Ghouls of the Miskatonic (The Dark Waters Trilogy)

by Graham McNeill

  Yet even among such sinister peaks, one edifice soared taller than the rest, a crooked mourning tower studded with lancet windows that glimmered with black light and deathly fires.

  The sight of so nightmarish a vision of mortality was almost too much for them. Kate gripped onto Oliver’s arm, and Finn steadied himself by dropping to his haunches and lighting a cigarette he pulled from behind his ear. The sepulchral city squatted like an evil spider brooding over death-haunted halls, and a palpable sense of dread, loathing, and fear bled from the city’s lightless garrets and abandoned cloisters.

  Oliver stared at the vast tower, its peaked summit surrounded by ghostly clouds of lightning-shot mist. Spectral images flickered within that mist. Tantalizing images burned into Oliver’s retina with each arcing bolt of electrical discharge. Streets, houses, and parks, each achingly familiar and homely. With a start, Oliver recognized these images as snapshots of Arkham, phantom traces of the world they had left behind.

  “God in heaven!” said Kate. “What a horrible place!”

  “We’re in Hell, aren’t we?” said Finn. “Oh, Jaysus, we’re in bloody Hell.”

  “That might not be too far off the mark, Mr. Edwards,” replied Oliver, looking at the soaring tower and the fading echoes of their own world. “But I think I see a way out.”

  “Up there?” said Finn. “Tell me your jokin’, Doc.”

  Oliver shook his head and looked down the cliff to the continent-sized graveyard. Hundreds more eaters of the dead were swarming toward the base of the cliff, clawing their way up its sheer sides to feast on the three of them.

  “If we want to see our world again, Mr. Edwards, we’re going to have to climb out of Hell.”

  “No way,” said Finn, shaking his head. “I ain’t going anywhere near that place. It’s cursed is what it is. Evil!”

  “It’s either that or get eaten alive,” said Oliver.

  Finn looked down at the creatures swarming up the cliff.

  “Let’s climb,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  No light illuminated the tunnel as Rita navigated her way through the twisting, brick-walled darkness with her outstretched hands. The depth of the water was inconsistent, sometimes leaving her less than six inches of air to breathe, sometimes a few feet. Its movement was sluggish, but the stench was foul beyond imagining. Years’ worth of human detritus had been tossed into the pool and carried via the sluggish tidal action toward the river.

  At least that was where Rita hoped it led.

  She pushed herself onward, despite the pain in her joints, the ache in her belly, and the fatigue that begged her to let her body rest. She had no idea if she was being pursued, but couldn’t risk a moment to find out. If Latimer was coming after her, there was nothing she could do about it. All she could do was get the hell away from here as fast as she was able.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks at the thought of having left Amanda behind, but what choice did she have? Surely without her there, the red robed priest would have no leverage to force Amanda to confess the substance of her dreams.

  Rita tried not to think of what they might do to Amanda as a reprisal for her escape. Every time her tired muscles threatened to give out, she reminded herself what might happen to Amanda if she faltered. She focused her mind, shutting out the pain and fear, and concentrated on just moving forward. This was a long-distance run, nothing more. The same dedication that drove Paavo Nurmi to win five gold medals at the Paris Olympics spurred her on, and Rita harvested every scrap of energy and determination to continue.

  She had no idea how far she had traveled or how long it had been since her escape. All sensation of the passing of time and distance were meaningless in the blackness. The tunnel seemed never-ending, but it had to end somewhere, didn’t it?

  Rita splashed forward under the water as the tunnel dipped suddenly. She swallowed a mouthful of reeking liquid, tasting the acidic bile of its contamination. Rita cried out and spat the brackish fluid out, coughing as dribbles slid down her throat to her stomach. Floundering in the water, she felt the pull of current, and let it take her. A scum of liquefied bone and fat filmed the water’s surface.

  Christ, how many girls have met their end here? Ten, a dozen? More?

  Rita came closest to giving up then, her gumption as close to the edge as it ever was when she hit the wall in a long run. But, as always, she found that extra reserve of strength and character to push through the pain and the desire to give up.

