Ghouls of the Miskatonic (The Dark Waters Trilogy)

by Graham McNeill

  But despite the conservative nature of her attire, she felt like some kind of rebel, an outsider daring to enjoy forbidden pleasures and venturing where angels feared to tread. This was the new face of America: wild, reckless, and seeking all that life had to offer. Amanda had lived a pretty sheltered life until now: studying hard, imagining her future husband, and going to church on Sunday, but this new world both thrilled and scared her. This was hedonism and indulgence, everything her father had warned her against in his parting words before she’d set off for Arkham.

  These people cared nothing for the dictates of society. For them, this was society.

  They reached the bar and Spencer leaned over to order their drinks. When they came, Amanda regarded hers with a mixture of anticipation and wariness. A pale pink, it looked more ice than drink. A long-stemmed cherry bobbed near the surface.

  “What’s this?” asked Amanda.

  “It’s a Mary Pickford,” replied Wilson, leaning close to be heard over the music.

  “What’s in it?” asked Rita.

  “Rum mostly, mixed with whatever they’re using for grenadine. And a lot of pineapple juice to cover the taste of the liquor.”

  Amanda took a sip of her drink, and decided it could have used a whole lot more pineapple juice. The venomous bite of the illegal alcohol kicked the back of her throat and she coughed, her eyes widening as it slid down her throat like burning gasoline.

  “Takes a bit of getting used to,” laughed Wilson.

  “I’ll bet,” said Amanda, taking a more genteel sip and rolling the ice around in her mouth.

  “So you think you’ll come to our rub next week?”

  Amanda smiled and looked over at Rita. She took another drink before answering with a coquettish grin. “Maybe.”

  “That’s not a no,” crowed Spencer.

  “It’s not a yes, neither,” pointed out Rita.

  “We’ll think about it,” said Amanda.

  Wilson waved a hand, as if to dismiss the subject. “Don’t worry your pretty heads about it. I’m sure we’ll see you both at one of the AQA gatherings sometime. We have lots of them throughout the year.”

  “What do the initials of your fraternity mean?” asked Amanda. “I never took Latin.”

  “It’s an abbreviation for Age Quod Agis, which means, ‘Do well whatever you do,’” explained Wilson. “It’s kind of cheesy, I know, but it’s worked out well for anyone who’s been lucky enough to pledge. We have the highest percentage of graduates who go on to earn twice the national average, and lots of the most successful businessmen in America are AQA men.”

  Amanda felt like Wilson was repeating these words from rote. If he thought it would impress her, he was sadly mistaken. She caught Rita’s eye and her friend rolled her eyes.

  “That sure sounds good,” said Amanda, “but it’s like some kind of sales pitch from a slick adman trying to sell me a new vacuum cleaner.”

  Rita’s comic expression was that of a vaudeville clown, and Amanda stifled a grin. She took another drink, the alcohol already hitting her system. Feeling suddenly bold, Amanda took Rita’s arm and together they walked away from the two frat boys. She blew a kiss over her shoulder and said, “See you around, boys!”

  Rita laughed and said, “Hell, I been wanting to do that since we got here.”

  “They knew what this was,” said Amanda, the thrill of being in a speakeasy and drinking illegal hooch sending a swirling recklessness surging through her body. “We told them we were only meeting them to get inside, right?”

  “Yeah, we did,” said Rita, angling their course toward a table with two empty seats. They pushed through the crowd of revelers and sat down, grinning at the folk already gathered around the table like conspirators sharing a juicy piece of society gossip. A man in a black suit tipped his drink toward Amanda with a sly wink, and a woman in a green dress gave her a warm smile she returned with a nervous laugh.

  The music stopped and the jazzmen on stage bowed to rapturous applause. The dancers laughed and clapped as the musicians left the stage, their faces flushed with the joy of their exertions. Most of the dancers returned to their tables or headed to the bar, but more than a few retired to secluded shadows of the club to indulge their other physical passions.

