The Midnight Games

by Lee, David Neil;

  “Protecting us from what?”

  “Stay away from that Church,” he said brusquely. The bus pulled up to the corner. “I can’t have that goddamn Church taking everyone away from me.” The door swung shut and he was gone.

  CHAPTER 7

  SOMETHING MALIGN

  It took a few minutes for my old desktop computer to boot up. But I checked the modem, and at least our internet was working. I started a search: what, I asked Google, were “yog sauces”? It didn’t sound like a nickname for a new street drug. I scrolled through pages of results without finding anything useful. I found entries for yogourt sauces, and sites where yoga shared space with recipes for peanut and tahini sauces. I was on the wrong track, I thought. Chances were slim that the crowd in the stadium had been chanting about their favourite yogourt. Then, as if reading my mind, an entry caught my attention. “Yog-Sothoth,” it read cheerily, “is not yogurt sauce.” I clicked through to the site and read:

  YOG-SOTHOTH is the eldest and most powerful of the Great Old Ones who are redoubling their assaults on our world as the twenty-first century progresses. Yog-Sothoth’s appearance is uncertain – those who have seen it range in their reactions from devotion, to revulsion, to incurable lifelong madness. Even Lovecraft himself was vague, in one work referring to Yog-Sothoth as “only a congeries of iridescent globes, yet stupendous in its malign suggestiveness.”

  Who was this Lovecraft? The name was linked so I clicked again and found stuff about Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Some early twentieth-century American guy who wrote horror stories. Back to Yog-Sothoth, where I read:

  The keys that will admit the Great Old Ones – spoken and written spells, chemical potions and rituals of human sacrifice – are encoded in the Necronomicon, a book written in AD 730 by the Persian writer (although he is often referred to as “the Mad Arab”) Abdul Alhazred.

  Hmm ... if these people know about Yog-Sothoth, crazy as all this stuff was, maybe they knew something pertinent to my situation. The website was called The Lovecraft Underground. On the About Us page I found a mission statement:

  Since H. P. Lovecraft’s untimely death in 1937, there has been a growing area of study into what has been called the Cthulhu Mythos – research that has uncovered evidence of substantial truth underlying work that was formerly considered fiction. Starting in 1946 with rumours of the ill-fated Nazi space probe Oberth A-7, continuing in 1952 with Jacques Cousteau’s abandoned expedition to the Indian Ocean trench he called le fond condamné and buttressed by the controversial 1967 photographs from the Rocky Mountains’ infamous Valley of Bones, a small group of researchers, working independently of university, institutional or government affiliations, began to assemble a body of evidence that Lovecraft’s fictions of an ancient extraterrestrial race – The Great Old Ones – trying to restore its earthly domain were based in fact.

  To their growing horror, these researchers concluded that they had discovered a danger to life on earth that needed to be researched and made known to the public at large, a danger that needed to be stopped at all costs. Above all, at a time of crisis an alarm must be raised to expose the secret workings of the Great Old Ones on Earth. With this in mind, in 1974 the Lovecraft Underground (LUG) was formed.

  I clicked until I found a Contact Us page, and sent a message.

  Here in Hamilton, Ontario, we are experiencing an unusual phenomenon. Every couple of weeks the local football stadium puts on late night “midnight games.” But the people who come to these games don't seem to be football fans.

  I began the next sentence several times I snuck into one of these... then changed it to A friend of mine snuck into ... but grew more worried and settled on I ran into someone, implying a stranger who, if anyone asked, could stay safely anonymous and unavailable.

  ... who attended one of these games. He was confused, but he had the impression the games are some kind of mass cult ceremony in which they call on a god named Yog-Sothoth, and where one or more victims have possibly come to harm. Can you tell me anything about this? Is this the kind of stuff your Underground investigates?

  I read and reread the message. I wasn’t sure these were people I wanted to get to know. But what if I didn’t follow this up? Would last night go away? Would that creepy Proprietor guy go away? Would the midnight games go away? And what about that writhing shape in the sky, and the voice that in one way was reassuring, but in another way scared the crap out of me?

