“Tekeli-li, Tekeli-li!”
Its flesh, boiling out of human shape into something all eyes and teeth, cut off a split second before it could reach the two men.
As the elevator began to descend, the detective did not have to ask what he had just seen. In the moment he had stared at the towering jangle of frosted energy, realization had spread throughout his mind as well. He had not questioned Knight’s order to shoot, had known what he was doing and why for the same reason the professor had—he had seen the terrible truth, known what was being perpetrated, understood that not just their world, but their entire universe, was being invaded.
Before either man could speak, an explosion beyond comprehension blew through the chamber they had seen, a place not actually in existence on any human level of reality. Still, bound as it was to the planet Earth, the slightest talon of it leaked across the void separating the dimensions, rocking the elevator violently enough to throw both men first against the back wall, and then down against the floor.
It was not the only result of their actions.
Scrambling awkwardly on the floor, working to untangle themselves from one another, the two slowly became aware of the fact that they had stopped moving, that the light in the elevator had been extinguished, that the door was opened a crack—but only a crack.
“What the hell happened?” shouted Nardi, desperate to be heard over the ringing in his ears, over the sirens suddenly wailing all around them.
“We … we broke … something.”
Knight’s face went slack, his mind vomiting out the impossible crush of information it had tried to absorb. Seconds earlier he had been awash with the secrets of a civilization a billion years old. Now, even the slightest tatters of what he had learned were fading from memory, retreating back into the ether.
“The mountains,” the professor shouted, “the ones Dyer wrote about, they’re real, but they’re not here. They exist in some other time, or dimension … or … on another world … I don’t know. But, the elevator, it was built to move … back and—”
Knight’s words trailed off, the insanity of what he was suggesting grappling with his ability to form words. He knew that he was correct in some fashion, but also that whatever the answer was, that it was unimportant at that moment. Forcing himself to his feet, realizing from the light pouring through the space between the elevator doors that they were somewhere within the influence of their own planet once more, he shouted, “We’ve got to get out!” Pointing toward his ear, toward the speaker above, he added, “They’re coming for us. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“The elevator?”
“The station.”
His jacket already open, Nardi pulled free two of the oversized screwdrivers from his work belt, handing one to the professor. They had thought they would require some kind of tools to force their entry to the secret chamber—had regretted the time wasted securing them when they had discovered there had been no need for them. Now, straining with them, wrenching them back and forth, they thanked providence that they not only had taken them, but kept them.
When the doors finally gave enough that both men could squeeze their way out of the elevator, they discovered they had made it back to the second floor of the human-built station. The false walls disguising the conveyance had toppled during the explosion, giving them easy access to the hallway beyond. Almost giddy at their good fortune, the pair were taken aback by the reality they discovered once they had extricated themselves.
Throughout the complex, those others of the expedition were wandering the hallways, screaming—terrified. Mindless. Whereas both Nardi and Knight had been eased into the communal mind of the aliens, the other humans’ brains had been seared unmercifully when the pair had short-circuited the procedure both a hundred some feet and a universe away from them.
“What do we do?” asked the detective, his heart reaching out to the staggering, screaming madmen flopping against the walls just beyond them. Steeling his heart, knowing there was nothing that could be done for the now lost souls, Knight answered, “We run—”
Grabbing his partner by the shoulder, pulling him along as he added, “This way.”
Franklin Nardi, having learned to trust the professor enough to not disagree with him on a simple detail such as remembering from which direction they had come, slid around the corner indicated without question.
“Quickly, Mr. Nardi,” the professor shouted, straining to be heard over the blaring sirens still pointlessly screeching throughout the compound, “we have to hurry.”
Noting that his breath had gone silver, the detective realized the cold from the other world was somehow pouring into their own. As he pointed the fact out to the professor, Knight responded, “Meaning we have less time than we believed.”
And then, both men’s hearts froze at a particular sound, their blood icing over within their veins. As they exited the side passageway into the main hall, they found more of their team running into one another blindly—screaming in mindless panic. They had good reason to scream.
“Tekeli-li, Tekeli-li!”
“Guess we weren’t the only ones who knew the right direction—eh, Professor?”
The two men stopped, both panting. Bending over slightly so as to be able to place his hands on his knees, Nardi took a number of deep breaths as rapidly as possible in the hopes of reviving himself, then reached once more for his .45. As he did so, Knight pulled his tobacco pouch and pipe from his jacket pocket. As his bodyguard simply stared, the professor asked, “Not suddenly afraid of a bit of second-hand smoke, are you?”
“No, not at this point.”
“Good,” responded Knight as he touched his lighter to his pipe’s freshly packed bowl. Taking a good, healthy drag, he exhaled a pleasant, woody-smelling cloud through a newborn half-smile, then said, “Well, we’ve still only got one chance at this. Shall we go for it?”
Sighing, checking the slide on his weapon, the detective gave the professor a forlorn smile, then answered, “Never let it be said that Frank Nardi ever chose good sense over a good time. Let’s do it.”
And then, before either man could move or even speak, boiling its way directly through the wall next to them, the first of the shoggoths appeared. All thoughts of self-defense evaporated within them both with but a single glimpse of the shapeless, bubbling horror. The thing was constructed as much from light and stench as it was protoplasm, and both knew instinctively it was utterly unstoppable by anything known to Earthly science.
Pulling his bodyguard along, Knight winced at the additional screams of those the monstrosity consumed behind them. The professor had no doubt the thing behind them had been dispatched to silence any and all humans left within the base.