  The lights dimmed around the stage and Amanda took another drink as the room fell suddenly silent. Breathless excitement spread through the club, and she heard footsteps move to the front of the stage. A light came up and Blind Rufus was haloed by a shimmering electric light, wreathed in clouds of smoke like a cheap magician.

  His hat was pulled low over his face as he approached the microphone stand. His breath rasped around the club as he cleared his throat, grinning like the Cheshire Cat as he sightlessly surveyed the crowd and sensed their fevered anticipation.

  “Yeah…,” he began. “Now the doors are closed, it’s just us, baby. We got something special for y’all tonight. Hoo, yeah. They say a man with no eyes gets sharper senses, you know? Now I don’t know if that’s true, but tonight I’m a-hoping it is, cause the grooves these cats lay down are like nothin’ you ever heard. It’s gonna be sweeter than a trainload of molasses and smoother than Velma’s coffee.”

  Rufus paused, letting the moment stretch as he took a drag on his aromatic cigarette. He tipped his hat toward Amanda and smiled. “And if this is your first time here, you picked a good night to come, cause you gotta dance. Ain’t no spectators when it comes to jazz, folks.”

  Rufus smiled and leaned in close to the microphone, his voice lower than a whisper, yet carrying to every corner of the club.

  “You like velvet voices? We got the Crescent City’s smokiest velvet,” sighed Rufus. “And we got a Harlem trumpeter who plays a mean Dead Man’s Stomp. Straight from Connie’s Inn of New York City, give it up for Marie Lambeau and Jim Culver!”

  A single note of a trumpet split the darkness as Rufus retreated to the shadows—a plaintive note that resonated deep within Amanda’s heart. It spoke of longing, of hope, and a deep heartache that made her eyes tear up within a moment of hearing it. The note echoed around the club, sustained far longer than any note should linger, before sweeping down into a syncopated beat supported by a trembling bass line from an unseen player in the darkness.

  The stage was still dark, no hint of the musicians visible.

  And then a light.

  Softly, like a breaking dawn in summer, a gauzy illumination ghosted over the stage. Amanda saw a dusky-skinned woman standing at the microphone in a sparkling silver-gray dress, with a face that spoke of too much heartbreak. Marie Lambeau’s eyes were closed, and her body moved in time with the music, like the beat flowed through her in a wave. Amanda had never seen anyone more beautiful.

  To the singer’s right was a man sitting askew on a wooden stool, dressed in a muted red velvet suit and wearing a battered fedora with an emerald feather tucked into the brim. The soulful music of the trumpet came from the golden instrument in his hands, his fingers working like a virtuoso. Though she had never seen a picture of Jim Culver, there could be no doubt as to the trumpeter’s identity. The music soared as soft drums joined the double bass and a piano struck up a dissonant beat.

  And then Marie Lambeau sang.

  Her voice was pure Bayou, sultry and smoky as a Louisiana bordello, raw as a Deep South Honky Tonk. She sang from the heart, baring her soul and reaching out to the audience with her words and music. As she suffered, the audience suffered. As she soared, so did they. Amanda felt the music deep inside her, Culver’s teasing, steadily building melody combining with Marie Lambeau’s quickening voice to awaken parts of her she hadn’t known were asleep. Her senses swelled to take it all in, and she felt her entire body aching with the need to get up and dance. Others were quicker to succumb to the music, drawn from their seats like marionettes pulled to their feet by a puppeteer.

  Amanda looked over at Rita, and they made their way to the dance floor, moving in time to the music and the hauntingly beautiful voice of
Marie Lambeau. Amanda didn’t hear the words; she didn’t need to. Everything she needed to know was in the flavor of the singer’s voice and the trumpeter’s staccato playing. Bodies surrounded them, men and women driven by the urge to dance and move to the music. When the dance floor proved too small, they pushed the tables aside and danced where, moments before, they had been drinking and smoking, content to let the music wash over them.

