Arkham Detective Agency: A Lovecraftian-Noir Tribute to C. J. Henderson

by C. J. Henderson

  But, he wondered, could he drive? Could he take control of himself, actually get the keys from his pocket, turn on the ignition, and drive? Drive? Pilot tons of metal and glass, weave around others doing the same? Did he dare?

  “Shut up,” he growled aloud, startling Renee, even though she somehow knew he was speaking to himself. “You shit, you miserable coward. Get it together.”

  His eyes closed, he shook his head violently, then spat away a breath as he opened his eyes once more. The fingers of his right hand sliding around the door release, with his left he pointed out the window as he said to Renee:

  “We did background on that goddamned dump last year. I need you to dig it out. Call Sammy and Mark if you need help goin’ through the files. I want them in on this, anyway.” Snapping the latch, he stepped out of the witch’s car, feeling some of his old self returning. Taking a deep breath, he forced it in and out quickly, took another, and then said:

  “I need a meal. I’ll see you all in an hour.” When Renee asked him where, he told her, “Miflin’s. Where else?”

  - - -

  The restaurant Nardi had chosen was one which could never have survived back in his native Manhattan, but it had been one of the major selling points for not only him, but his partners as well, when it had come time to choose a city in which to set up shop. Freddie Miflin was a retired Navy man who had decided to open an eatery that ran on his terms. There would be no menu. When you went to Miflin’s, all you knew is that the food would be hearty, and there would be plenty of it.

  The owner was not an utter curmudgeon. He took such things as food allergies and ailments such as diverticulitis into consideration. Potential diners were not presented with but a single choice on any given evening. And indeed, friends such as Frank Nardi could make requests if necessary. That night, however, there was no need. Even though it was only mid-April, Miflin had decided to cook up Thanksgiving dinner. When the rest of the members of the agency entered the restaurant, they found Nardi enjoying seconds of the mashed potatoes and gravy along with a thigh which looked as if it must have come from a turkey that had weighed in at an excess of thirty pounds.

  “I’m not even going to comment,” said Berkenwald, marveling at the amount of food still before Nardi.

  “Good,” answered the security man. Popping a massive chunk of dark meat into his mouth, he said as he chewed, “So, whatta we know about the Douglas dump?”

  Berkenwald left the details on the house to Galtoni, as he was interested in celebrating Thanksgiving early, himself. As he went off to get a plate, the Agency’s last surviving partner pulled out the research file on the Douglas home, saying, “I remember we took that one pretty serious because of the history we dug up … lemme see … yeah, here it is …”

  As Galtoni thumbed through the pages, the story of the property in question unfolded. It seemed that, originally, nearly three hundred years earlier when the modestly-sized mansion had been built, it had been a single property situated in the center of some fifty-eight acres. Over the decades, as neighboring Arkham had grown, various plots had been sold off by the owners. The sales had not begun until the mid-1800s, when the original family had fallen into disrepute. At first, sales had been slow because of the rumors and suspicions which swirled around the property. By the 1900s, however, memory began to fade.

  “What kinda rumors?”

  “What kind ya want?” asked Galtoni, a dark chuckle accompanying his words. “Yeah, okay sure, a lot of it can probably be chalked up to the usual hysteria, even in this loony-tune nut factory we chose to move to … I mean, were-creatures—”

  “You mean like werewolves?”

  “Yeah, but that wasn’t all,” answered the detective with a knowing grin. “There’s them that believes in everything from were-sheep and cows to things they don’t even have names for.”

  “They have names,” offered Renee softly, to which Galtoni replied, “Not in the dictionary, they don’t. Anyway, there were also charges of devil worship, alchemy, witch covens, when they chased down old …” the detective thumbed back a few pages, then read, “Jedidiah Mortonson … there’s a Bible-thumper’s name for ya, huh? Anyway, they were willing to hang just about any dark badge available on him—hell, they hung him in the end as it was—”

  “Surprised they didn’t burn the place down,” said Madame Renee almost under her breath.