  With an angry snarl, Rita pushed her feet to the bottom of the tunnel and pressed on, her second wind surging through her like a cure-all tonic. She felt the surge within the tunnel increase, a definite wash of tidal movement, and cried out as she realized she could see distant flickers of splintered light on the fractured surface of the water. The thought that she might be nearing the end of the tunnel gave her fresh strength, and she threw herself flat and swam with powerful strokes as the current picked up.

  The force of the tide increased sharply. Rita was too weak to fight it. She let it carry her through the last of its debris-garlanded length. Frothing bubbles and swirling currents spun her around as she shot from the mouth of the tunnel. Water closed over her head, and she fought for breath as she bobbed up and down like a spinning top.

  Rita broke the surface intermittently, popping up for air and gulping whole lungfuls of icy water. The frozen chill of the water sent a spike of adrenaline through her, and Rita thrashed her arms as the current swept her through the deep waters of the Miskatonic.

  She saw lights on the shore, pinpricks of lamps, and electric streetlights, but she couldn’t make out where she was. A looming black shape rose out of the water, a stone pier of a bridge, and Rita screamed as she passed beneath it, hearing the rumble of railroad stock and the braying of riverboat horns.

  The water continued to buffet her, spinning her around until all sense of left and right, up and down, were completely lost to her. Rita dug deep for a last reserve of energy, but she was empty. She had nothing left to give. Her thoughts turned toward Amanda as she let herself go, her body finally claimed by the river.

  She sank beneath the river, but no sooner had the water closed over her head than she felt solid ground beneath her feet. Rita’s head broke the surface and she dragged a heaving gulp of air into her lungs. Her feet scrambled on the soft sand, and she thrashed her arms, digging great handfuls of dirt as she hauled herself onto the shore.

  Rita wept with relief, lying in the mud and letting cool air fill her lungs as her head grew heavy and her sight dimmed. She lay there and probably passed out for a time. It was hard to be certain. All she knew was that by the time enough of her strength had returned to allow her to lift her head from the mud, it felt like no time at all.

  The sky was beginning to lighten, and in the dim twilight Rita saw she hadn’t yet reached either shore of Arkham, but had pitched up on the island between the West Street and Garrison Street Bridges. That meant she was closest to the north bank. She groaned as she realized she would need to swim to shore.

  Then she cursed, wondering how long she’d been out of it.

  Amanda was counting on her. Every minute was crucial.

  “I promised I wouldn’t let you down, Mandy,” sobbed Rita, climbing to her feet and making her way north on unsteady legs to the point where the island was closest to shore. She followed narrow trails of hard-packed earth, the rising sun illuminating her path as if trying to aid her escape from the ghouls.

  The farther she traveled, the more Rita began to realize that she was not this island’s first visitor. Clearings with the remains of fires dotted her path, and scattered around them were curious collections of random ephemera.

  A woman’s high heel wrapped in an emerald pashmina.

  A broken string of black pearls.

  A dented brooch with a red flower in the middle, a scrap of sequined cloth still attached.

  Mixed in with the debris of flappers’ outfits, Rita saw other items, terr
ible objects that echoed the dreadful place of captivity from which she had just escaped. A grinning skull sat in the remains of a cold fire, the bone blackened and scorched. A picked-clean ribcage lay discarded at the edge of one clearing and a pile of bones, stacked like cordwood sat beside the kind of log you might sit on to roast marshmallows.

  “Oh, hell no,” said Rita as the truth dawned on her. “This is where they killed them. They killed them and ate them here. Oh sweet baby Jesus, no.”

  Terror flooded her at the thought of the ghouls feasting on the living by the light of dancing fires. This was their killing ground, where God only knew how many girls had been tortured and murdered for these sick bastards’ amusement.

  Though her body was drained beyond the point of exhaustion, Rita ran through the darkness of the island toward the north shore.

