Don't Go Alone

by Christopher Golden

  Jacoby had pored over the records relating to the sinking of the Eleanor Lockley. She’d been at the bottom of the sea more than eighty years, and for perhaps the first thirty of those, men had sought her wreckage. Over time, as the hope of finding her waned, so did any interest in the unfortunate vessel. A violent and unexpected storm had driven her off course. Prior research into the storm and the ship’s planned route had led to searches further south, but Jacoby had followed a unique line of inquiry, studying all records related to the captain of the Eleanor Lockley, a man named Elijah Fancher. Captain Fancher had spent four years as mate on board one of the ships seeking the fabled Northwest Passage, which meant he had great knowledge of --and experience with-- Arctic waters. Most skippers, faced with a massive storm building on the horizon, would have sailed south in an effort to circumnavigate the deadly weather.

  Professor Jacoby had theorized that Fancher had instead turned north, daring the treacherous Arctic waters.

  From there, Jacoby could only count fate as his muse. He’d persuaded Harrington—who had reaped significant rewards from financing several of Jacoby’s earlier excursions—to supply the boat and the crew. They’d only been searching the area Jacoby had pinpointed for six days when Toby’s divers had discovered the wreck of the Eleanor Lockley.

  The area where the ship had finally come to rest was isolated, and according to the divers, the vessel was mostly intact and only two hundred feet below them. There were several very large holes in the sides of the Eleanor Lockley and no indication as to what might have caused them.

  But it wasn’t the ship they were after. What they wanted was the cargo.

  There were endless rumors, as was always the case with lost ships. Some of the journalists writing in the era of the disappearance of the Eleanor Lockley had reported stories suggesting that no storm had scuttled the ship, that she had instead fallen prey to pirates, thanks to her mysterious cargo. The fact that there were no pirates in the extreme north seas meant nothing, of course. There were always a few who insisted the improbable was the most likely solution. And pirates sold more newspapers than bad weather, shipwreck or no shipwreck.

  Jacoby could not pretend he was immune to the lure of whatever treasures might be found in the wreck of the Eleanor Lockley. But he wanted to know what had sunk her, what she had been carrying, and why there were so many odd rumors about how she’d gone down. If the ship had managed to escape the path of the storm, then what had caused her to sink?

  His desire for answers did not overwhelm his good sense, however. Jacoby’s inquiries were intellectual rather than physical. Harrington was paying his divers handsomely so neither of them had to do the job themselves. Ten minutes in the frigid waters of the Arctic were enough to leave a man screaming in agony, his extremities cramping as the blood flowed to the center of his body in an effort to keep him alive for a few more minutes. Heavily-insulated diving suits were the only way to survive the icy waters, and Jacoby hated confined spaces almost as much as he disliked the idea of freezing to death. Even being below decks on board the ship elicited a discomforting wave of claustrophobia. The notion of squeezing into one of the heavy rubber and canvas contraptions and a diver’s helmet was unsettling in the extreme.

  So, Jacoby wouldn’t dive. But when the divers had been brought into the ship’s belly to get warm while Benson and the others started pulling up the net loaded with crates from the wreckage below, he was right there waiting. Out of courtesy, no one touched the crates until the divers had changed clothes and had something warm to drink. Jacoby could barely resist, but Harrington had insisted. The crates were carried down into the hold and half the crew gathered there to help or simply to observe.

  When the moment came, it was Harrington who did the honors, with Benson and Mackey aiding him. Harrington was footing the bill, so it was his prerogative, and it worked to Jacoby’s advantage in any case, as he wouldn’t have trusted any of the crew with his camera equipment.

  Jacoby started snapping photos the moment Harrington inserted the crowbar under the lid of the first crate. When the lid came free with a screech, the professor felt his heart flutter as he clicked the camera again. Then he caught a whiff of the stink wafting from the crate and heard several of the sailors reacting in disgust. Benson and Mackey backed away, but Jacoby stepped forward, camera in hand. He and Harrington gazed into a bed of organic rot. Whatever had been inside had decayed over the decades, even though the crates had been very well sealed.

