“I’ve never heard of a teacher like that before,” I said. “Who taught you how to do that?”
“A distant relative named Keziah,” he said. “She’s been cheating death for quite some time. Ever since she signed her name in the Black Book of Azathoth, back in the sixteen-hundreds. We had lunch just last week.”
I didn't want to talk with Uncle Caesar any more. All his staring was making me feel funny. "I'm going to go help with the dishes," I said.
"Before you do..." He reached into his jacket pocket. "I'd like you to take one of these." He handed me a piece of stiff dark-blue card and I looked it over. It was a business card – it read CAESAR MASON, LONGEVITY MANAGEMENT, followed by a phone number that looked way too long.
"Put that somewhere safe," he whispered. He squeezed my shoulder and I found myself nodding like a good boy.
Later, I put the card in my dictionary, under C for Caesar.
- - -
A few days later, I was playing out on the lawn on a Sunday afternoon. Dad was asleep in his bed and Mom was reading a romance novel in her rocker on the porch. I was playing a game I’d made up, Soldiers Versus Monsters, with all my action figures.
Uncle Caesar came out of the house and walked right up to my tiny lawn war.
“I’m playing Soldiers Versus Monsters,” I told him, matter-of-factly.
“I see.” He bent forward to see what I was doing. “Who’s winning?”
At that point, something pink and white and furry fell out of his breast pocket, onto the grass. It looked like a small white rat – except for the face, which looked like a miniature version of Uncle Caesar’s full-lipped face. It gazed up at me with a wee smile.
Uncle Caesar scooped up his pet and popped it into a jacket pocket. Then, as though nothing had happened, he repeated his question. “Who’s winning?”
“The Monsters,” I replied. “The Monsters always win.”
Dad did get better. He went back to work a week after Uncle left. He started wearing a stickpin, just like Uncle's. He started doing a lot of other things just like Uncle, and I didn't correct him about that "Num, num, num" thing. I did my best to ignore the lightning in his eyes.
Seven years later, he disappeared. He just got in the car one morning and drove off, wearing black and white pajamas with the stickpin adorning the lapel.
I happened to be in the kitchen, looking out the window, when he entered the car. Dad noticed me, smiled and waved. I then saw something jump out of Dad’s breast pocket, onto the top of the dashboard. It waved to me as Dad backed up the car.
- - -
All that was many years ago. I didn't inherit my Dad's heart problems, but my son did. And right now, he's not doing very well. It took a lot of searching, but I found my old dictionary – and the card.
Right now, I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I do know this….
The monsters always win.
Coins From Y’ha-nthlei
by Mark McLaughlin & Michael Sheehan, Jr.
Tell you what happened? Certainly, but … where do I begin? Perhaps I should start with those coins, those horrible, lovely coins – greenish-gold they were, a most exotic color. I got to see the plate the doctor made from them, before he put it in his boy’s head. He even let me hold it for a moment. It was warm. Like a living thing….
I suppose I’d better start from the beginning. This whole matter is confusing enough, without me trying to tell you the story piecemeal. I’m sure you’ll want to know every detail, and that won’t be a problem. I’ve always had a marvelous memory. My mother used to call me her Baby Elephant when I was a child, because I had such an incredible memory … and perhaps because I was a big girl. And I’m a big lady now, as you can see! But mostly because of my memory, I’m sure. Certainly I’ll never forget the things I’ve seen in this house.
My name is Arabella Gladstone and I’ve been working for Dr. Cheshire for about four years now. A lovely man. Well, not lovely to look at, with that big, round face and that wild orange hair. And those eyes of his, so big and blue and always so watery, like he’d been crying. Lovely on the inside, that’s what he was, for most of the time I’ve worked here. Kind. Warm-hearted. But he did have a dark side, I’m afraid. Ultimately, that’s what started all the trouble. That’s what brought Mr. Keller and his unholy gift to the house.
