stated. "They had no quarrels with any other people that we could discern, and there was no apparent motivation for the crime unless whatever ritual the beheading was part of was the motivation."
"In a world of the headless, the headed are king or something to that effect," Jonny quipped. "There are some weird people out there. Just look at Wilber. Maybe they just wanted to kill someone in as horrific a way as they could imagine."
"Yuck, yuck," Wilber countered. "That wasn't even funny."
"I cannot tell you what is behind all of these events, but I can inform you that it is not a person," Ian said. "At least, it is not just a person."
"I will take that idea under consideration," Garret said. "In all my history as a peace officer, I have never found a murder without there being a human who did the murdering. I can't arrest ghosts and Leprechauns, but I can arrest people."
"It must be good to live in such a black and white world," Ian said. "I have never had the luxury of believing my preferred beliefs. The Truth always seems to get in the way."
Almost as if Ian's statement was a cue, three men entered the bar and clustered around one of the tables. They seemed a little excited in a strange way, and one of them had a blood-like substance on his lips, which he licked from time to time.
When Freya approached them to take their orders, the tallest of the three looked at her with a maniacal gleam in his eyes, and he said, "Fuck off." Ian looked as if he was about to throw his 160 pounds of testosterone-deficient flesh into a fight that he could not possibly win.
One of the other men took the opportunity to yell, "You have nothing that we want, Bitch."
Ian tried to rise from his seat, but Garret put one large hand on his shoulder to keep him seated and rose from his chair himself to confront the Trio. Approaching them, he dared them to be confrontational to him with his stare.
"You guys need to leave, now!" Garret ordered. "There is the door. Don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out."
The biggest of the three started talking belligerently, and Garret took his hand, twisting his arm behind the man's back, using the man's thumb as the control point. With a little assistance, the three of them left the bar. Even crazy people are not stupid enough to pick fights they cannot win.
Garret stood just outside the bar's doors until the Trio was out of sight. Coming back in, he waylaid Oscar as he was coming out of the restroom. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the vial of sample fungus that he had purloined the other day from the crime scene materials and handed it to Oscar.
"Oscar, if you get a chance, I would like you to analyze this fungus for any unique characteristics that might explain why it seems to have been associated with both murder scene bodies," Garret ventured. "Be very careful of it. It is very aggressive, and has some flesh-eating qualities."
"Sounds interesting," Oscar returned. "It may be a couple of da
ys before I can give it the attention it deserves, but I will look at it."
"Good enough," Garret said. "Let me know what you find."
At this point, they stopped discussing the fungus, as they had reached the table where all of their friends were seated. They joined the chatter for a few moments.
The back office door opened, and the owner of the bar entered. His name was Winston Bishop, a pot-bellied man with gray in his hair. Freya often referred to him as 'a sweetie' and looked forward to his infrequent visits to the bar.
"Freya, I just ran into something of a looting gang down the street," Winston said. "Officers Skinner and Olaf went to break it up, but the last I saw, it looked as if they were going to join them. I think that it is time to lock this bar up, and go somewhere safe for the night."
"Aren't you worried about the damage they could do to an untended bar?" Freya asked.
"These folks seem to be excited mostly by human resistance," Winston replied. "I think the bar will be safer empty than being defended. Also, if it is a choice between a safe bar or a safe Freya, I will pick Freya every time."
With the ominous warning that being out this night could be risky because things were getting dangerous, the gang all did their part to close the place up tight. Garret decided that he would ensure that everybody got home safely.
Freya still lived with her parents in the house that she had lived in all of her life. Oscar and Jonny lived close to each other not far from the bar, and Ian was currently residing in the guest cottage of an older couple's property just down the road.
Once the four of them got home, they would be as safe as they would ever be in this day and time. Wilber would be hosting his show at the radio station on Main Street, and he assured Garret that he would spend the rest of the night there if he thought that there was any danger in going home afterward.
They all piled into their choice of vehicles, and left the bar for the night, with assurances that they would all be back tomorrow night.
4 strange world
April 9, 2017, Tuesday
Ian finished watching the YouTube video about psychic development and turned off the television. In a few minutes, he was going to go to the Starlight's End for their semi-regular get-together.
He was feeling like walking the short distance to the bar since it was not even six in the afternoon yet. He could catch a ride home with one of the guys at the end of the bar visit. It should be safe enough. He put on his windbreaker and left his cottage.
He cut across two streets by walking down the alley that connected them. It was when he approached the third and final street on his route to the bar that two men approached him.
"You are going to have to pay to use our alley," the scruffier of the two men said. "We will take your money, and if you don't have enough, we will take it out in trade."
Mr. Scruffy leered as he contemplated the prospects. The chance of Ian having enough money was nil.
"When we get done with him, let's do that Misery thing," his companion said with a smirk. "We can have a good old time tonight."
The two men were within arm's length of Ian when he finally decided that the best thing to do was to run. He started to dash down the alley and promptly tripped over the scruffy man's leg.
Scruffy reached for Ian's throat just as his companion landed a fist on Ian's left eye. The scruffy guy missed his hold as Ian's head was propelled out of range. Ian scrambled to his feet and started to run as hard as he could. It was a near thing, but he managed to outdistance the two ruffians on his slightly longer legs and in a minute or so, he arrived at the bar.