  Galtoni told her, “Apparently it was suggested, but it was decided to turn the house into an orphanage.”

  When eyebrows went up, the detective nodded, telling those assembled, “Yeah, I know, but there were circumstances. Seems Jedidiah had been, what would be the politically correct terminology in this case … ah, let’s go with ‘acquiring,’ yeah, acquiring children for whatever reasons he might have had. When the noble townsfolk raided the place, seems those they found were in a pretty poorly state, locked in one of the sub-basements—”

  “Jesus Christ, what kind of a nutjob was this guy?”

  “According to the paperwork, just your average child-sacrificing warlock.”

  “And he got away with this for how long?”

  Galtoni held up a finger to beg for time as he thumbed first forward, then backward through his pages, finally finding the section for which he was looking. Giving everyone a you’re-not-going-to-believe-this grin, he said. “I guess that part is up to who you believe. You see, it seems there are those who felt that the Mortonson who got hung, Jedidiah, who was supposed to be the grandson of the original Mortonson who originally built the place and started all the hocus-pocus crap, was actually the original Mortonson. You know, stretching his days by living through others—”

  “Life extension through blood sacrifice,” said Renee. When the others all turned to her, she added, “It’s not unheard of.”

  “Neither is getting a good night’s sleep, either,” growled Galtoni. “What’s crawling around inside that place, anyway?”

  No one spoke for some long time. No one ate, either. Finally Nardi, having stared at the forkful of gravy-rich mashed potatoes on his fork throughout the silence, dropped the utensil to his plate, exclaiming, “Goddamnit, but what goes on in this damn town? What is it? Every ten feet there’s either a haunted house, or some old crazy stealin’ souls, or gods slippin’ in from other dimensions—”

  “Let it go, Frank.”

  “Let what go, Mark?” snapped the detective. “Tony’s death? His atoms jumbled by some thing—some nightmare thing that no one can explain? We came here to get away from all the crap in New York, and what? What’d we find? What?!”

  “Please, Frank,” Renee threw in. “There isn’t anyone here at this table that didn’t think the occult was some dodge we could use to make some extra bucks. This town taught us different. I’m not saying that everything from crop circles to the Loch Ness monster gets a free pass, but we’ve all seen shit. And Tony Balnco … died, was killed … by something no one here will ever be able to explain. But all that doesn’t matter.”

  “Yeah,” Nardi shot back, “then what does matter?”

  “What matters is what you decide to do next.”

  Renee was right, and the security man had to admit it. What exactly, he asked himself, was he going to do next? Edward Douglas had asked for his help. Indeed, if he had missed something during his inspection of the man’s home, a something that had now taken possession of the man’s wife—something of which he should have taken notice, then didn’t he have an obligation to do something about it?

  Should have …

  Despite the insanity of it all, actually taking the idea of a spirit living within a house, that could claim the soul of a person, seriously, there were those words again. “Should have.” They had sprung into his head that morning, the notion that he had thought back when first he had been in the Douglas home that there was something there. Something black and evil. Something dangerous. Something that had hungered for him, but that had apparently waited.

  Waited for someone younger. Some
one less resistant. Someone like Julie Douglas.

  Shit, thought Nardi. Goddamned to Hell shit …

  After another moment of silence, and then a long, defeated sigh, Frank Nardi told the others exactly what they were going to do next.

  - - -

  When Douglas came to the door the next morning, the look on his face was one of utter surprise. Blinking twice, he stammered for a moment, then finally managed to say, “Mr. Nardi, you’ve come back.”

  “I said I would.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, but I … oh, no matter. And I see, my … I can be so bad with names—”

  “Madame Renee,” the witch answered in her mock central European voice.

  “Yes, I remember now. Please, please come in.”

  The fact Douglas was more than willing to usher them into his home at 7:30 in the morning revealed much about his situation. They had arrived without even an email’s worth of announcement, but such an oversight in protocol seemed not to matter to the beleaguered husband. As he ushered them into the kitchen, he asked if he could get them anything.

