"This weather?" he asked as he stopped and pointed east and the open water. "You won't be saying that by nightfall. There's a storm coming, a nor'easter. The shrimp and fish can sense it. They leap into the nets on days like this to escape the wrath of the sea, understand?"
I nodded, even though I had no idea what he was talking about. I was sure he was chiding me.
"Why are you here, in our quiet little fishing village?" he asked.
"Just passing through, I suppose."
"I suppose you work for the government. I suppose you're here for no good."
"Of course not. If I were a government employee I'd be here in style, no? I'm also a citizen of another country." I pursed my lips when he began to shake. I feared the man would hit me.
"We don't take kindly to nosy people, and those that watch us. I suggest thirty days sitting in that rat-infested house and then you be gone."
"Rat infested?"
He waved me off as he turned and went back to the pier.
"Ho, sir, what did that comment mean?"
He was already away, blending in with the others on the pier.
I turned back, hands shaking at his comment, when I saw the little girl's face just over the other side of the wall. To say it was startling would be an understatement. She was pale like the moon, thin, white and blonde curls flittering over her sunken eyes, and the only real color of her face were her thin red lips. The oddest thing, though, were the small appendages on either side of her neck, as if she'd grown gills, or had an extra flap of skin. When she locked eyes with me I saw only fear.
"Your food is ready. Come now," Murphy called from the end of the block.
I turned to him and nodded. When I turned back the little girl was gone.
* * * * *
Dylan Murphy was an airship pilot until 1895. "I didn't like it, the height. Isn't that amusing? A pilot afraid of being up so high."
I didn't speak of the little girl once I'd returned to the bar. A steaming bowl of seafood soup was waiting for me, along with another whiskey and a mug of ale.
"I heard Grandon mention you were a Peabody," he said.
"Still am," I said with a laugh. "On my mother's side."
"I knew your grandfather, believe or not. I was there, in Albany in '89, when the L7 went down. The man cried."
"I wasn't very close to him, I'm afraid."
"He was a great man." Murphy tapped thrice on the wooden bar. "I learned quite a bit from your grandfather, even in the end."
"The end? He's still alive as far as I know."
Murphy shook his head. "Perhaps his body, but his mind is not what it once was."
"Pardon?"
Murphy leaned across the bar and looked at me odd. "Once I found out who your grandfather is, I assumed he was the reason you were in Keyport."
"My grandfather lives in Massachusetts."
Murphy shook his head. "Not in two winters. He resides here, in Keyport. A block from the house you are staying."
* * * * *
Before I stopped I knew which house he was supposedly living in: the one that had frightened me the night before. Even in direct sunlight, with birds chirping in the oak behind the house and a lone butterfly before me, it was with a bad feeling I strode to the front door and timidly knocked.
I heard nothing stir inside. A distant buzzing caught my ear and I looked up to see, far away in the distant north, a dirigible. Stray wisps of engine noise floated to me in the still air. I wondered if it was an omen, me standing on the front steps seeking a grandfather I hadn't seen in years, after coming seemingly at random to this fishing village.
When the door suddenly pulled open with force, I nearly tripped and fell. Grabbing the doorframe, I stopped my embarrassing descent and labored to keep my knees from buckling.
"Can I help you?" the wizened old man filling the doorway asked. He was like a golem, with thick gray skin and a balding pate. His eyes were striking, blue like the sea, and menacing.
"I seek audience with Mister Peabody."
The monster shook his head.
I waited for a further reply but he simply stared at me.
"Can you kindly tell him a Jeffry Ruggerio, his grandson, is here to see him?"
Without a word he slammed the door in my face.
I felt my face, red from embarrassment and from the sun. The dirigible was a distant memory and the birds had stopped chirping. I felt suddenly alone, standing on the stoop, sweating.
Several minutes passed. I put my hand twice to the door to knock again but thought better of it. I hadn't seen my grandfather in far too long, and was never close to the old codger. My mother had always been cold to him, especially since her parents had gone their separate ways when she was young. While his money was always spoken of in high regard, I never heard a kind word said about the man himself.
The door opened so suddenly that my cap flew from my head with the wind's force it conjured. "He'll see you now."
The man moved back into the dark, leaving the door gaping. I retrieved my cap, folded it in my hands, and reluctantly entered. It would not be melodramatic to say that I feared for my life as I entered, for the oppressive air hung on me like a thick woolen blanket. It was dark, dust swirls in the air, and a sense of neglect permeating the very walls. I smelled mildew and rat droppings and… something ripe.
I was led into a gloomy living room. The windows were covered in thick brown rugs nailed to the wall itself. A small fire burned in the fireplace, the smoke curling at the feet of my grandfather, who sat in a chair.
The sight of him stunned me. Where, only a few short years ago, the man seemed alive, robust and filled with a burning sense of purpose, now before me was a shell. His hair, once full and golden, was gone save a few strands that fell to his shoulders. He'd lost half his body weight, it seemed, and his eyes, once vibrant, were black coals set in a skeletal head.
He didn't move and I feared the golem had brought me inside as a cruel trick, to show me the old man had passed.
