Ghouls of the Miskatonic (The Dark Waters Trilogy)

by Graham McNeill

  She finished a set of Dr. Hayes’s books and rubbed her eyes, looking up at the slit windows high on the wall of the laboratory. The clock on the wall said it was half past five, though only blackness could be seen through the iron meshed windows. She set down the book, and looked over at the device Professor Grayson and the Irishman had brought her.

  It sat in a cardboard box covered with the cloth they used for cleaning their coffee pot. It had been in Kate’s thoughts ever since it had come into her possession.

  If what Mr. Edwards had described was true, then the sphere might well be one of the most important scientific discoveries of the century: though she seemed to be the only one to think so.

  Neither Frank nor Dr. Hayes had been interested in even looking at the device. Their thoughts were on the upcoming expedition to Antarctica and ensuring that their newly developed technology would be sufficient to meet the hostile environmental demands placed upon it. Kate couldn’t blame them—a great deal of money, time, and effort was being poured into this expedition, and the prestige the university would gain from its subsequent findings was beyond measure.

  Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that this sphere was something that would eclipse any discoveries made upon the cold wastelands of Antarctica.

  Unable to contain her curiosity any longer, and deciding that she had done enough work for one day, Kate put aside the reams of data on conductivity, resistance, voltages, and energy drop-offs. She crossed the laboratory and lifted the strange sphere from the box and set it on the workbench. Its weight was surprising, far in excess of what something of its dimensions would warrant.

  Following a strict methodology, Kate took a fresh notebook from a drawer and made a number of sketches of the device. She had taken photographs the previous day and was waiting for them to be developed. It appeared to be made from machine-finished steel, but polished to such a high degree that its silvery surfaces were mirror-like. What looked like a sheen of gasoline covered the device, distorting her reflection like a fairground mirror that makes you look taller or fatter or squatter.

  Yet the surfaces were not uniform, and Kate wondered if the device was in fact made up of numerous interlocking pieces, cunningly wrought to form its perfectly spherical form. Angular lines and sweeping curves crossed its surface like impossibly complex wiring diagrams, or strange and unknown writing.

  Using precise calipers, Kate took measurements of the device, finding that it was perfectly spherical. She could see that much with her eyes, but to find that it had been machined to tolerances beyond what she could detect with the laboratory’s instruments was a surprise.

  With her initial observations and the sphere’s dimensions recorded, Kate placed it onto a set of scales and added weight after weight to the opposing side until she finally determined its weight.

  The scales balanced at precisely seventeen pounds, not an ounce more or less. The metal, or whatever lay at the sphere’s core, must be incredibly dense.

  “Precisely weighted and precisely measured,” she wondered aloud. “Who made you?”

  Kate lifted the heavy sphere over to the machining table, a long bench fitted with clamps and vices where Frank ran prototypes of his new drill bits. Spiral-wound threads of scrap metal littered the surface of the table. Kate swept them aside to lodge the sphere in a secure iron vice. She didn’t intend to drill through its surface, just to take a sliver of its surface material to submit to Dr. Ellery in order to ascertain its metallurgical composition.

  The drill was mounted on a sliding rail that could be adjusted by a crank that ran alongside it. Kate gradually powered up the drill as she eased it toward the sphere. The noise of the drill filled the laboratory, and Kate winced at the volume. She snatched up a pair of Greenwood ear defenders and settled them across her head before continuing. Carefully, she touched the whirring, whining bit against the surface of the sphere.

  The drill bit screamed as it touched the material of the sphere, smoking and throwing off sparks like a welder’s torch. A high-pitched screech filled the air as acrid fumes poured from the point of contact between drill and sphere. Weird light bathed the laboratory, strange spectra emanating from the sphere and flashing like a strobe. Kate backed the drill away as a faint thrumming noise pulsed outward from the sphere. She missed the sound at first, the ear defenders blocking out the low frequency rumble.

  The drill was ruined, its sharpened tip flattened without having left a mark on the sphere. Kate leaned in close, realizing that the sphere was composed of a material hard enough to withstand even the most powerful drill the laboratory possessed.