“That doesn’t give us much time,” he reminded himself. Dropping his pipe as he and Nardi threw themselves into the room holding their only hope, he prayed, “Well, let’s hope this damn thing isn’t nearly as experimental as we thought.”
With no way to reach the outside in time, let alone the ability to pilot any of the military vehicles on the runway, Knight had led them to the main hangar where the others had been assembling what they could of the alien technology into things that might be useful within the world beyond. As the two men clambered onto the unshielded platform, Knight began tossing the various switches and connecting the multiple relays as best he could remember, even while a part of his mind wondered wildly:
Why? Why did they even bring us here? What could they have wanted? What could they have possibly needed from us?
As the thought raced through his brain, the professor froze for a moment, the question setting his mind afire. Turning to Nardi, he sobbed, “What did they want? Why open the place to the world? Why pretend to be human? What did they want? They didn’t need us. They didn’t need us!”
“Nobody needs us,” screamed back the detective.
And then, as the doorway to the chamber began to melt from contact with the glowing form of the shoggoth, Knight sl
ammed the last connection, both men grabbing hold of the railing surrounding the disc as the experimental anti-gravity device lurched upward. Cephalopodic lengths reached out from the monstrosity, trying to snag them, but it was too late. The roundish plate, once loosened from the planet’s grasp, careened madly upward, slamming against the ceiling, almost accomplishing the creature’s goal as it nearly decapitated the two men.
Only able to control the device by running it along the hangar wall, the pair were able to pilot it as far as the door, then smash their way to the outside. The violence they had already done to the unstable vehicle was more than enough to send it insanely out of control, but it was enough for them to effect their escape from the station. Once outside, the disc screeched into the sky in an incredible arc, rocketing the pair dozens of miles across the Antarctic landscape in a matter of seconds before it then crashed back to the Earth. Mere seconds after that, a terrible roar was heard, followed by a blinding light that shattered the land in every direction from Antarctic Station 12.
From their vantage point, miles away, dragging themselves up out of the acres of snow into which they had been thrown, Knight and Nardi stared across the vast open area, watching the terrible explosion consume everything beyond. They could not explain anything they saw, not to themselves, or to the others who would investigate the disaster, finding them several days later.
Half dead, starving, almost blind, they would weakly stammer out their stories, confounding and frightening their questioners. Especially when they would both describe the last thing they saw in perfect, matching detail, the confounding, fluctuating image of a vast, impossibly tall mountain range, imposing itself over the entire area for one brief instance, before fading away in a long, lingering shimmer, leaving them both with the comforting pleasure of madness.
IN MEMORIAM
C.J. Henderson was the creator of both the Jack Hagee hardboiled P.I. series and the Teddy London supernatural detective series, in addition to his Frank Nardi stories. He was also the author of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies, several scores of novellas, plus hundreds of short stories and thousands of non-fiction pieces. In the wonderful world of comics he wrote everything from Batman and The Punisher to Archie and Cherry Poptart. He also wrote under the name Robert Morgan. C.J. Henderson passed away in July of 2014 and is greatly missed by all who knew him.
Table of Contents
ARKHAM DETECTIVE AGENCY
DEDICATION
IT’S OKAY TO MEET YOUR HEROES
Brian M. Sammons
THE IDEA OF FEAR
C.J. Henderson
CRUELTY
C.J. Henderson
THE NEST OF PAIN
C.J. Henderson
SLAVES FOR THE SLAUGHTER SECT
Robert M. Price
CALL AND RESPONSE
William Meikle
MISKATONIC CONTRADANCE
Konstantine Paradias
FAMILY TRADITION
Edward Morris
LIGHT A CANDLE, CURSE THE DARKNESS
Paula R. Stiles
IL SEGNO GIALLO
David Dunwoody
ECHO OF A DISTANT SCREAM
Lee Clark Zumpe
CLOSURE
Glynn Owen Barrass
WITCH FIRE
Scott T. Goudsward
BONANZA
Sam Gafford
REELING BACK
Tom Lynch
THOSE FOLK BELOW
Josh Reynolds
SHE WORE A TRENCH COAT
Don Webb
CLEAR THE AIR
Brian M. Sammons
A WALK IN THESHADOWS
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
A PLEASURE INMADNESS
C.J. Henderson
IN MEMORIAM
Table of Contents
ARKHAM DETECTIVE AGENCY
DEDICATION
IT’S OKAY TO MEET YOUR HEROES
Brian M. Sammons
THE IDEA OF FEAR
C.J. Henderson
CRUELTY
C.J. Henderson
THE NEST OF PAIN
C.J. Henderson
SLAVES FOR THE SLAUGHTER SECT
Robert M. Price
CALL AND RESPONSE
William Meikle
MISKATONIC CONTRADANCE
Konstantine Paradias
FAMILY TRADITION
Edward Morris
LIGHT A CANDLE, CURSE THE DARKNESS
Paula R. Stiles
IL SEGNO GIALLO
David Dunwoody
ECHO OF A DISTANT SCREAM
Lee Clark Zumpe
CLOSURE
Glynn Owen Barrass
WITCH FIRE
Scott T. Goudsward
BONANZA
Sam Gafford
REELING BACK
Tom Lynch
THOSE FOLK BELOW
Josh Reynolds
SHE WORE A TRENCH COAT
Don Webb
CLEAR THE AIR
Brian M. Sammons
A WALK IN THESHADOWS
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
A PLEASURE INMADNESS
C.J. Henderson
IN MEMORIAM
Arkham Detective Agency: A Lovecraftian-Noir Tribute to C. J. Henderson Page 32