"Come closer," I heard him whisper, his voice like crumpled paper.
I obeyed. A glance behind me told me the servant was gone. As there was no chair to sit and none offered, I stood before him and smiled. "Grandfather, so good to see you."
"Lies."
"Excuse me?" I muttered. He was always arrogant and always a bit of a character but he was never rude.
His left hand moved slowly to his face, fingers like gnarled bird claws. "Did anyone follow you?"
"I don't understand…"
He sat up stiffer in the chair and pointed a finger at the near window. "Is anyone outside even now, watching us?"
I had no idea what he meant. I went to the window and touched the makeshift curtains.
"Only peek out," he said in warning.
I did and gasped when I saw Douglas Grandon, the tailor, standing across the street and staring at the house. "I don't understand."
Grandfather coughed. As I turned to face him I heard the slightest scratching below my feet. I jumped, but there was nothing there but dust and dirt on the wooden floor.
He looked at me queerly with those beady eyes.
I pointed down at the floor. "I heard a scratching, as of rats."
His thin lips smiled, bloodless and awkward. "Those aren't rats, Jeffry."
"Then you do remember me? It wasn't so long ago that we'd last seen one another. Mother - your daughter - is still in merry England."
Grandfather waved a boney hand and grimaced. "No cares about that woman. Tell her she'll not get a penny of the family fortune, because it is gone. Gone, I tell you!" He began coughing again but as I went to him he pushed me away with strength I didn't think possible.
I left him until the fit passed. I went back to the window but now Grandon was gone, or hiding behind shrubbery or the far home. Odd.
"You will stay until after dark. It is no coincidence you are here, especially tonight. I knew someone would come." He frowned at me. "Better you than anyone, I suppo
se."
"I cannot stay until dark, Grandfather. I have many things to accomplish today."
"You stay."
As if on cue, the golem appeared behind me. I felt his presence before I actually saw him. He filled the only exit from the living area.
"I need to eat and fetch my books," I barked hastily, feeling trapped. I wanted to escape this madness, this evil old house and this crazy old man and his goon.
"Toland will fix you a meal, and I have a vast library in the next room. Sit down, read, eat, and have some wine. Tonight we will return to 26 Walling Terrace and all will be revealed."
I didn't bother to ask how he knew where I was staying.
* * * * *
After a large meal of blackened fish, hard bread and a mound of white corn, I had fought vainly to stay awake. At some point I fell out and I shuddered to think how I'd come to be on the dusty couch, covered in a ratty blanket.
We left Grandfather's home just before midnight. Toland, his servant, went ahead, leaving me to walk-carry the old man, who was as light as a feather, and his bones seemed as brittle as a robin's skeleton. I started to ask him a question but he shushed me like I was a child.
Fear and dread came over me as we approached my temporary home. I had a dozen questions rattling around in my head but was afraid to ask them aloud, for fear they would be answered truthfully and drive me mad.
What strange coincidence, what cosmic crafting, what disaster of Rogiere's Nutrinoamalgram supposed time machine had brought me to this queer fishing village, one I'd never heard of until a few days ago? Why had I found my Grandfather, who only hours ago, I was told was here and not where I'd assumed he was? It all made no sense.
My other, pressing questions would have to wait, as I helped my grandfather up the steps when we arrived at our destination. Immediately the scuffling below us began, and I could picture large chunks of rotting wood being ripped by vermin claws.
"They aren't rats," he said to me suddenly as if reading my thoughts.
"Then what are they?"
"The children. Carry me inside, where I will sit and tell you before I go."
"Go? What are you talking about?"
I led him into the dark kitchen and was able to find a suitable chair for his slight frame without hitting my knee or breaking anything. I lit a candle and placed it on the table just as Toland entered, unwelcome, into my foyer. Something gleamed in his hand.
Toland stood above and behind my grandfather and placed the stopwatch before him with a cruel smile.
It was Grandon's Piedmont!
"Did you read it?" my grandfather asked the servant.
Toland shook his head and smiled a cruel grimace of terror. "Alas, I cannot read. I was, however, able to get the tailor to pronounce the single word etched to its base."
"Cthulhu, I presume?" my grandfather asked with a smile of his own.
I had never heard this strange word before but it didn't stop me from shivering in fright. I was quite out of my comfort zone and element. The primal part of me screamed to fling wide the door to the house and run, run as fast and as far as my legs would take me, away from this madness and Keyport and the chaos it held.
"Give my grandson the papers," my grandfather intoned with his raspy voice. He fixed me with a hard stare, one I was sure in ages past had forced business associates and enemies alike to do his bidding.
As I took the bundle, wrapped in cheesecloth and further in large unmarked sheets of paper, I watched my grandfather for further instructions. This was all too much for me to bear, and I wanted to flee once again. The golem near the doorway surely sensed it, because he took a step back and watched me.
"After I am gone, you must leave immediately. They will come for us, the both of us, as well as Toland. The citizens of Keyport have tolerated me here long enough, and tonight they know what is afoot. They will begin lining the streets soon, and this former funereal hovel will be razed by morn. I suggest you not be in it. I have worn out my welcome."
