Waiting

by Stephen Jones

  “Try to stay calm,” Mina urged, knowing it was a lost cause. They were scared to death.

  “What is it?” Val sobbed, yanking at the gobbets of clay that fell into her hair from above. “Is it ghosts? What did we do wrong?”

  Gregory grabbed her arm and hauled her toward the window, dragging her. Her heels gouged lines in the glistening floor.

  “It isn’t ghosts,” Mina said, trying to remain calm herself. She could feel the presence pushing at her mind, probing for weakness, looking for a way in. She gritted her teeth as she focused on her training, forcing it away again. She pictured the house as it was before, solid and unyielding. She tried to mold it in her mind.

  “What do you mean it’s not ghosts?” Gregory said, his voice rising. He was catching his sister’s panic. “What the hell is it then?”

  There was no point in lying to them. “The house isn’t haunted,” Mina said. “It’s alive.”

  They froze, staring at her in wide-eyed horror.

  “The house, the hill, the clay. It’s all one living creature. And now that we’re here, it’s trying to pull us down inside it.”

  “It can control things,” Gregory said darkly. “Like my car.”

  She nodded. “Like the trees, the stones, anything it touches. Now come on. I’m holding it back now, but it’s taking all my strength. It’s very powerful.”

  The floor had settled, but only a little. They were able to pull their feet free and make their way to the window at last. But there was no way to open it. It was a solid pane. Gregory grabbed a chair and made to smash the glass. The chair bounced away, as though the window were made of rubber.

  Mina’s scalp prickled with unease. “It’s not glass,” she said, peering closely at it. “It’s an eye.” She shuddered at the malevolence she felt directed at her from the sightless yet staring pane.

  They were sealed in. Beneath them the floor was quivering. Mina sensed the same kind of savage glee she’d seen emanating from the car outside. A hunger combined with a lust for killing. It was readying itself for another attack, and Mina was growing weak. She wouldn’t be able to hold it back much longer.

  In desperation she closed her eyes and let it in, let it touch her mind, let it show itself to her.

  It was ancient, this creature. Ancient and evil. She saw unfamiliar galaxies, mind-boggling distances. She saw its true form, gelatinous and vile, a pulsing amorphous being, like a jellyfish. Wherever it had come from, it had settled here in Arkham, attaching itself like a parasite to the land. No wonder the Native Americans had always believed the area to be cursed.

  At first it had been alone, weakened by the unfamiliar world. But over time it had begun to absorb images and memories from the people it took, to learn from them. It learned how to mimic, how to appear harmless. It learned how to control objects. And people. Mina’s stomach churned as the sickening truth became clear. Someone had tended the house, made it appear normal. Someone who knew what it needed to survive. Someone willing to feed it.

  “Arthur Leland,” she hissed.

  “What about him?”

  Gregory’s voice came from beside her and she realized that they were holding her by the arms, keeping her up off the floor. She must have collapsed.

  “He did this,” she said, panting. “Brought us here. To die.”

  Val stared at Mina in disbelief. “That sweet old man? Why would he do that?”

  “I think it’s keeping him alive,” Mina said, “to serve it.” Her psychic link with the creature was fading, as was her hold on it. “I think he’s far, far older than he looks.”

  She peered around the room. It was like seeing under water. Everything wavered and flickered, moving out of focus. Her whole body felt out of focus along with it.

  The kids were huddled together by the table, clutching each other for support.

  “How do we get out?” Val whimpered.

  Mina put her hands down on the table, bracing herself as well. The floor rocked and shuddered beneath her. The house was returning to its natural state. Soon it would melt entirely, and take them all with it, devouring them. How many people had it consumed in this way over the years? She couldn’t banish the appalling image of a carnivorous plant, trapping its prey inside to be slowly crushed. Dissolved.

  Her eyes widened suddenly as an idea came to her. They might have one weapon. There was something that all living things feared. There was no reason an alien should be any different.

  “Gregory,” she said. “Go to the kitchen and find some matches. Val, gather up all the paper you can find in here.”

  They both nodded, understanding at once, and raced off.

  Mina grabbed one of the chairs and smashed it against the floor. At first the wood only dented the soft surface, but Mina sent a volley of images at it—stone, iron, steel—and it solidified long enough for the chair to shatter. She dropped to her knees, momentarily blinded and dizzy by the effort, but then she gathered her wits and collected the broken chair legs.

  Gregory came running back with a box of matches and Val was piling the table with newspapers.

  “Here,” Mina cried, thrusting a stick at each of them. “Wrap some paper around them and set them on fire. We’re going to burn our way out of here.”

  Her assertiveness seemed to give them confidence. They did as they were directed, and soon they had three blazing torches.

  “Good, good. Now I want you both to concentrate. Focus on burning a hole through that wall. I don’t know how much time we’ll have, but as soon as you can fit through, do it. Ready?”

  Val swallowed and looked at her brother. He looked terrified, but he gave a single nod. Val copied him.

  “Okay. Go!”

  They rushed the wall like a trio of soldiers, brandishing their torches. When they pressed the flames against the trembling flesh of the house, there came a high-pitched shriek that almost made Mina drop her torch. She also felt the creature’s pain—a surge of scorching agony that set her nerves alight.

  She turned her howl of pain into a battle cry as she forced the licking flames farther into the weeping red wall. A hole opened up as the clay retreated from the source of pain. It rippled as she ran the torch around the edges of the opening, widening it.

  To either side of her she saw Val and Gregory doing the same. In moments Gregory was already clambering through. Mina aimed one last jab at the area closest to the floor and then launched herself through, ducking and rolling as she hit the soggy ground outside and came to a stop. Gregory had landed a few feet away and he was pulling himself up when they heard Val scream.