  “Heavens above!” she cried, jumping back as the surface of the sphere began to move.

  The pieces that formed the device clicked and began reorienting, like three dimensional jigsaw pieces reassembling themselves into a new configuration. Portions lifted up and rotated, others sank into the body of the sphere, while others appeared to spontaneously reform into new, previously unseen forms. The device impossibly changed its geometry from moment to moment, becoming a cube, triangle, and cylinder within the space of a few seconds.

  Kate backed away and pulled the ear defenders from her head, now hearing the bass note emanating from the device. Like some clockwork automaton, the whirring, spinning pieces finally slotted back into the body of the device, and once again it was a sphere. Then, a powerful pulse of high energy noise erupted from the sphere and the vials and test tubes rattled glassily in their racks. Kate felt the vibration deep in her bones as another pulse, louder and deeper than the previous note pounded like an enormous heart beat.

  “Oh no,” hissed Kate, backing away from the device as it began to emit a brilliant light that threw stark shadows around the laboratory. Another sound wave blasted outward, this time knocking over loose items and rattling even the heavy equipment benches.

  Kate ran toward the iron door and mashed the locking button that released the magnetic catches that secured it. Nothing happened for a maddening second, but at last the light above the door flashed and she hauled it open. Another sound wave battered her, hurling her through the door and sending her sprawling to the tiled floor.

  She rolled onto her back as incandescent radiance spilled from the door, bathing the corridor in bleaching white light. The noise was incredible, a repeating sound wave of low frequency energy almost beyond the threshold of hearing. Kate scrambled to her feet and hauled the iron door to the laboratory shut as a final pulse surged from the device and destroyed the laboratory.

  * * *

  “You heard from Stone?” asked Minnie, placing a sheaf of photographs on Rex’s desk and pulling up a chair to sit next to him. Rex looked up from his typewriter and nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said, aware that he still had to tread carefully around Minnie. “He says he’ll meet us tomorrow at Lucy’s, fill us in on what he got from the archives.”

  Rex rubbed the heel of his palm against his forehead as a sudden spike of pain filled his head. He still felt rough from their trip to the Commercial, far worse than if he’d been drunk, and he was feeling the after effects even now.

  “What about your source? You get anything from your guy in the cops?” he asked.

  “Nope,” she said. “I’ve not heard squat. Face it, Rex: we’ve hit dead ends all round, and you know Harvey’s going to be looking for something juicy or our backsides are out the door.”

  Rex lit a cigarette and gestured to his typewriter. “I know. There’s only so many ways I can spin this to read like I got something to say.”

  “How you pitching it?”

  “Moral high ground stuff, public outrage. You know, good girls undone by drink and drugs,” said Rex. “I don’t know what Rufus is putting in his drinks, but it’s crazy stuff. Get girls drunk like that and who knows what’s going to happen.”

  “Still think he spiked you?” said Minnie with a sly grin.

  “You’re damn right I do,” said Rex. “Sure I like a drink, who doesn’t in this town? But no wa
y would I get that messed up after a few martinis.”

  “Oh I don’t know, I’ve seen you pretty drunk. Remember that time you tried to prove you could jump the fence around Independence Square and caught your pants on the spikes? I wish I’d had my camera on me that night to catch your full moon.”

  “Very funny, doll face,” said Rex. “I would have made it if I’d had a better run up.”

  “Regardless of your lack of athletic prowess, I’ve just got these back from the lab,” said Minnie, tapping the photos. “Not much, but maybe enough to keep Harvey off our back.”

  Rex flipped through the pictures noting images of the original crime scene, the Commercial (including one of his face), and the university campus. One showed a professor-type in front of a modern-fronted brick building talking to some lowlife with a cloth bundle held out before him. Rex didn’t know them, but it looked pretty shady.

  “Who are these guys?” he asked.

  “The guy in the suit is Professor Oliver Grayson,” said Minnie.