I came to work for Dr. Cheshire about six months after his wife died in an accident. I never knew her. I understand a drunk driver hit her car … she died before they could get her to the hospital. The doctor needed a live-in housekeeper who could look after his boy Paxton while he was at work. Dr. Cheshire was a surgeon, you know, and a writer, too. After a while I also became his personal copy editor, proofreading his books before he sent them to his publisher. He always wanted to submit the cleanest manuscript possible. He did keep busy, writing those scary books and still looking after all his patients. And whenever he’d take off to do his book signings, I’d always be here to look after Paxton.
I’m sure the neighbors wondered if there was something between Dr. Cheshire and myself, but no, never. I’m sure he didn’t find me attractive, since I’m so big and old enough to be his mother, and those buggy eyes of his certainly didn’t fan any flames in me. He also had gaps between his teeth … and those lips of his, so thick and rubbery. I couldn’t imagine kissing a mouth like that.
Paxton was lucky – apparently he inherited his Italian mother’s looks. He was nine years old when I started working for the doctor. That boy was a handsome devil. Skinny, too, from always racing around on that blue bike of his. I’ve helped raise plenty of children over the years and he was by far the kindest and best-behaved.
I always enjoyed talking with Dr. Cheshire, and the books he wrote were absolutely fascinating. I have them lined up on that shelf over there. That big one in the middle is my favorite: The Black Sarcophagus of Nyarlathotep by Lafcadio Cheshire. His books were all based on the works of a horror author named H.P. Lovecraft who used to write for the old pulp magazines. Thrilling stories about cosmic monsters and evil books and little towns with big secrets.
The three of us had a cozy life together, until the day that evil man came to the door. Of course, I head no idea that he was evil when I let him in. He was well-dressed, extremely polite. Such a cultured voice. Still, I should have known from his face that there was something wrong with him. His eyes had a fishy stare to them, and his mouth was entirely too wide.
He was holding a small wooden chest wrapped in a red velvet ribbon. It made a jangling sound when he moved it, so naturally I was curious. I let him know the doctor was still at work, and he said that was fine: he’d only take a few minutes of my time. Ordinarily I would never let a stranger into the house, but he was so polite, I welcomed him in and gave him a cup of coffee. He seemed harmless enough.
His name was Alexander Keller and he made quite a point of letting me know he came from a town called Innsmouth. I wasn’t familiar with the place, but it seemed like he thought I’d be impressed by that bit of information.
Mr. Keller explained that he was a huge fan of the doctor’s books, and that the chest contained a gift for him. He handed me his card and added, “I hope this gift will inspire Dr. Cheshire to explore new avenues in his writing.” He said it so sweetly! But then, poison can be sweet. He left the chest on the couch, finished his coffee and left.
After he left, I moved the chest to the coffee table. It was much heavier than I’d expected. Ordinarily I wouldn’t open a gift meant for someone else, but my curiosity got the best of me. Inside the chest, I found hundreds of greenish-gold coins, all engraved with images of sea-life, as well as letters in some squiggly foreign alphabet. Even then, I didn’t see that anything was amiss. I figured they were coins from some faraway tropical island.
When Dr. Cheshire came home, I told him about his visitor and what he had to say, and then showed him the chest. You should have seen the look on his face. Such blissful happiness! He said, “If the man was from In
nsmouth, those must be coins from Y’ha-nthlei. How exciting! Did he leave a card? A phone number?”
I handed him the card – if only I’d thrown it away! I then asked, “Where exactly is this Y’ha-nthlei? Is it an island?” I picked a coin out of the chest and gave it a close look. It was about an inch wide, with a fish-skull on one side and a one-eyed octopus on the other, along with those squiggly foreign letters.
The doctor told me that Y’ha-nthlei was a legendary undersea city inhabited by a race of fishpeople called the Deep Ones. He’d learned this while doing research for his forthcoming books, and along the way, he’d also come across references to the sacred metal from which the coins of Y’ha-nthlei were made. “I’d loved to know how coins were fashioned by a underwater culture,” he said. “Volcanic heat may be involved. The coins must be made from a soft metal with a low melting point.”
