“How long ago?” Ray asked, intrigued.
“Oh, they were talking about the eighteenth, maybe the seventeenth centuries.” Professor Collins frowned. “I thought most of the tales that used to go around a bit fanciful – too fanciful to be given any kind of credence in a respected academic institution. But these were not men I would have dismissed as fanciful or naïve.” The professor shook his head. “I had better return home and make my phone calls. The sooner this thing is carted off for examination at the university the happier I will be.”
That night, as Ray sat with Mike and Jeb in the inn, they had news of the first death in the village. Ed Gamley, whose nets had been fouled by the statue, was found inside Al Westmore’s garage, his throat ripped open.
When the three strolled out after their meal, the local sheriff and his deputies had already arrived at the crime scene. Their patrol cars, lights flashing in the gloom, were parked outside.
Sheriff Harper’s investigation into Ed Gamley’s murder was thorough and methodical – textbook to the letter – and discovered nothing. This was the general conclusion of most people Ray talked to the following day. Like everyone else at the inn, he was seen by the sheriff, a large, bluff, overweight man with an easygoing smile that looked a tad constrained under the circumstances. It was a casual interview in the hotel manager’s office, with one of the sheriff’s deputies taking notes. But Ray knew nothing that could help the investigation and had rock-solid alibis in Mike and Jeb and the barman at the inn during the time the doctor estimated Ed’s death took place.
It was mystifying to everybody. Ed had been well liked in town and had no known enemies. And in a place as small as St. Mottram everyone just about knew everything there was to know about everyone else.
Adding to the mystery was the sheer savagery of Ed Gamley’s wounds. There was talk it might have been a wild animal that attacked him. Allegedly the wounds on his throat could have been caused by claws or a knife slashing it again and again. It would take a thorough examination by the Medical Examiner at the County Coroner’s office for a determination to be made about it.
In the meantime rumours were rife.
Nor was the investigation helped by the weather. The storm clouds that had come in the previous day had persisted overnight and well into the morning. In the end they gave way to an almost impenetrable fog.
“Looks like we’re destined not to get much shark fishing done this week,” Jeb said as they settled into a light lunch at the inn, with several ongoing coffees.
The fog was so dense even driving a car through the village was perilous and most people preferred to go by foot. With its density and the lack of any motorised vehicles moving about the place, there was a peculiar hush. St. Mottram felt isolated, cut off from the outside world.
It was during the afternoon that Al Westmore was found dead in his garage just like Gamley, his face so badly torn by whoever – or whatever – killed him he was all but unrecognisable. Lying not far from the ill-omened statue on the floor of his garage, it was noticed that someone had tried to move the statue, despite its weight. It stood several feet nearer the open doors.
“I wish that professor feller’ld hurry up and get that damned thing shifted out of here,” one of the locals grumbled as they gathered outside the garage while the sheriff examined the corpse inside.
Whether it was the weather or the violent deaths, but there was a superstitious dread amongst some of the locals. Not that Ray didn’t feel some of this rub off on him, adding to his feeling of dissonance. More and more the place was beginning to feel like a dream, unreal somehow, however solid everything was to the touch.
“I wonder if that professor feller’s been in contact with Brown University yet,” Mike said.
“Perhaps someone should ring him,” Ray suggested. “I suppose the last person to have spoken to him about the statue will have been Ed Gamley. He might not even know about Gamley’s death.”
Mike asked someone if they knew the professor’s address. It turned out he lived a couple of miles outside the village at Bluff Heights, a large house near the summit of the cliffs that overlooked the bay, built many years ago by the professor’s great grandfather, General Nathan Collins, a veteran of the Civil War.
“Why don’t we drive to see him?” Mike said. “The fog’s bad here, but I’m sure we’ll drive out of it when we gain height up the road.”
Jeb said he was game. “Anythin’s better than hanging about that bar all day. I don’t think my liver’ll stand much more of it,” he joked.