  I filled out the form with my name and email, even my cellphone number, ignored the invitation to Like us on Facebook, and clicked Send.

  CHAPTER 8

  SOMETHING DREAMED

  I am not big, as sixteen-year-olds go. There are guys in my grade, lots of them, who are a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. I wouldn’t want an extra hundred pounds (not unless I was awesomely buff, which most of these guys are not), but I can’t see a downside to gaining an extra foot of height. If I joined the Resurrection Church, would Yog-Sothoth grant me a growth spurt? I wouldn’t bet on it.

  In the past, being smallish set me up for a certain amount of bullying; my strategy was to get good at escaping and running fast. Lately though, the bullying had eased off. So by and large things at school are pretty good, except for the odd psycho like the mountainous Tyrone Gunn-Trojak; but Gunn-Trojak moves slowly and you would not call him a subtle type of dude. It’s always easy to see him coming. But escaping, in my opinion, is still a worthwhile talent; to maintain and enhance this ability is one reason that I keep trying to get in shape, though I think I need more self-discipline.

  That night in the stadium, compelling as the voice was, I remained skeptical. As Dad had preached to me more than once, if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is, et cetera, et cetera, but still I could not get that voice out of my head. This all swirled through my mind as I tried to fall asleep. I dozed and awoke, dozed and awoke, and finally I sent my mind exploring.

  I know it’s all imagination, but I feel sometimes that I really am leaving my body and projecting my mind out to other places. I thought of the sinkhole on Cannon Street, pushed psychic fingers into its dirt and gravel floor, felt it grind and shift and send up plumes of dust as vast muscular forces pushed upwards from deep under the earth. I circled PoW – yup, I could tell Dana was in there. Like me, he was tossing and turning, lying awake and then dozing off, under siege by strange dreams. I crossed the street to the stadium, and sent my mind into the field entrance where we’d seen that bizarre creature emerge to take its human sacrifice. I got inside the door, but could go no farther. Why not? If this was all imagination, why couldn’t I imagine that?

  “Nate?”

  I was inside the corridor where the creature had emerged and the darkness ahead of me was too dense, some kind of super darkness made up of time and space, and memories dense and heavy as a wall of steel. I swivelled to see a woman’s figure outlined against the stadium entrance. The stadium lights were on; there were people out there and I could hear music and shouting.

  “Nate?” The woman’s voice was calm. “I’ve got to go. They’ve summoned the exanimator.”

  I moved closer. This was how I remembered her: untidy hair, black boots, a scuffed leather handbag, a jean jacket with pockets that ... well I remembered that between her handbag and her jacket pockets, she seemed like she could conjure up just about anything.

  “There’s only one chance,” she said. I was drawing closer and closer. “That’s the sorcerer, but I can’t leave you, I can’t ...” Going faster and faster, I lunged toward her, but I plunged right through her and was out on the field. There was shouting and gunshots. Looming over the stadium, the black clouds shot with red lightning that I had seen during the midnight game. And looming over me was that creature, its segmented body raising and turning to reach me, its mandibles clicking eagerly, dripping with venom. And I fast-forwarded out of there, my mind’s eye hovering high over the chaos in the stands, looking back to see the creature – exanimator – turning toward th
e stadium entrance, seeing the ghost who’d seemed to be my mother standing there. But losing all will, I slammed into the night air, away from the stadium, over PoW (where outside the doctored shuttered window, I saw a huddled figure hurriedly screwing the plywood back in place), back down Somerset Avenue ...

  I bolted up in bed, panting and sweating. I looked at the clock. Nate, I thought, you are due for a run.

  I changed and exited the front door to find I wasn’t the only one having a restless night.

  Dana barely looked up when he heard me come out. “Hey, man. Seven-letter word for sea bass?”

  I shook my head and sat down beside him. “I didn’t think you did this anymore. Not since we’ve been leaving the crossword under the green box.”