When he burst through the door, Freya's eyes widened at the sight of him. "What happened to you?" she cried. "How did you get that shiner?"
"I met some new people today," Ian joked. "They were apparently operating a new toll road, and I didn't have the right change." He looked around and noted that they were alone at the moment.
"Where are the other guys?" Ian asked. "I figured that Jonny at least would have been here by now. You know how he likes your Fire Water."
Just as he said that the door opened, and Oscar stepped into the bar. He did not look as damaged as Ian was, but he looked equally disheveled.
"I saw a group of people looting the Hardware store," Oscar said. "They chased me for a while when they saw that I saw them. I swear that two of them were cops."
"This town is getting weird," Freya admitted. "You can't trust anyone to act normally anymore. Nobody except for current company, of course."
Freya got Ian and Oscar a starter pitcher of beer, and the two of them had just settled in when the door opened again, and Jonny entered the bar. As he made his way over toward the two sitting men, Freya took the opportunity to go into the back to bring out a supply of nuts for the snack bowls.
"It is getting kind of freaky out there tonight," Jonny began as he sat down. "I was delayed a few moments on the way here when I discovered that the neighbor's collie was hanging on the porch beams, dead, with its throat cut. They had no idea, and the wife was getting pretty hysterical before the cops got there."
"I am not certain how much we can trust the police anymore," Oscar volunteered. "Whatever is happening, it is changing their behavior just like everyone else."
"That explains what was happening when I left," Jonny agreed. "The husband tried to slash the first cop with a knife, and the second cop was beating on him with a baton when I decided to make myself scarce."
They cut the conversation at that point, as a shrill scream came from the direction of the back room that Freya had disappeared into a few minutes ago. Ian was on his feet and running toward the scream in an instant, with Oscar and Jonny not far behind.
When Ian burst through the door, he was greeted by the sight of Freya backed into a corner and staring frantically into the shadows of the wash area used to clean the dirty utensils and glasses. Ian grabbed her, and she wrapped herself around him in a grateful death grip.
"What is it, honey," Ian asked, letting the unintentional endearment slip out in his concern. "What's over there?"
"Snakes! There are rattlesnakes over there, under the sink!" she said. "There are at least three of them, maybe more."
Being clued in on the possibilities, the three men could now hear a rattling sound that could be the warning rattles of one of the snakes. The three looked around for something to use as weapons against the reptiles. Jonny found a misplaced trash grabber, and Oscar and Ian found a couple of reasonably lengthy pieces of wood.
Suitably armed, the three cautiously approached the last known location of the snakes and saw them tightly coiled around stored items in the under-sink space. Ian especially was not feeling ecologically friendly just then, and between the men, they made short work of the musk-laden animals.
Ian led Freya back into the more comfortable environment of the bar proper. Oscar and Jonny followed them, beginning an argument about whether they should retrieve the rattles for one reason or another.
Freya continued to cling to Ian, much to Ian's delight. It seemed as though their relationship had started to form some real attachments, even if only because Freya was afraid of this new world they now lived in.
No matter why Freya chose to cling to him, Ian was feeling a slightly inappropriate pleasure in the way she was imploring his continued presence with her eyes. At least for the moment, he comprised a large part of her world, and he could not but enjoy the status.
The door to the bar opened once again, and Garret came in with Crawford. They settled in at the booth, and the guys and Freya filled them in on current events.
Jonny recounted the tale of the disposal of the snakes. He was uncharacteristically humorless in the telling, and it was only toward the end of the story that the group started to suspect that he had a secret and deathly fear of snakes.
"You folks should be very careful for a while," Detective Crawford said. "There have been some incidents in town lately. The department had directed most of the police force t
o work from home, since yesterday when Officers Jordan and Stikel came in and shot up the precinct. They killed three cops before they were put down."
"Things are definitely getting shady out there," Jonny agreed. "Everyone that I have met over the last couple of days has not been acting like themselves anymore."
"How many cops do you have at that precinct?" Oscar asked. "I figured that three cops were about the full size of the station for a town this size."
"Ordinarily, we have about eight total, since the Sheriff's Office also runs out of that building," Crawford explained, "But since the first multiple murder, we have had our numbers beefed up by other police precincts in the area. Still, we only had about twenty-six total before the three got killed. Now we are down the three, and the two perps."
There was some national newscast running on the television that was located on the wall, which had been on mute. Freya was attracted to the visuals of the newscast and un-muted the television. A cute young Blonde was the newscaster, and she was discussing current national and international events.
"Multiple reports are coming in from all over the world," said the reporter. "There are several reports of UFO activity, and abduction reports from Montana, riots, and looting in New York City, and extreme violence and rumors of cannibalism in San Francisco. It would be easier at this point to list the places where unusual events are not taking place than to list those events in their entirety. This is Sally Morton signing off. Back to you, William."
"So it is happening everywhere, not just here," Oscar said. "I was starting to worry that the insanity was just an aberration of Holden."
"Nope. It is everywhere, but it is temporary," Crawford said. "We will get a handle on all of this, and in a couple of days, you will wonder what the tension was all about."
Ian felt a strange sensation of something out of place when Crawford spoke. It might well mean something else, but he was betting that it meant that Crawford was lying, and it felt like he was working against the rest of them.
Beyond The Chaos Gate: Lovecraftian Horror Page 3