Ray said he would join them. Perhaps a drive out of here would help restore his sense of normality, he thought as they headed for Mike’s SUV, a huge Mercedes, several years old and showing signs of hard wear. Its engine, though, started powerfully enough and they were soon making their way through the fog out of the village.
As Mike had forecast the fog thinned out as they drove uphill, till it had gone altogether by the time they were heading along the coast road, hugging the heights. Soon they could make out the professor’s house, a Victorian mansion sited as close as anyone would have dared to the edge of the cliffs. Dark wooden walls, with mullioned windows, high peaked roofs and a wrought-iron weathervane, it was probably the most impressive house in the area.
They parked on the gravel drive. Mike rang the doorbell, then waited for it to be answered. None of them had bothered to ask if the professor lived here with anyone, though the house looked too large for someone to live in alone.
It took two more rings before the door was finally answered. It was the professor who opened it, and Ray was shocked at the change in the man. His face looked swollen, giving him a jowled, almost batrachian look, while his skin had an unhealthy greyish pallor. Even his hair seemed different, thinner now, streaming from his brows in frail cottony wisps.
“We’re sorry to disturb you,” Ray said.
Professor Collins gazed blankly for a moment as if he failed to recognise him. His eyes were enlarged and glassy, with cold hard pupils.
“You were at the garage when I examined that statue,” the old man said suddenly. “We talked.”
Bothered by the roughness of the professor’s voice, Ray said: “If you’re unwell, we’ll come back some other time.”
Shaking his head, Professor Collins said: “Now will do. I feel fine. Only age bothers me, as it bothers all of us eventually.”
He stepped back, leading them into the hallway. Though finely furnished, Ray was surprised to see a chair tipped over, while one of the paintings hung on the panelled walls was askew, as if someone had bumped into it and couldn’t be bothered to put it straight. There was a smell in here too, a cloying, fishy kind of smell. Not of cooked fish, but raw.
“You sure you’re okay?” Mike asked as they followed the old man into what they took to be the study. There were shelves of books on the walls, a large globe of the world as it was mapped several centuries ago, and a wooden desk, hand-carved and impressive. There were books and papers scattered on the floor. An inkwell had been upended on the desk and had spilled its contents over the edge of what looked to be an expensive antiquarian book, its leather binding ruined by the ink that had soaked into it.
The room didn’t look so much as if it had been ransacked or vandalised, than as if someone – presumably the professor – had fallen about it, knocking things over, in a drunken frenzy.
“What can I do for you?” the professor asked. He stroked the side of his face; his fingers looked unwashed and scaly, with large, yellowing nails.
“Folks are wondering if you’ve been in touch with anyone at the university about that statue yet,” Mike put in. “They’re getting a bit restless. On account of the murders.”
“The murders?” Professor Collins’ head jerked to face him. “What murders?”
“Ed Gamley and Al Westmore. You know them?”
“I know Al, yes. He repaired my car a few months ago. As for Ed, he was the fisherman who caught that statue.” The professor sl
umped onto a chair. “Who would have killed them? Either of them? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Some are muttering it’s because of that statue. That there’s a curse on it. Though that’s just stupid,” Mike went on dismissively. “There’s no curse in the world that’ll leave a feller with his throat ripped out.”
The professor stared at him for a few moments in silence, his eyes peculiarly studious in a way Ray found disconcerting.
“You been having a bit of trouble here yourself?” Jeb asked. He indicated the scattered papers and the ink spilled on top of the desk with the stem of his pipe. “Someone would think you’d been burgled, the state of things,” he added.
Professor Collins shook his head. “I was searching for something – something important,” he replied vaguely.
“Anything we can help you look for?” Mike said.
But the old man shook his head again, more forcibly this time.
“It will do later,” he said. He gestured impatiently that he did not wish to talk about it anymore. He had things to do. “Important things,” he added.
The men exchanged glances, unconvinced by what the old man was saying.