  Harrington shot Jacoby a murderous glare. “They’d better not all be like this, or we’ll put the damn crates back in the water, and you’ll be inside one of ‘em.”

  Jacoby held his breath and took his pictures, fascinated by the remains despite Harrington’s disappointment. There were portions of shells in the things and one claw that looked like it belonged to a lobster roughly the size of a bear. He snapped several photos and then agreed it was time to remove the remains from the ship as quickly as possible. They simply weren’t equipped to preserve what was left.

  A few crates held papers and maps, which, thanks to being pressed together, had not completely rotted away. While there were a few snatches of discernable writing, the fragments meant nothing to them and the documents were otherwise a complete loss. The slightest touch reduced the works to sludge.

  Just as the group was becoming disheartened—and Jacoby began to worry that Harrington would follow through on his threats—a true find was discovered amongst the remaining haul. Not a crate, but a passenger’s steamer trunk. Inside that waterlogged box was a small chest carved from what appeared to be ivory. The surface had been etched with strange runes, the likes of which Jacoby had never seen before.

  Harrington made to open the chest and Jacoby stopped him. “Not yet, my friend. Let me get proper photographic evidence. If we do this the right way we get as much exposure as Cousteau, and we’ll have men lining up to finance our next voyage. You won’t have to risk your own bankroll anymore.”

  Pipe clenched in his teeth, Harrington narrowed his eyes in displeasure. Then he seemed to examine the ivory box afresh and to consider the damage the crowbar might have caused. “Let’s not waste time, Professor. The weather’s been cooperating, but this time of year is unpredictable and I don’t want to be here in a serious gale.”

  Jacoby went through a kit of gentler instruments he had brought along, but they settled on a simple, slender letter opener. Harrington worked it around beneath the lid of the ivory chest until he’d broken the latch. In those few minutes, Jacoby blew through two full rolls of film. He’d done a fair job of familiarizing himself with at least the appearance of most known hieroglyphs and archaic written languages and what he saw was not at all familiar to him. The chest’s markings were unique and he wanted to be certain he had thoroughly documented them, in case Harrington’s manhandling did permanent damage.

  Despite its smallish size, the chest was heavy. Harrington had needed Benson’s help to remove it from the steamer trunk, and it took both men to remove the lid and set it aside. Jacoby had to rethink his initial assessment. It looked like ivory, but whatever the case was made of, it seemed far heavier. Jacoby made a mental note as the men reached inside and began extracting their newly found treasures.

  The contents were puzzling, but Jacoby knew full well that the most mystifying items were often the ones that were worth a king’s ransom. Still, he valued the puzzle itself above all.

  There were four stones, each roughly the size of a loaf of bread, and each had been carved into a likeness that seemed very nearly blasphemous. The first was a winged figure that seemed half aquatic nightmare and half bat, crouching at rest. The second resembled a sinister, hooded man, followed by a third comprised of teeth and tongues and eyes in a swirling cloud. The last took the shape of a fusion of wings and pincered legs. But whoever had carved the stones had not satisfied themselves merely with their blasphemous shapes. The figures were covered with endless tiny etchings similar to the markings on the not-iv
ory chest. Just gazing upon the pieces hurt Jacoby’s eyes and glancing about, he realized he was not alone in this response.

  Harrington strained to lift one of the pieces, his arms shaking, muscles standing out in hard cords. Finally, Benson had to help him place the object on the metal table.

  “It’s heavier than it should be,” Harrington said. He looked defensive but no one in the room doubted his strength. The strain had been obvious on both men.

  It was at that moment that something slipped from the chest and fell across the table. Jacoby never even considered taking a photograph. The entire event happened too quickly, and even if he’d thought of it, the odd globule of light—he couldn’t have described its color to save his life—seethed across the metal table and then simply evaporated like ice dropped on a hot griddle.

  Aside from the stones and that strange, impossible light, the only thing inside the chest was a long, wide cylinder, perhaps twice the size of the four sculpted figures. Unlike the figures this was metallic, a dull gray with a few small indentations at the top and the base but otherwise unremarkable.