He tried to stand of his own volition but failed. I took him by the boney arm and he gripped my shoulders suddenly and stood up to his once-full height and stared into my eyes. His black pits unnerved me but out of respect I refused to look away. "To the cellar and be quick."
I decided not to argue. This was all so out of my control and I was an unwitting co-conspirator in things I could not fathom. As I led him through the dining room Toland came from behind holding the candle.
"Once you are safely away, out of New Jersey, I wish you to read the words I've written and heed them. You are the last of the family that can break this curse, but you must be steadfast in your resolution."
Without preamble, Grandfather flung open the door. A hot draft roiled up from the dark abyss, and I gave up two steps in fear, thinking my skin would sizzle and slide off my face if I stood longer. He took the candle from Toland, smiled, and moved with surprising speed down the steps.
Before I could react Toland had pushed me aside and slammed the door closed, but not before I glimpsed the monstrosity.
It was amorphous, white like glowing ivory, and slick with vile wetness. And it oozed to my grandfather.
Before the scream died away Toland was dragging me back through the kitchen. "I need my things, my books," I stammered.
"You will leave with your life if you are lucky," Toland whispered in my ear. As we rushed out into the night I could see torch-bearers marching from two different directions.
He pushed me to the west and pointed. "Go through the bushes there, slip onto Main Street and keep heading west until you feel safe."
"Feel safe?"
He smiled. "Trust me. Once out of the town's hold you will finally breathe again."
"And what of you?"
"I am born here and I will die here. Keyport has always been my home. The ocean will claim my body before light."
* * * * *
In the weeks that passed fleeting newspaper mentions talked of two fires in the fishing village of Keyport, and even without the exact addresses I knew which houses had been torched. No mention was given about bodies being found, and no news of my grandfather was mentioned. For all intents and purposes he still resided in his home in Massachusetts. My mother never accepted any of my telegrams or letters, seeming to disappear suddenly.
It was all a strange business, but it made maddening sense once I perused my grandfather's rambling and sometimes incoherent diaries. I would have scoffed at his talk of family curses, Old Ones and the ties of Keyport to another city, Innsmouth, if I hadn't seen with my own eyes the horror at the base of those steps.
Indeed, many a fitful night was spent screaming and yammering about it, until I thought I'd gone mad. When I'd met Lucinda, it was as if the clouds had parted and she was my ray of golden sunshine. The dreams stopped and we lived in relative peace in Philadelphia, where I settled down and became, ironically, a horologist, working with her father in the family business and specializing in Piedmont repair.
I'd forgotten about the diary, the strange Cthulhu word, and Keyport itself, until my dear wife Lucinda, pregnant with our first, died in childbirth.
As the doctors talked to me of their regrets, and the child being malformed and pale as the moon, with strange protrusions emanating from her neck, and with her toes and fingers webbed and greenish, I knew. By God, I knew that I hadn't escaped the curse.
Now what?
Cthulhunicorn
Katelynn Rosamilia & Armand Rosamilia
Taffy the Unicorn was near Innsmouth and wanted to go swimming. It was a beautiful day and she saw a very inviting beach nearby.
Taffy decided to fly over and stay for a little while. When Taffy arrived, she looked around and saw that no one was there. She found the perfect spot to lay and nap for a bit.
When Taffy woke up she decided to go swimming in the clear turquoise ocean. The water was perfect and she was a terrific swimmer. She didn’t want to get out but she was getting tired of swimming and she was getting
pruney.
She got out of the water she wanted to build a sand castle but soon figured out that unicorns couldn't make sand castles because of there hooves.
Taffy saw several people that looked fishy coming down the beach, so she decided that it was time for her to leave. Taffy decided to get one more look of the ocean before she said goodbye. When she peered out into the distance, she saw an island. Before going home, Taffy decided to fly over to the island and see what it had to offer.
* * * * *
That is not dead which can eternal lie… but Cthulhu was sure growing bored after all this time. He spread out on the island of R'lyeh, which had risen from the ocean floor for the first time in aeons. Before nightfall, however, it would once again sink to the deepest bottom of the ocean and be lost once more.
Cthulhu wanted to enjoy some sunshine, maybe tan a few of his appendages and feel sand between his tentacles before it was all lost in infinite wetness. There was nothing worse than trying to play with sand a thousand feet deep.
He wanted to eternally lie… on the beach and watch the cute, puffy clouds pass overhead as the sun warmed his cold body and dried his moving parts.
As Cthulhu flapped his tentacles in the air and wished the clear blue sky was always this close (and, he realized, with some dismay, seeing the sky so close made him homesick… and home was so out of reach right now), he saw a bird up above in the distance.
The bird got closer, but it was too big. Maybe one of those monster creatures he'd seen hundreds of years ago? Giant teeth, huge wingspan like a flying killing animal.
Yet, as it came closer he saw it was a horse. A flying horse? It had a horn on its head, multi-colored wings and landed on the beach not far from him.
Instead of being scared, it said hello.
* * * * *
And so Taffy and Cthulhu fell in love. They spent the rest of the afternoon getting to know each other and having a good time.
Keyport Cthulhu Page 13