  * * *

  Rex took a mouthful of coffee, then wished he hadn’t. He and Minnie had been up all night cooking up some pieces to keep Harvey off their backs, and had drunk pot after pot of the stuff. The story they’d promised the irascible editor was turning out to be far more outrageous than they could have ever believed, and Rex wasn’t sure Harvey would buy into all this talk of ancient gods and forbidden cults.

  They’d filed some puff pieces about the inability of the cops to catch the murderers and the effect it was having on Arkham. It wasn’t hard to see how scared the townsfolk were. There’d been a couple of lynchings where “concerned citizens” had beaten up some poor unfortunate caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. A few immigrant windows had suffered bricks thrown through them, and one tenement had been set on fire. The building was supposed to be abandoned, but Rex had heard on the grapevine that some bodies had been found in the basement: hobos, fugitives from the law, or something worse?

  In Arkham you never knew.

  It was just past ten, and Lucy’s was quieter than Rex had ever seen it. Only a few working stiffs sat at the counter, and most of the booths were empty. The few folk that were in avoided eye contact and spoke in hushed whispers, furtively glancing over their shoulders to see who might be listening in on their words. Looking through the painted window, Rex could see the street beyond was virtually deserted.

  Ghost streets.

  Rats deserting a sinking ship.

  Is Arkham the ship?

  What happens if it goes under?

  It was only a short walk from the offices of the Advertiser to Aunt Lucy’s, but Rex would have expected to see a few pedestrians on the street. Automobiles hadn’t yet taken over Arkham like some doomsayers predicted they would in every city in America.

  Minnie appeared with two plates of apple pie topped with fresh cream and placed one before Rex. She sat down and took a forkful of her own slice with a smile of relish.

  “Bit early for pie, isn’t it?” said Rex.

  “It’s never too early for pie,” said Minnie. “Besides, we deserve it after all the work we put in last night. Not how I usually like to spend the night while I’m awake, but never mind.”

  Rex took a slice of pie and nodded. “Not bad. Pie in the morning. Could be the start of something, Minnie.”

  “You and I sharing breakfast together?” said Minnie with a tired smile. “People will talk.”

  Rex laughed. “This ain’t a big town, Minnie. Talk is all people do here.”

  They lapsed into a comfortable silence as they ate their pie and drank their coffee while they waited for Stone, Templeton, and Grayson to arrive. They were early, but that suited Rex just fine. It would give the pair of them time to mull over all that had happened the day before, the fantastical things they had heard, and the monstrous nature of the dark forces at work in Arkham.

  “Maybe it’s the tiredness or the caffeine kicking in, but the more I think of all we heard yesterday, the harder time I have believing it,” said Rex as he laid down his fork.

  “You don’t think there’s anything to it at all?”

  “I didn’t say that,” replied Rex. “I just mean that it’s a lot to believe. Going from thinking the world is a pretty normal place to finding out it’s anything but takes a bit of getting used to. I think it’ll take time for it all to sink in.”

  “I know what you mean, but I think I’ve had longer to get used to it than you.”

  “How so?”

  “Those pictures I took last year, the ones I burned? They weren’t the first like that I’ve taken. I’ve always had an eye for the creepy and the bizarre. Did you know my dad took me to Arkham Asylum when I was thirteen?”

  Rex almost choked on his coffee. “He did what? Why?”

  “I’d saved all my allowance for a year, and got myself a camera from Walter’s Optics. But I didn’t want to take family portraits or photographs of our dog. I went out and took pictures of dark alleys, road-kill, and the creepy guys you see hiding in the graveyard. Looking back, I can kind of see where Dad was coming from, but at the time I didn’t understand why he couldn’t see the things I was seeing. To keep my folks happy I stopped taking photographs of the things you only see out of the corner of your eye, and just snapped stuff for the family album. They bought it, but I could still see what was going on behind the white picket fences of the town. I just didn’t take photographs of it.”

  “And what was going on?”

  “The kind of stuff we heard yesterday,” said Minnie. “I’ve always known Arkham wasn’t like other towns, and now I know why. I’m not going to turn away from it now. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  “So you’re a paid up believer now?”