  Rex looked up and nodded appreciatively. “Good work, girlie. And the other guy? He doesn’t look like someone a professor ought to be hanging around with.”

  Minnie smiled. “He isn’t. I showed his mug around to some people I know in low places and I got a name. Finn Edwards.”

  “Never heard of him,” said Rex. “Should I have?”

  Minnie shook her head and rubbed her temple, like she too was suffering from a mild headache. “Not unless you’re involved in bootlegging. He’s low-level, a foot soldier for one of the Arkham gangs. Basically, he’s a goon for hire who’s handy with a pistol and fists, and none too shy about using them. Not too smart, but not too dumb either, I’m told.”

  “He got a record?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” said Minnie, dropping a carbon-stained arrest sheet in Rex’s lap. “Mostly misdemeanors: petty theft, assault, disorderly conduct, drug possession, and one count of public indecency where he pulled his pants down on St. Patrick’s Day.”

  “Sounds like a character, right enough,” said Rex. “What’s he doing with Grayson?”

  “I don’t know, but Grayson looked like a spooked deer when Edwards spoke to him.”

  “Like he’s got something to hide?”

  “Could be,” agreed Minnie.

  Rex leaned over and planted a kiss on Minnie’s cheek. “Damn, you’re good.”

  “I know,” said Minnie, reaching up to touch her face. “Remember to tell Harvey that when we talk pay raise.”

  A shadow fell over the pair of them and Rex looked up to see Harvey Gedney looking down at them. For a moment, Rex feared Harvey had learned of Stone’s intrusion to the building to search the back issues, but one look at the anger in the editor’s face told him this was something far worse.

  “Hey, Harvey,” said Rex, keeping his tone light. “What’s the good word?”

  “Good word?” thundered Harvey. The editor-in-chief of the Advertiser was a florid-faced forty-two-year-old, with a face forever pulled in a grimace like he was passing a continuous string of kidney stones. His suit was permanently rumpled, and he liked to project an aggressive image that was reflected in the inquisitive nature of his reporters.

  Harvey slammed a folded newspaper down on the desk, scattering Minnie’s pictures and spilling some of Rex’s coffee. “How in the hell did Peck get the jump on you? I thought you were all over this? Damn it, Rex, I let you run with this one, but by God, if Peck’s humbugged us, I’ll throw your ass out the door so fast your head will spin.”

  Rex picked up the paper. It was a copy of the Arkham Gazette, the Advertiser’s only rival for news in this town. Where the Advertiser was bullish and asked awkward questions, the Gazette was a local newspaper in every sense of the term. Its managing editor, Willard Peck, usually only ever printed items filed by county correspondents concerning town and valley events. The Gazette did little to ruffle local feathers and hardly ever reported international events.

  Which made the front page of tomorrow’s edition all the more surprising.

  Rex took one look at the headline and his mouth fell open with a shocked gasp.

  “Peck printed this?” he said.

  “He will,” snapped Harvey. “It’s tomorrow’s first edition.”

  “What’s it say?” asked Minnie, alternating between looking at Rex and Harvey.

  Rex laid the paper out on his desk for Minnie to read the headline:

  GRUESOME DISCOVERY UNDER GARRISON STREET BRIDGE HORRIFIES ARKHAM!

  Anonymous Tipster Leads Police to Charnel House of Dead Bodies Beneath Bridge.

  Garrison Street Sealed Off as Hunt for Savage Killer Intensifies.

  At Least Ten Bodies Found.

  Terror Seizes the Streets of Arkham!

  “Tell me you have something on this,” said Harvey. “I’ll not have that odious little shit, Peck, trumping me on something this big.”

  “We got some leads, yeah,” said Rex, stalling for time. “We’re working with an outside informant that looks promising.”

  “Looks promising?” barked Harvey. “I don’t care about promising, I want results! You’ve been working that dead girl on the athletics field for days now, and you’ve got nothing to show for it. Now get your asses up there and find an angle on this or so help me God, you’ll never work in Massachusetts again. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be lucky to wind up covering county fairs for the Weekly Iowegian.”