  “No, no thank you,” said Nardi. “We filled up on the way.”

  “No, I insist,” countered Douglas. When both guests continued to refuse politely, he tried suggestions of “just coffee” and even “water,” but Nardi merely revealed the top of the water bottle in his bag, and the portly Renee begged off from the standpoint of not being allowed to break her ritual fast.

  “We just want to see your wife, sir,” said Renee, “so we can try to help.”

  Conceding that such was probably for the best, Douglas left the room, insisting he would be back with her as quickly as possible. As he did, Nardi checked the remote in his pocket, making certain it was ready to switch on when necessary. The team had spent the evening devising a plan for driving a spirit away from a host, if indeed such were the case. Although the available evidence strongly suggested such, still the members of the ADA came from a firm, rational-world background. Even after everything they had witnessed over their years in Arkham, they still felt it best to be certain—especially considering the fact that despite what most knew, or at least suspect about their town, they still needed to live in a world governed by law.

  A moment later, when the Douglases entered the kitchen, those seated at the kitchen table were as certain as they needed to be.

  “Here she is, folks; the old ball and chain.”

  Both Nardi and Renee made the mistake of looking where they had been directed. Julie Douglas was indeed present, but not to the degree she had been the night before. As the visitors, they found her greatly diminished—hair bedraggled, lifeless. Skin sallow, sagging. Eyes without luster—wandering, pain filled.

  “Wha—”

  The single syllable was all the security man could manage. The woman shuffled wordlessly into the room, mouth hanging open, the slightest dribble hanging from her lower lip.

  “Oh, you were expecting …”

  Edward Douglas’ words collapsed into laughter. The tone and strength of his voice came at the pair at the table far stronger than previously. Both wanted to turn, to try and understand from where had come the sudden change in the man’s demeanor, but they found they could not. Their minds had been ensnared by the sight of the broken, desiccated figure advancing toward them.

  “Sorry, so sorry. Where are my manners?”

  As he spoke, what remained of Douglas circled the room, ending on the other side of the kitchen table from Nardi and Renee. His formerly retreating, cowering manner now began to reveal itself as the physical deficiency it truly was. All became clear for Nardi in that moment. In his own way, Galtoni had been correct. At the time of his execution, Jedidiah Mortonson had prepared an escape route for himself. The black magic the old warlock had practiced had given him the means. Instead of reincarnating as yet another son, however, he had chosen a more subtle hiding place—the walls of his own home.

  More than likely, the security man figured, he’d already been sucking the life from the children he’d had as prisoners. When the house was transformed into their orphanage, he maintained that contact through the furniture, the very walls—then continued on down through the years, latching onto each new orphan delivered to his door step.

  “Ahhhhhh,” hissed the Douglas-thing, “I see it in your eyes, Franklin. You understand. Like yourself, yes … I retired. It was so, what would be a good word … comfortable. So easy to simply drift along, helping myself to a psychic meal here and there, living so many different lives … boys, girls, matrons, guards, making them do such wonderful things …”

  Nardi ground his teeth together. He had not expected to be taken so completely by surprise. Suddenly his plan had fallen into jeopardy from a completely unforeseen angle. He had been waiting to confront the wife—had never considered that the force living within the house would have had them both under control. He had been so certain of his strategy that he had not even turned on his electronics—cleverly making certain there was nothing about his person that might give him away. As he strained to move his hand, the Douglas-thing chortled:

  “I’m sorry to disappoint, Franklin. You were determined to be so heroic, to save the girl, to free her for her helpless husband. It’s why I came to you first. Since the orphanage was closed—your filthy modern age and its political correctness—I withered, trapped in here, Franklin. Starved—starved! Do you hear me?”

  Forget him, Nardi screamed within his own head. Concentrate. Fight, you useless sack of shit! Fight!