  “What the hell is that supposed to be?” one crewman asked.

  “Never mind that…is no one going to remark upon that light? It just—“

  “Quiet,” Harrington muttered. “Let the professor finish his work and then we’ll start sorting out what it all means.”

  Jacoby nodded to him, then began to snap photos of the cylinder. He was about to ask Benson to turn it over, but he couldn’t get the words out. A sudden wave of nausea swept through him. His stomach lurched and his mouth watered with vile, sour spittle. His heart thudded in his chest and he stepped away, dropping his camera from hands gone suddenly numb. The sound of it breaking caused him to cry out inside, but that despairing voice in his head seemed quite distant.

  One hand over his mouth, fighting the urge, Jacoby saw that he was not the only one affected. All of the men around him were also overwhelmed.

  The sickness hit hard and fast, and then it lingered.

  Several men vomited, including Jacoby, and after a while spent trying to stand and recover themselves, they cleaned their messes and made their way to their cabins.

  

  It wasn’t food poisoning.

  Jacoby knew that as sure as he breathed. It was something else entirely and all he could think about was the odd, heavy essence he had seen dissolve into the table. At the time, he had been overwhelmed by the sheer strangeness of everything to do with that carved chest, but now, whenever he thought of that glob of light, the queasy feeling in his gut returned. Whatever it had been, it had marked them all.

  Sweating, feverish, shaking from the sheer strain of his now dry heaves, Jacoby fell into his cot and curled into himself.

  And dreamed.

  In his dreams, the void between the stars is filled with unknowable colors. The planets look vibrant and alive in ways he’s never imagined and the vast gulf between the stars echoes with impossible sounds. He tries to look away, to find a spot that isn’t so overwhelming to his senses.

  To his left, a planet seethes with dark vitality and a swarm of nightmares lifts from the planet’s surface, sweeping into the darkness between the worlds, searching, seeking. They move on wings made of the aether and they sing in a single, communal voice that fills his mind with angry screams.

  A nightmare made solid rides the cosmic currents beside him, its body encased in layers of hard shell. Its many legs curl close to the carapace, thick, deadly pincers held tightly to the body. The head of the thing resembles a bee’s skull, but covered with a cluster of flagella that wave and undulate, long tendrils that pulse and convulse like newborn maggots.

  There are eyes within that nest. They study him with intense curiosity.

  Professor Jacoby woke to the sound of men whimpering and moaning in their sleep, and rose weakly from his cot to explore the ship.

  Though the waters were calm, the deck seemed to sway and buck beneath him. No one stood on watch. The entire crew lay in a stupor brought on by whatever had slid from the chest, and Jacoby didn’t think he’d be moving for long himself.

  Still, he made it down into the hold and to the table where the stone figures still lay. He rested in the closest chair, his eyes drawn to the odd markings. They called to him --or seemed to-- and his hands wandered to the stone that he now saw was shaped a bit like his dream companion. In his dream, the creature had had extraordinary wings, great sails that seemed designed to sail the cosmic winds. The statue’s wings were nubs, and if not for the clear markings, he’d surely have thought that time had worn them down to almost nothing. His fingers touched the hard surface, softly tracing those markings.

  With his head spinning and the room going along for the ride, Jacoby took comfort from the solidity and reality of the stone. That very comfort allowed him to lapse into another, deeper, rest.

  Deeper dreams.

  They roam the spaces between the stars, soar in places astronomers only dream of, and astrologers can never hope to imagine.

  The Mi-Go.

  Has he thought them hideous? No. Theirs is a different beauty, but it is beauty all the same. In his dream, he moves amongst the heavens. Planets alive and dead are his companions, great clouds of energies never seen by mortal eyes are his guiding lights. They call to him and the rest of his kin, draw them from Yuggoth and their earlier homes, infinite nests in the darkest corners of the universe, where they learned secrets known to only a few before them. Gods walk among the stars and hide in the folded darkness of reality, and whisper their intoxicating secrets to those who are courageous enough to learn them.