  Rex held his hands up, as if to ward off Harvey’s anger.

  “I know this looks bad, but you got to trust me, Harvey. We’re on to something big.”

  “Your ‘informant’ tell you that?” demanded Harvey. “Who is he anyway?”

  Rex looked at Minnie, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod. She was right, there was a time for cleverness, and this was most definitely not it.

  “It’s a Pinkerton agent,” said Rex. “The girl at the athletics field was his daughter.”

  “A Pinkerton’s daughter?” said Harvey. “That’s a good angle. And you say there are leads? What kind of leads?”

  “We need to do a bit more digging, but it could be big, Harvey,” said Rex, tapping the front page of the Gazette. “Bigger than this. Turns out there might be a lot more bodies than even the cops know about under the bridge. There are links to the university and one of its professors, and we’ve just gotten word that there’s a link to illegal bootlegging, too. Just give us a little longer and I swear we can break this wide open.”

  Rex hated giving away his story before he’d even written it or, for that matter, figured out if there even was a story. He was taking a big gamble by pitching to Harvey like this, but he had a gut feeling that this was going to be the big one, the one that got him a Pulitzer.

  He could see it was working. The idea that the Advertiser might break a story even bigger than the one in tomorrow’s Gazette appealed to Harvey’s one-upmanship with Willard Peck.

  Harvey tapped the newspaper on the desk and locked his gaze with Rex.

  “Break it open in the next week, or you’re history,” said Harvey.

  * * *

  Oliver wrapped his scarf around his neck and marched toward the steps of Arkham Asylum, bending against the cold wind and holding his hat tight to his head. Though it had taken him longer than he would have liked to answer Dr. Hardstrom’s summons, Oliver had finally managed to find the time to drive to the northern edge of town to meet with the institution’s senior physician.

  He was admitted to the building with his customary awkwardness, the orderlies eyeing him with suspicious glances that made Oliver think they were getting ready to subdue him and carry him to his own cell. The thought had occurred to him before, of course, but in his current mental state, it seemed a much greater possibility.

  Monroe gave him a particularly evil stare, one that Oliver could not return. He didn’t think he had offended the man. Or was it simply his association with Henry that engendered such hostility? Could his old fri
end’s behavior have become so troublesome that merely knowing him brought disapproving stares?

  At length, Dr. Hardstrom appeared from one of the side corridors, accompanied by a nurse with pale skin, dark eyes, and brown hair pinned in a tight bun. She gave him a crooked glance that seemed to say I know the things you know…

  Oliver blinked and the moment passed. The nurse was simply giving him a polite smile of welcome as she returned to the reception desk. He smiled weakly, feeling foolish for giving in to such paranoia. Dr. Hardstrom held a hand out to him, and it took Oliver a moment to recognize the gesture for what it was.

  He shook Hardstrom’s hand as he fought to get a grip on his nerves. His mental stability was always threatened whenever he came to the asylum, but with all that he had recently learned, it was especially off-kilter.

  “Professor Grayson,” said Dr. Hardstrom. “Good of you to come at last.”

  “Yes, sorry it’s taken me so long,” said Oliver, catching the implied criticism of his delay. “Work at the university, you know how it is.”

  “Of course, if you’d like to follow me,” replied Hardstrom, leading him deeper into the building. Monroe led the way, unlocking doors before them and sealing them again in their wake. Oliver had never been to this part of the asylum, its bare walls dark and pressing in like the walls of the trap chambers rumored to exist in the pyramids. Anonymous paintings hung like gallows victims in their frames and the dreary subject matter seemed calculated to drive anyone who saw them into a fit of depression.

  They passed no one as they walked, and the only sound was the sharp tap-tap of their heels, the clang of metal doors closing behind them, and the wind rattling the panes of the windows. They might be all alone in this vast building for all Oliver knew.

  Hardstrom stopped before a nondescript door of bare metal and gestured for Monroe to unlock it. From the nature of the keys required to open its thickness, Oliver guessed this was not the office of the good doctor.

  “If you please,” said Hardstrom.