  The song finished, and a crushing sense of emptiness filled Amanda. But before it could take hold, a new song began, and Amanda felt as though it was being sung for her and her alone. Marie Lambeau’s eyes were upon her, dark pools of soulful sorrow, eyes that had stared into the blackest New Orleans night and seen what lay at its heart. The moment stretched, their silent communion in defiance of the raucous beats filling the club and driving the dancers to ever greater heights of ecstasy…

  Then it broke and the song swelled, swirling jazz beats thumping and stomping around the club, dancing over the walls and sliding in the gaps between the dancers to jerk their limbs in strange ways and jangle like an electric charge through their blood.

  This jazz was an exuberant overflow of natural talent and creativity, a complete surrender to the music that was inside the musicians, a fluid and instinctive inventiveness that no formal training could ever match.

  Song after song kept the audience moving: a pied piper rhythm that wouldn’t let go and seemed like it would dance them all beyond the limits of exhaustion. Amanda and Rita danced with men and women they had never met, all barriers of propriety lowered in the shared flux of the jazz. The crowd became one gestalt entity, a willing slave to the music and a grateful prisoner of its beats.

  Then it was over, gradually slowing until it reached a natural conclusion. The last note faded and though there was the same feeling of emptiness, this was a more triumphant ending, a climax that left the dancers drained but elated.

  Amanda hugged Rita, the shared experience of this wonderful music bringing them closer than either could ever have expected. Tears welled in Amanda’s eyes and she saw the music had had the same effect on Rita.

  “Oh my Lord,” said Amanda.

  “I know,” answered Rita.

  “Have you ever…?”

  “No,” said Rita. “Never.”

  Their nonsensical conversation was meaningless, but both girls understood the heart of it without the need for coherent sentences. They hugged each other tight, only parting as the dance floor began to empty and the revelers once again took their seats, sweat pouring from their faces and their eyes flushed with excitement. Amanda felt eyes upon her and turned back to the dance floor in time to see Jim Culver vanish behind a curtain at the side of the stage, as though he couldn’t wait to get away.

  Marie Lambeau stood in the center of the stage, and she was looking right at Amanda.

  The beautiful singer said something that cut through the din of energized voices crying for an encore. It was as delicate as a soft whisper in a thunderstorm, and went unheard by everyone save Amanda. Marie turned away and walked off-stage, and Amanda blinked, wondering if she’d imagined the moment. No, the words had been spoken for her and her alone, like the song that had reached her earlier in the set.

  The club was swelteringly hot, yet a chill traveled the length of Amanda’s spine as she replayed the movement of the singer’s lips, matching them to the fading sounds echoing in her head. Marie Lambeau’s voice drifted like a ghost in her mind.

  “I’m truly sorry, child,” the singer had whispered. “Sorrier than you’ll ever know. Darkness is all around you, and there ain’t nothing anyone can do about it.”

  * * *

  The grounds of the university were bright and clear. Finn felt horribly exposed walking along the streets of the campus. He had no clear idea where he was going, as the few students he’d met hadn’t exactly been forthcoming in their help. Not that Finn blamed them.

  You want a good Samaritan to help you? Best not stink of booze and puke.

  A couple of young guys had waved him in the direction of a large building of dark brick they’d called the Tyner Annex before hurrying on their way. He didn’t belong on these streets, and everyone who saw him knew it. At this rate it wouldn’t be long before someone sent word to the cops and had him rousted. Finn didn’t like the idea of spending any quality time with the law. That would only make his bad situation even worse.

  There would be folk looking for him, folk who’d demand an explanation of what happened out in the woods down the barrel of a gun. And he wasn’t sure they’d like or believe what he’d tell them. Getting banged up in the slammer would only make it easier for the folk who wanted him dead to find him. Once he’d found what he was looking for, he’d get the hell out of here and hole up in Ma’s for as long as his dwindling reserves lasted.

  Finn wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but his mam had taught him to read and write, which was more than most folk of his acquaintance had. A brass sign on the wall by an arched doorway confirmed that this was the building he was looking for, and he hefted the blanket-wrapped sphere from the haversack looped over his shoulder.