  

  Jacoby awoke in a hard sweat. His breath came in cold gasps as he staggered out of the hold, climbing up to the deck as the ship heaved and swayed around him. He expected to be adrift, the crew still moaning sickly in their sleep. Instead, the men were topside, securing everything as the ship rolled and pitched in a storm that churned the ocean around them and sent wind and freezing rain slashing across the deck.

  For a time, it was all hands called to manage the storm. Later, when the waters had calmed and the worst of the blow was done, the crew gathered together in the mess and drank coffee, though not one of them seemed inclined to risk food.

  Harrington sipped at his strong brew and looked at the captain. “Wilson? You want to brief them, or shall I?”

  “Your boat.”

  “Fine.” Harrington glanced around. “I managed a radio call. The prop’s been damaged but we’ve all been ill for two days, so no one’s been down to investigate yet. If it’s can be repaired, all right, but in the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if there was a vessel nearby that could come along and offer us aid.”

  “Two days?” Jacoby’s voice broke as he said the words. It couldn’t have been that long!

  Harrington nodded. “Two days. Whatever made us sick, it kept us down a while. No one more than you, professor.”

  Emerson, the closest they had to a real doctor onboard, nodded agreement and then started setting out cups. “No one has an appetite, but we’ll need to drink down some broth and water at the least.”

  There were grumbles, and Jacoby’s was among them. Still, he could feel how badly his body needed fluids. You need to stay alive. You need to be patient, his mind whispered to him. They’re coming.

  He said nothing but he frowned at that notion. Harrington had radioed for help, but Jacoby didn’t think whoever might respond to that summons was the “they” he had in mind. He had no idea who his own “they” might be or why he felt so excited at the notion. The question haunted him.

  

  The storms had done just enough damage. Though the boat was seaworthy, Toby had reluctantly dragged on one of the dive suits and gone down into the icy water only to confirm that the props were indeed damaged. They had the tools to at least attempt repairs, but they’d all been ill, and the time it would take under water to make those repairs meant multiple dives spaced out
across days with no guarantee of success. And even Toby wasn’t willing to make the attempt until he stopped feeling like his guts were going to erupt at any given moment.

  Harrington made additional calls on the radio but no answers came, save for occasional bursts of static. The air was bitterly cold and the crew carried on, struggling with bouts of heavy nausea and a general apathy that had enveloped them all without explanation. This malaise had struck each of them so profoundly that none of them seemed especially worried about their plight.

  Jacoby felt compelled to write of his concerns in the journal he’d been keeping, but even that didn’t go as well as he’d have hoped. His handwriting was a nervous scrawl that lacked the energy to complete full sentences, sometimes even full words.

  The nightmares continued, worming their way into his deepest self, both conscious and unconscious. He woke wanting to flee, but had nowhere to run. The Burleson was crippled, waiting for a diver who was healthy enough to attempt lengthy underwater repairs or the arrival of another vessel.

  Perhaps a week passed in this manner, but then, fighting its way through static, a message came through from the Ashleigh Michaels. Help was on the way, though it would be several days before it arrived.

  Most of that time was lost in nausea and dreams. The sole exception came in the form of a burial at sea for Thomas Benson, the man who’d helped Harrington move the heavy stones from the ivory chest. He had succumbed after ten days of dreadful illness that waxed and waned with no apparent rationale. When a crewman discovered him in his cabin, Benson’s flesh was gray. His skin flaked away upon contact, revealing muscles and bones that crumbled like charred wood if gripped too tightly.

  Others felt sick, but no one else died from the illness.

  Though it had taken a great deal of effort, Harrington and the captain had put their prized stone figures back into the chest and sealed it. The not-ivory box lay in a corner of the cargo hold and Jacoby spent most of his time down there with a light, studying the markings on the stones and on the box. He made copious notes and guesses as to what the unsettling symbols meant, leaps of logic and intuition based on various symbols and runic writings he’d encountered in other cultures, though he had no proof as to whether what he wrote was accurate. The entire matter was little more than a guessing game, until the Ashleigh Michaels pulled alongside the Burleson and its captain came on deck.