  “Yeah,” nodded Minnie. “I think I always have been. I just didn’t know it.”

  “Good enough for me,” said Rex. Alexander Templeton entered the diner, followed a few seconds later by Gabriel Stone. The two men joined them at the booth, accepting Rex’s offer of coffee, but declining the chance to have pie.

  They said their good mornings and exchanged pleasantries with the awkwardness of strangers until Stone looked at his watch and saw that it was twenty minutes past the agreed time for their meeting. Oliver Grayson still hadn’t shown up.

  “Anyone heard from the professor?” asked Stone. “The other one I mean.”

  No one had, and Rex got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He scribbled in his notebook.

  Missing.

  Gone.

  No longer of this Earth…

  * * *

  Stone left to check on Oliver’s house while Rex, Minnie, and Alexander hurried to the university campus to see if he had spent the night engaged in research and simply lost track of the time. Stone drove his Crossley to Easttown, while Rex and the others piled into Rex’s battered Ford to the Miskatonic campus. In lieu of finding Oliver they agreed to rendezvous at Lucy’s around midday.

  Rex parked up on College Street and slammed the door as he got out.

  “Me and Minnie will check the professor’s office,” he said. “We got charm and beauty enough to bluff our way past any secretaries, right?”

  “Sure Rex, but which one of us is which?” asked Minnie. “On second thought don’t answer that. You’ll only embarrass yourself.”

  “I’ll check the library,” declared Templeton. “There’s a good chance Oliver may have become engrossed in one of Armitage’s restricted books. I will meet you back at Lucy’s, agreed?”

  “Agreed,” said Rex.

  He and Minnie walked briskly toward the Liberal Arts building, finding the streets as empty here as they were throughout the town. Students were just as prone to fear as anyone else it turned out. So much for the rebellious spirit of today’s youth, thought Rex.

  They climbed the steps to the building, noting a glazier replacing panels to the side of the grand entrance door. Inside the checkerboard foyer, they found Oliver’s name and room number on the staff directory. A couple of university custodians manned an inquiries desk, but they were engrossed in an animated discussion and paid the two reporters no mind as they made their way upstairs.

&nbs
p; Three floors up, Rex was out of breath.

  “You need to get in shape,” said Minnie.

  “Slightly paunchy is a shape,” said Rex. “Just not a fashionable one. You’ll see. I’m a trendsetter and one day everyone around here will look like me.”

  Minnie ignored him and strode down the carpeted hallway until she reached Oliver’s office. The door was open, but Oliver wasn’t in. Two matronly ladies were cleaning up some spilled papers and Rex began to fear the worst when he noted the expressions of concern they gave him as he knocked on the doorframe.

  “Hello, I wonder if you fine ladies can help us,” said Rex. “We’re looking for Oliver Grayson. Is he around?”

  The first woman shook her head, but it was her companion who answered.

  “No, he’s not here, and if he keeps having visitors without scheduling them in the appointments book, I’ll be having words with Professor Grayson.”

  “He’s had other visitors?” said Minnie.

  “Yes, a student came to see him early this morning,” said the woman Rex now took to be the department secretary. “She was in a terrible state. Covered in scratches and bruises and almost hysterical. She didn’t have an appointment or anything.”

  Rex looked at Minnie and the excitement between them was tangible.

  “Did this girl tell you her name?” said Minnie.

  “I believe she said her name was Rita. She said she had to see Professor Grayson,” said the woman, “but before I could tell her that she’d need to make an appointment, the wretched girl collapsed right here in Professor Grayson’s office. I don’t mind telling you that she looked like she’d been on the wrong end of a beating. I don’t make judgments on people, but the Lord grants to each what they deserve.”

  “Very charitable of you,” said Minnie. “Where’s the girl now?”

  “Dr. Morgan took her to St. Mary’s Hospital a couple of hours ago,” replied the woman, but Rex and Minnie were already running for the stairs.