  This was some kind of science building, so if there was anyone who could tell him what this thing was, he’d find them here. Finn retreated to the shadows of a stand of trees in a park surrounding a tall clock tower and watched the comings and goings for a few moments. Not many folk went in or out, but a few minutes after the clock struck the hour, a surge of bright young things streamed from the door.

  Finn took that as his cue and walked over to the building, scanning the faces for someone older, someone who looked like they were a professor. He was disappointed until he saw a bespectacled man with a lanky gait and neatly combed hair. He wore a tweed suit and tie, and carried a battered briefcase that bulged with papers and books.

  “Aye,” said Finn. “You’ll do.”

  * * *

  Oliver watched the students as they flowed from the Tyner Annex, their patterns like divergent tides as they moved through the campus grounds. He wondered if there were some kind of formula that could be devised to predict such movements. He paused on the steps of the modern building and put on his hat, squinting against the low sun to scan the faces of the students.

  Amanda Sharpe wasn’t among them, and according to her professors, she hadn’t attended her classes today. Though he tried not to be alarmed, he couldn’t help but feel a tremor of unease at that fact. Especially given his reading material over the last few days.

  The book Alexander had given him sat in his briefcase like a guilty secret, its contents fabulous and hideous in equal measure. Oliver had read the book cover to cover, and had lost several nights sleep over its profane revelations. What sleep he had managed was fitful and filled with amorphous nightmares of guttural chants, slimy-skinned savages, and bloody altars draining into the sea.

  Oliver’s eyes were gritty and his manner distracted from his restless nights as he made his way along the brick pathway leading to the Liberal Arts building. The academic in him wanted to ridicule the text of Shrewsbury’s book, placing it alongside W. Scott-Elliot’s The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria in terms of academic worth. Yet for all its fantastical claims, Oliver couldn’t help but feel there was a wretched truth to the work. He had never met Laban Shrewsbury, but his reputation among the Miskatonic cognoscenti as a greatly admired scholar warred with the strange and incredible ideas contained in the book.

  The claim that a great creature from beyond time and space could be entombed beneath the oceans of Earth, and was worshipped by depraved cults throughout the world, was surely beyond belief. But Shrewsbury was a methodical academic, and his notes (though clearly written in haste and in some state of anxiety) were nothing if not complete. Oliver had cross-referenced many of the missing professor’s notes with extant works from a variety of disciplines and found too many corroborating sources to entirely dismiss the man’s incredible conclusions.

  The Yopasi did not fit within this framewo
rk of devil-worshipping savages, a fact for which Oliver was monumentally grateful. The more he placed his own findings alongside those of Shrewsbury, the more it became apparent that the Yopasi had stood in direct opposition to this submerged demon creature.

  Shrewsbury had rendered this creature’s name as Cthulhu, a word redolent with ancient evil with its abominable arrangement of syllables. Yet even amid its sheer alienness, there was a hint of something familiar to the word—a teasing memory lurking in the corners of Oliver’s mind, like he had once heard something similar.

  The book’s frightening final chapter posited the dreadful notion that should any of these Cthulhu-worshipping cults succeed in awaking their star-spawned master, the world would end. Such an outcome was terrifying enough, but more horrible still was Shrewsbury’s contention that Cthulhu’s destruction would not be visited upon the Earth through some diabolical scheme of malicious evil, but through the simple act of his sunken city rising to the surface. As the world of men destroyed the habitats of the animal kingdom with unthinking expansion, wiping out entire species without even registering their existence, so too would Cthulhu destroy the race of Man.

  That was as much notice as humanity merited within the monstrous, abyssal mind of this terrible creature of darkness.

  Shrewsbury’s writings hinted that he feared for his life, and the work devolved into paranoia by its last paragraphs. Believing that swarthy men of mongrel appearance were following him, Shrewsbury had made veiled references of a plan to escape his pursuers. Whether he had met his end at the hands of some deranged cultist of Cthulhu, or had enacted his plan of flight, was a mystery to which Oliver could find no answer. If Shrewsbury had met an unsavory end, might Oliver’s research mean his own life was in danger? Was Amanda’s?