All this seemed like sheer nonsense to me. Fishpeople making coins? But I chose not to question him. He was my employer, after all. I figured he must have been generating some wild new ideas for one of his upcoming books. To humor him, I said, “The color is rather pretty. Maybe you can melt them down and make something out of them.”
A bright gleam sprang up in his eyes. “What an excellent idea!” – that’s just what he said. Oh, if only I’d kept my foolish mouth shut! For you see, in addition to his medical practice and his writing, Dr. Cheshire also enjoyed working with metal in his basement shop. It was his hiding place from the world … I wasn’t allowed down there to clean. He simply loved making jewelry, melting gold and silver and pouring it into molds. A lot of his work was quite lovely. See this silver ring I’m wearing? It looks like a daisy. So delicate! He made that for me for my birthday, a few years back.
Dr. Cheshire began working with the coins, and he even asked me if I’d like a ring made out of that strange greenish-gold metal. I’m so glad I turned down the offer! But he did make a ring for himself – a heavy thing, but then, he had large hands and thick fingers. I was always amazed by the fact that those beefy hands could do such delicate work.
About a week after the doctor made his ring, Paxton was involved in the most dreadful accident. He was racing around on that blue bike of his and apparently, wasn’t watching where he was going. He ran right into a tree, hitting his head on the trunk. He survived, but the poor boy cracked his skull in a terrible way.
It was up to Dr. Cheshire to save his own son’s life. It was also up to him to put a plate in Paxton’s head. I know now what compelled him to make the plate out of that greenish-gold metal. That monstrous ring on his finger must have warped his mind. Like I said before, he let me hold that plate and it gave off warmth. At the time I thought, maybe that warmth would help to heal Paxton. I should have flattened that plate under my heel right there and then!
The boy did heal fast. Certainly faster than normal! He was up and about in no time, and Dr. Cheshire was absolutely delirious with happiness. The shaved spot over the plate grow back its hair quickly. Lots of thick, black hair. At times I found Paxton reading books on astronomy from the doctor’s private library – they were research material for his horror books. Paxton had never taken an interest in reading before, and the books he’d picked were far too academic for him.
I remember, one morning Paxton had the most unusual look on his face as he came to breakfast. He seemed completely preoccupied, like he was barely aware of the world around him. His father had already left to perform an early-morning operation. I asked Paxton, “What’s on your mind today, young man?”
“Lots of things!” he told me. “I’m still trying to figure out all the dreams I had last night. In one of them, I was swimming along the bottom of the ocean with all kinds of tentacled things. One of them was an octopus with one eye. Can you imagine that, Arabella? An octopus with a great big eye? That was just one of my dreams.”
I hated to ask, but I had to. “What happened in your other dreams?”
He said to me, “In one dream, I was part of a group of fishmen with webbed hands, and we were all chanting in front of a statue of a gigantic fishman with huge eyes and a row of spines down his back.”
I asked the boy, “Did any of this take place in a city called Y’ha-nthlei?”
“It did!” he cried out. “I remember that … Y’ha-nthlei, yes! How did you know that, Arabella?”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say, so I made up a fib about hearing the name on TV, on an educational channel. What was I to tell him … that his father had subjected him to some sort of aquatic nightmare world?
I also began noticing that Dr. Cheshire and his son were both eating new foods. Foods they’d never liked before, like seafood and liver. The doctor started buying loads of fish, organ meat, oysters, even eel for himself and Paxton. I’m not a big fan of those flavors, so I never had any. Soon the whole house stank of fish. Sometimes it seemed like the fishy smell was coming from the doctor and the boy.
One day, I came into the kitchen and saw Dr. Cheshire standing in front of the open refrigerator, eating some uncooked fish meat. He hadn’t heard me come in, so I backed out slowly. It dawned on me, the people of Y’ha-nthlei probably fed on raw fish. And the doctor was still wearing that ring … to my knowledge, he never took it off.
It became clear to me that I had to found out more about Y’ha-nthlei. So one night after dinner, after Paxton had gone to bed, I sat with the doctor at the kitchen table and asked him to tell me more about the undersea city.