“Is Mrs Collins anywhere about?” Mike asked.
This brought an even more impatient response. “She’s not here at the moment. She’s staying at her sister’s in Boston.”
When they asked him again about the statue, he told them he had been in touch with several people at Brown University. He was merely waiting for them to get back to him as to when they could come here to look at it.
“Any idea when that might be?” Mike asked.
The professor said this was out of his hands. “When I find out I’ll contact Sheriff Harper and let him know.” He cocked his head, then added: “I take it no one has moved the statue from the garage?”
“Someone seems to have made an attempt,” Ray told him. “Probably whoever it was killed Al Westmore. But it’s there at the moment. Or was when we set out.”
Professor Collins nodded, satisfied. “Very good,” he muttered. “Very good.”
When they left a few minutes later, none of the men was happy about what they had seen or heard at the old man’s house.
“Damned strange,” Jeb muttered. “He was definitely not being straight with us. There’s something wrong.”
But none of them could understand what.
Ray remained silent while Mike and Jeb talked together about it. He felt even more disorientated than before, with an urge to return to the old man’s house. He said nothing about this to the others; neither of them would understand why he felt this way. He barely understood it himself, and was puzzled why a house he had never seen before should have such a pull on him.
By the time they arrived back at St. Mottram, the sheriff had sealed up Al Westmore’s garage and padlocked its doors till forensic experts could be called in to investigate it.
After parking up the SUV, Mike and Jeb returned to the inn. If anything the fog was denser than before. Too disturbed to sit at the bar, Ray made some excuses and strolled towards the quay. The waters beyond were barely visible in the fog and there was a claustrophobic silence everywhere. Even the gulls were quiet, gathered in huddles along the seawall.
Ray gazed through the fog back towards Al Westmore’s garage. He couldn’t see it through the fog, but he could feel it – sense it – sense the statue inside it. As he stared he was suddenly overcome with a feeling of dizziness and for an instant he seemed to experience a dream. It was vivid, with a violent feeling of motion, of dark figures leaping clumsily in dripping caverns strung with seaweed and huge wet boulders covered in moss, of waves crashing against the entrance, of moonlight reflected across the sea in a dazzling line that stretched to the horizon to a massive, eerie, blinding moon far larger than any he had ever seen before, menacingly low against the skyline. The glistening bodies that danced about the caverns were of the same fishlike, manlike shape as the statue, though some had odd deformities: stump-like limbs and strange, abortive tentacles that straggled from their shoulders. He felt himself try to mimic them, moving with awkward, spastic motions.
Just as suddenly as it came over him, though, the dream passed. A gull squawked in fright as he staggered towards it, before he managed to regain his balance and reached for the seawall to steady himself, gasping for breath, his feeling of unreality even stronger now. If what he had experienced had been a dream, he could not shake the feeling he had not yet woken from it. The fog that hid almost everything from him as he retraced his steps to the inn made this dreamlike quality even stronger. Even the clearer air inside did little to diminish this feeling, and he was more than ready to accept a drink from Mike as he stepped into the bar and the others greeted him.
That night Ray found his sleep more disturbed than usual, filled with hectic dreams in which movement and light seemed to clash and jar, as dim grey glistening figures cavorted about in insane dances while howling with harsh guttural voices at the sky.
“Hiieeyyaa hiieeyyaa, aiee aiee haghanha.”
Aching in every limb and drenched with sweat, he awoke with some of the words still on his lips. His mouth felt dry, as if he had been crying out all night, while his head ached badly, a sharp pain focussed between his eyes.
Swallowing a pain killer, Ray padded into the bathroom. It was daylight already, though the world beyond his bedroom window was still hidden behind a solid wall of fog. It was as if the world had shrunk to this small miserable patch of land. What had seemed quaint and attractive to him before, looked old and decrepit now, fouled by the cold, dank air.
Even Mike and Jeb looked concerned when he made his way downstairs into the dining room.