  Now he looked up. “I’ve done them all. Jeez, Nate, I’ve had the worst sleep since that night at the game. I dream about the ceremony, and that big shape we saw in the clouds, and that guy, and that – that thing, whatever. And hearing voices chanting. Yog-something, fahengluey something cthulhu ... just stupid, I know, but that cult stuff really gets to you.”

  What? This sounded just the tiniest bit like my own dream. But that was goofy.

  “And I feel like I’m being ... ah, forget it.” Dana blinked and shook his head. “I’ve looked some of this stuff up at the library. They’ve got a book there in their special collections. The Necronomicon.”

  “Try grouper,” I said. “But – they’ve got a Necronomicon? I just read about that online. It’s ancient – hundreds of years old. The library’s got one?”

  “I guess it’s a reprint. But still, they keep it locked up. You need to fill out a form to look at it. I did that yesterday morning, but then I went in again late last night, ’cause the weirdest thing happened ...” He carefully wrote GROUPER into the puzzle but then let the paper fall onto his lap.

  “Dana?”

  “The words and the pictures ... they blurred on the page ... and I thought I smelled smoke, that burnt-wiring smell of that blue smoke we saw at the ceremony. And I couldn’t read the words. Nothing made sense.”

  “Dana, enough is enough. Let’s talk to my dad about you moving into our house. There’s empty rooms.”

  He looked at me. “‘In memoriam Dana Laschelles allowed forty-two hours,’” he said. “Tonight, that time will be up.”

  “Dana, you’re freaking me out. Maybe you shouldn’t do this street stuff anymore.”

  “If the book can’t help me, nothing can. I’m screwed.”

  “This is nuts. Think you’ve got a fever or something?”

  “The voices, and the smells,” he said, “and out of the corner of my eyes, I see movement, things are shadowing me. Watching me ...”

  “It’s like you told me, being homeless is hard work. Maybe it’s getting to you. Come crash with us. Even my dad says if you had a place to live you could get welfare, get a job.”

  Dana ignored me. “There’ve been things tucked away for a long time,” he said. “Hiding and waiting. Now they’re coming back.”

  “It would be win-win.” I stood up. “Are you even listening?” With just a sweatshirt and track pants on, I was getting cold.

  Dana stood up too. “Let’s talk about this. Tomorrow.” He scooped up his backpack, full of his provisions for everyday life, tarps and candles and hand tools. Hanging off the back, the pair of absurd pointed-toed shoes. “Don’t pay attention to me, I get anxious, I’m just mouthing off.”

  “Well, stop it. Remember, I rely on you to be my role model.” We had joked about this before, but now it sounded awkward. “I’m going for a run,” I said and started to jog toward Lottridge. “See you later.”

  “And hey, man,” Dana called, before I passed out of earshot, “thanks for you know ... everything.”

  CHAPTER 9

  SOMETHING STOLEN

  “Who might you side with?”

  The words echoed past me as I walked toward the library’s York Boulevard entrance. I didn’t pay them any mind, thinking I was overhearing someone else’s conversation. Behind me I could hear the growing hum of an e-bike. Without looking, I moved to one side; there are lots of e-bikes and electric wheelchairs in downtown Hamilton and some of those people drive like hell.

  “The Proprietor – he gave you a push?”

  This time I turned around. It was a huge woman perched on an electric scooter. Beneath a stained cloth cap she had streaked, wispy-looking grey hair, and a round face with red cheeks and a droopy chin. From the neck down what struck me was not the mishmash of old clothes that swaddled her body; it was how big that body was. Beneath her arms it spread lumpy and shapeless, drooping over the edge of the scooter on both sides, her legs hidden by a drab, billowing skirt.

  I gave her lots of room, but she didn’t pass. She pulled abreast of me and kept pace as I walked. “You talking to me?” I asked.

  “He said you had potential. I could hear him. You saw me there?” Now I remembered. In the crowd outside the stadium, a figure on a scooter having words with the creepy guy called the Proprietor. “Don’t you think there’s a time to take sides? If we don’t act, there will be suffering, people will be eliminated. They have never been this close: the Great Old Ones.”