“I’m so glad you asked!” he said, his eyes glowing with delight. “Y’ha-nthlei is the home of the Deep Ones, a race of intelligent aquatic humanoids. They’ve been known to mate with humans from the nearby coastal city of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. Some of the resulting hybrids grow up on dry land, but eventually evolve into ocean-dwellers.” He went on to tell me that the Deep Ones belong to the Esoteric Order of Dagon, and that they worship beings known as Father Dagon and Mother Hydra.
After hearing all that, I was heartbroken. Obviously the doctor had gone insane. He was believing every crazy fact he’d found through his research. And that wasn’t the end of his story. He said, “The coins from Y’ha-nthlei have incredible properties. It is clear that our friend Mr. Keller only gives the best when bestowing gifts.”
The doctor added that he’d contacted Mr Keller shortly after receiving the coins. He said, “Keller is a high official with a land chapter of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. We’ve had some wonderful conversations. He dropped off more of those coins, too. You were off doing some shopping at the time.”
At that point, I could no longer hold my tongue. “Doctor Cheshire,” I said, “are you listening to yourself? All this business about sacred coins and fishpeople… It’s all rubbish! It has to be!”
The doctor just flashed his gap-toothed smile. “Do you think so, my dear?” he said to me. “Then try to take my ring off.”
I reached out and took his hand. It was as cold and clammy as a dead fish. I tried sliding the ring off his finger and … it wouldn’t budge. Not a bit. I tried twisting it and blood began to seep from under it. And that blood … that awful blood … it wasn’t quite red. Not true red. It … oh dear Lord, it had greenish-gold streaks and flecks in it. It was polluted. That devil ring had grown into his body and was poisoning his blood.
“That ring is only the beginning,” he said. “I’ve also driven an abundance of pins, made from that wonderful metal, into various spots on my body, all covered by hair or clothes.” Dr. Cheshire then rose from the table and headed out of the kitchen. “Follow me,” he said.
So I did. He led me to the door of his basement shop, where he worked on his metal projects. I followed him down the stairs. I’d never been down there before, as I mentioned, so I didn’t know what to expect. In the center of the basement I saw a long wooden table covered with tools … a hammer, some chisels, several files and a blowtorch ... as well as a variety of oddly shaped objects made out of that greenish-gold metal.
Then I heard a voice at the t
op of the steps. Paxton’s voice. “Are you two down in the basement?” he said. “What are you doing down there?”
I called to him, “Why are you out of bed? Please go back to your room.”
“My eyes feel funny,” he said. “I want Dad to look at my eyes.” And with that, he came down the stairs.
“Dad’s a doctor,” Paxton said. “He’ll know if anything’s wrong.”
A person didn’t need to be a doctor to see that something was horribly wrong with his eyes! They looked bulbous, with a horrible greenish-gold sheen. They weren’t human eyes. They were the eyes of something cold and wet and ghastly.
I turned back to Dr. Cheshire to say something … to accuse him of being a monster, for turning his boy into something vile … when I noticed something strange about those weird metal things on the table. This time, I took in more details … various lumps and curves … that made me realize just what I was seeing.
Body parts. Or rather, replacement parts. Artificial hips and knees and other joints.
“Doctor Cheshire!” I cried. “What are you trying to do?”
The doctor laughed – a thick, wet laugh. “Father Dagon and Mother Hydra need more followers on land!” he said. “My method creates results that are far more stable than the Innsmouth hybrids. I’ll need to do something about Paxton’s eyes … that may happen to me soon, too. Perhaps colored contacts! A minor problem, easily fixed!”
I took Paxton by the hand. “Look at me, child,” I said. He stared up at me with those demon eyes … the eyes of something loathsome, abominable. The eyes of a Deep One, no doubt. Apparently that was Dr. Cheshire’s idea of a minor problem.
“You need your rest,” I said to Paxton. “Go back to bed, child. I’ll make sure everything is straightened out in the morning.”
Poor weary Paxton nodded and headed back up the stairs. A good boy. Even with all that sea-devil poison transplanted into him … a good boy.
The Horror In The Water Tower & Five More Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos Page 5