  “It took decades for this place to sell. I was reduced—spent. Desiccated. Then, the ages of neglect meant repairs had to be made. I had to wait for someone to move in for so long. By then even the spell I had invoked to keep me tethered here was starting to fade away. Without nourishment, I could not sustain its power. I was so tempted to take you when you opened yourself to me, but no, I waited. And do you know why, Franklin?”

  The assembly was distracted as Julie Douglas slid down the wall, collapsing to the floor. Mortonson had pulled too much from her, leaving her unable to move under her own power. The distraction allowed Nardi a full four seconds outside of the monstrosity’s control. The first one and a half were wasted as he struggled simply to reconnect with his own nervous system. The next two were lost fumbling to shove his hand into his jacket pocket. As the creature across from him finished chuckling over the woman’s fate, in the final half-second his fingers closed on his control device—

  “I’ll tell you why I waited, Franklin—”

  And suddenly the security man found his control slipping, fading like the colors of the evening sky as the sun drifted behind the horizon, surrendering all unto night.

  “Because I wasn’t about to settle for an old fool’s body.”

  Screw you, Nardi screamed within his mind. I might be a fool—

  “Death would have been better.”

  But I’m not old—

  Rage fueling him—anger aimed squarely at Mortonson, fury at himself—Nardi forced his fingers together, sliding the contact button on the bar control in his pocket, hissing into his lapel mic at the same instance—

  “Now!”

  Outside in their company van, Galtoni and Berkenwald reacted immediately, the first jumping out of the vehicle and heading for the house, the latter flipping the switch that started their speaker system broadcasting. It had been Renee who had suggested loud noise as a way of cutting through the control of whatever power was inside the house. The crew had decided on a double series—one of random heavy metal clips, none more than ten seconds each, the second a blending of high-decibel electronic screeches. As every dog within a half-mile began to bark or whimper insanely, the Douglas-thing staggered, clawing at its ears.

  As the horror cried out in agony, Nardi snapped into action.

  Without hesitation the security man placed his hands under the edge of the kitchen table and flipped it upward, pushing it in Mortonson’s direction. As it struck, Renee regained her senses, hurriedly d
igging into her bag. She managed to pull forth a small plastic container of powder she had prepared the night before. As she pried open its lid, the monstrosity managed to fling the table aside. Crawling back to its feet, it moved on the witch, just as Berkenwald reached the kitchen. As Renee screamed, “Do it! ” the detective clicked on the over-sized strobe light assembly he had dragged in from the van. The horror threw its arms upward, shielding its eyes—screeching as the witch flung her container of powder over the forms of both Edward and Julie Douglas, chanting as she did so:

  “Gel bin, de’sey … brougher kumbi … brougher kumbi … Gel bin, de’sey … brougher kumbi … brougher kumbi …”

  Mortonson screamed—the sound pouring from him a thing of unimaginable agony. Shielded from both the creature’s terrible noise as well as the sounds from the van by the earplugs all of the team were wearing, Nardi moved forward to where Mrs. Douglas lay sprawled on the floor, scooping her up and heading for the door. Renee followed him slowly, backing toward the exit, continuing to curse Mortonson with her chant. As she watched the creature writhe, she spotted the moment when her powder along with her spell forced the spirit form from Douglas’ body.

  “Grab him,” she cried out to Berkenwald, who, already struggling with the heavy lights, shouted back, “Are you kidding me?”

  And then, before either could react further, the house began to groan. Mortonson’s monstrous soul had retreated to the only sanctuary left to it, the home it knew so well. Desperate for sustenance, it immediately began to draw strength from its foundation of massive stones, its timbers—new and old—the plaster, the glass and pipes, tiles, latches, hinges—everything. And thus was its undoing.

  As the witch and Berkenwald managed to struggle both the lights and Douglas outside, the ancient structure began to groan horribly. They were barely a yard away from the door when the sharp cracking of multiple rupturing beams began to be heard. The end came with an unbelievable abruptness. Having stolen so much of the vulgar dwelling’s solidity over the preceding few decades, that which remained, even adding in the repairs made by the Douglases, proved to be nowhere near adequate to revive the retreating warlock.