  “Take sides? I don’t think so.” I eyed the library doors. I could get there in ten steps, but they seemed a mile away. “Whatever’s going on, I don’t really think it’s up to me. You know, I really have to ...”

  “They want this so much. Doesn’t your friend fear, now that he’s been passed the bad angles?”

  I sighed. I hate it when strangers try to recruit me for their politics or their religion, or because they think I might have some money on me, or because they think I’m cute and they want to buy me an ice cream. Dad has counselled me to be polite, but firm, but today I had a lot on my mind. I didn’t see why Dana’s well-being was any of this lady’s business. “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” I said. I started to move away.

  “He has no time. For him, you need to choose. The time is uprising. The exanimators have spread and are rising from below. You must beware the exanimators; even the Proprietor fears exanimators. More than all the rest, beware the Hounds.”

  Examinator ... or exanimator ... where had I heard that word? The woman’s accent, or the way she used her words, was odd. It was a bit like talking to our neighbour Reg, who’d had a stroke: sometimes you had to fill in the blanks. What was an exanimator – did she mean an examination, or an examiner of some kind? And who or what were these hounds? The only hound I knew was Rocky. Dana had been handed a slip of paper, not a “bad angle.”

  Speaking of bits of paper, she was scribbling on one. She tried to hand it to me. “I am here,” she said, “to give you advice.” That was it for me. I laughed out loud, ran the ten steps and ducked into the library, shaking my head. When I looked back, to my relief, the scooter lady was putting the paper into one of her many pockets, and buzzing away across the street.

  “I WISH we’d never acquired this stupid book.”

  I had spent a lot of time in the central branch of the Hamilton Public Library, but I had never visited Local History & Archives, where they told me the rare books were kept. The librarian who had taken my order form was not the one who actually fetched it. “I’m just going on break,” she’d said, “but Meghan will bring this out for you.”

  Meghan was tall and broad shouldered. Her face and her carefully streaked blonde hair were rather plain, but I noticed that as she strode across the library floor, with her black suit and her long legs, everybody raised their heads. She looked at me severely and flicked her purple scarf as she plopped the book on the desk in front of me and made her complaint about “this stupid book.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. “A book-hating librarian.”

  Meghan refused to smile.

  “I haven’t been here that long, but they tell me that the most popular books here are requested once every two or three years. Lately, we get asked for this one once or twice a week. It’s nonc
irculating – it can’t leave this room – but someone always tries to walk out with it. I’ve had to call security on some of these people – last week I grabbed it back from a guy myself.” She glared at me. “I warn you, do not try that.”

  I handed her my library card. “I’m just doing research.”

  She snorted. “That’s what they all say.”

  “Look, Meghan, I just want to take this book, Meghan, and sit down at that table over there, Meghan, and look at it. I thought you were supposed to help me do that.”

  Snorting again, she scanned my card and gave it back. Then she walked me to the far corner of the farthest table from the door and plopped the Necronomicon onto the table.

  “You can sit here and look at it,” she said, “but you can only handle it with these.” She handed me a pair of thin white cotton gloves. “When you’re done, you can return it to me, or whoever’s at the desk.”

  “Thank you, Meghan.”

  “Just don’t mark the book or try to walk out with it. I’ve had it with you people.”

  The feeling was definitely mutual. I was glad when she turned and left me there with the book.

  I sat and looked down at the cover. The cotton gloves hardly seemed necessary. This was no ancient calfskin tome with dusty pages of vellum, or papyrus, or whatever they used to print books on, but a sturdy paperback. It looked well-used, but its laminated cover and dog-eared pages were not, by any means, about to crumble beneath my touch. The title page was still a bright white.

  The Annotated Necronomicon, eds. Aldiss and Wilson, London: Saliva Tree Editions, 1971.

  On the next page some kind of demon with a tentacled mouth stared up at me, drawn in ominous Gustave Doré–style with deep inky blacks.