“You should go see a doctor,” Jeb said, tapping his pipe on the table. “You might be coming down with something bad. This fog won’t make you feel any better.”
Any thoughts of leaving St. Mottram, though, were dashed by news there had been more deaths in the village overnight. One of the sheriff’s deputies, checking on Al Westmore’s garage in the early hours of the morning during his normal rounds, had been attacked and killed. His body lay on the street outside, drenched in blood. The padlock, securing the doors of the garage, had been wrenched free and the doors were open, though nothing appeared to have been taken.
The other death was one of the crew of Ed Gamley’s fishing boat. He had been attacked on his way home from a bar on Beach Street. Like the other deaths, his throat had been slashed open and his face mangled so badly that at first it was only by his clothes anyone could identify him.
To make matters worse numbers of people in the village were coming down with a virus. Its symptoms were so close to what Ray was feeling he knew he must have caught it himself. Aching limbs, a greyish, dry-skinned pallor, and restless sleep filled with morbid, violent nightmares. His eyes hurt too with a burning sensation as if they had been dosed in something acidic, though he supposed this had probably more to do with the fog.
When he went outside Ray saw some of the locals gathered by the quay. On an impulse he wandered towards them. Several turned to stare at him as he approached; their gaze was disconcertingly steady. Yet it felt all right to him. Comfortable. Even though he did not know any of them. The only thing they had in common was the pasty greyness of their faces, even more monochrome in the gloom.
Too late, as he joined their silent ranks, did he start to feel a large part of what he was begin to disappear.
Part Two
Mike’s Tale
Mike had only just stepped out of the inn when Ray moved into the crowd by the quayside. His first inclination was to call out to him. But there was something about the look of the locals, pressed against the quay, that dissuaded him. There was also something about Ray – something different. For some reason Mike felt intimidated by the crowd, and he was wary about drawing attention to himself, as if he instinctively knew how dangerous this would be, that there would be something bad in their reaction to any attempt he made to attract Ray�
�s attention. Nor was he sure how Ray would react. Not now, somehow.
He felt a movement by his side. “What’s up?” Jeb asked.
“I’m not sure.” Mike felt puzzled at his own reaction. “There’s something odd going on. A crowd’s building up and for some reason Ray’s gone over to join it.”
“Isn’t that Professor Collins?” Jeb asked; he pointed with his pipe to a stooped figure on the fringes of the crowd. The pork pie hat from the last time he came to the village was gone and his thinning white hair was plastered about his head, but the rest of his clothes looked much the same. His arms were raised as if he was exhorting the crowd, though any words he might have been saying were muffled by the fog and the steady murmurs of the crowd itself. Though these murmurs were taking on a disconcertingly unnatural beat.
“Damn me if that isn’t beginning to sound like some revivalist meeting,” Jeb said, his pipe glowing as he sucked on it in concentration. “But I can’t make out what they’re saying.”
One thing they did understand, though, was the palpable air of menace resonating from them. Affirmation of this came a few seconds later when a car pulled up by the quay near them. It was the sheriff’s patrol car, its roof lights flashing. The sheriff squeezed out of one door while one of his deputies exited the other. Even at this distance Mike and Jeb could see they both held guns. No sooner had the lawmen spoken to the crowd than it surged towards them, swallowing them in a mass of bodies. There was a crack of gunfire, muted by the fog, then a terrible, drawn-out scream.
“Jesus Christ!” Mike said, a chill coming over him. He knew he should run over to see what was happening, to help the sheriff if he was in trouble, but a dreadful, debilitating feeling of fear made it impossible for him to move. He knew it was too late to help whoever had screamed. It had ended with such an awful abruptness he knew for certain whoever made it was dead.
Jeb grabbed his forearm. “I think we’d better make for the car and get out of here. Whatever’s going on over there, there are too many of them for us to handle. And if they decide to come over here…”
Lovecraft eZine Megapack - 2012 - Issues 10 through 20 Page 41