  She was trapped. The hole had closed around her like a vise, leaving only her head and one arm—the one not holding the torch—outside.

  “Gregory, Mina, help me!”

  They both ran to her. Mina’s torch had gone out when it hit the ground, but Gregory’s was still just about alight.

  “Cover your face,” he cried as he wielded the flame, thrusting it like a sword at the wall that held his sister. Val screamed as the torch brushed her and she wriggled helplessly, trying to squirm free of the wall.

  Mina sent black thoughts to the creature, trying to force it to let go, but the fight had drained her. She felt the monster’s fury as it tightened like a boa constrictor around Val.

  Gregory was shouting, his words drowning out Val’s cries of pain. “Let go! Let go of her!” He jabbed at the house again and again, but the flames were no longer having an effect. The creature had adapted to the pain. It was holding tightly to its prey, refusing to let go.

  It had also adapted to the psychic intrusion, driving Mina out with a mental jolt that threatened to shatter her skull. There was nothing she could do. Nothing at all.

  Seconds passed like hours as Gregory fought against the monster. But it was hopeless. Gradually Val’s voice weakened and her cries grew fainter. After a little while they stopped altogether. Mina moved to Gregory’s side and tried to drag him away from the limp and silent body of his sister.
The girl hung there, trapped in the closed iris of the wall. Then they both watched in horror as it slowly pulled her back inside.

  Gregory shook Mina off, beating helplessly at the house with his fists, calling Val’s name over and over.

  “She’s gone,” Mina said. “You have to let her go. We have to get out of here.”

  The hill was beginning to rumble with renewed fury. Red tentacles burst from the ground, clutching at the air like vicious talons.

  “Run!” Mina cried. She grabbed Gregory’s arm and yanked him, dragging him with her. He followed, dodging the living sea of mud as it surged and swelled beneath them, trying to trip them.

  They ran past the car, half-submerged in the hillside, and continued down to the forecourt without a second glance. They stopped for a moment to catch their breath, and Mina debated whether her own car would be safe. But if the creature had managed to drag one car up there and then bury it along with its victim, it could just as easily do it again. They couldn’t trust anything on the hill.

  She didn’t want Gregory to stop running anyway. He was still in shock and the grief would cripple him if she gave him time to surrender to it. She grabbed his hand and they ran again, heading for the lights of Arkham below.

  Mina risked one final glance behind her. Iverson House was gone. It had melted entirely, and the awful hill was smooth once again.

  Arthur Leland smiled as he reached the top of the hill. A few days ago he couldn’t have made the climb, would have had to lean on his cane and stop to catch his breath several times. But he felt better now. Refreshed. Revitalized.

  The house looked brighter too. Stronger and sturdier. He stroked the red clay surface, then licked the coppery dust from his fingertips. It tasted rich and meaty.

  It was a pity about the psychic. She would have been a much more nourishing meal for it. Especially as she wasn’t even who she’d claimed to be. What a prize that would have been—a member of the Lovecraft Squad! He knew it was only a matter of time before they sent other agents to investigate Iverson House. And him with it. Well, let them, he thought. The house had not only absorbed the false Mina Cloudminder’s thoughts and memories—it had also absorbed some of her power. And with it, the collective knowledge of the Human Protection League itself.

  “We’ll be ready,” he said, smiling. “Oh yes, the Armies of the Night will be waiting.”

  Liz Dehner stood proudly as she watched the ceremony. It was bittersweet, but at least something good had come out of that failed mission a year ago. She dabbed at her eyes as Director Brady held up the certificate.

  “And it is with great pride that we welcome our newest recruit to the HPL, Gregory Robinson.”

  The room deep beneath the Washington Monument was filled with the sound of applause as the young man strode to the front of the circular chamber and shook Brady’s hand. He posed for a photograph, and although his face was smiling, Liz knew the bittersweet emotions behind it. She had sponsored him and helped train him. Her job was done. Soon he would be sent out on his own missions.

  No one blamed her for what had happened, not even Gregory, but Liz still felt she had failed them. Especially Val. She watched as everyone congratulated the new agent, and she decided it was time to go.

  Just as she was about to slip out the door, a hand fell softly on her shoulder. “Liz.”

  She smiled. “Agent Robinson.”

  He blushed and looked down. “Hard to get used to.”

  “You’ve earned it. And I know you’ll be a great asset to the League. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” he said sheepishly. He didn’t need to say what else was on his mind. Liz could see the thought as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud. If only Val could be here too.

  “Your sister would also be proud,” she said, reaching out to straighten his tie.

  He nodded. “I know. Of course she’d also be driving me crazy, and we’d probably end up yelling at each other and scaring all the ghosts away.”

  “Probably.”

  “But then maybe, I think . . .” He stopped himself, lost in thought for a moment. His eyes met Liz’s. “Hey, I don’t have to tell you what I’m thinking, do I?”

  She shook her head. “No you don’t. And I hope you can find her. Not all our agents are corporeal, you know. Ask Agent Carter.”

  He looked up at the high ceiling. “Hear that, Sis? You don’t get away from me that easily.”

  “Good luck,” Liz said, and kissed him on the cheek. “To both of you.”

  She closed the door behind her and stepped out into the crisp autumn evening. Leaves skittered across the grass and a bold red moon was just beginning to rise. She opened the envelope Director Brady had given her earlier and read the contents. A man had been digging in his basement and opened a portal into another dimension. Now its inhabitants were creeping through into this one. It was another job for the Lovecraft Squad, and for her talents in particular.

  “On my way,” she said, smiling.

  TEN

  The Color Out in Space

  Prologue

  IN SEARCH OF THE woman who asked me to save Yuri Gagarin, I have come to Arkham.

  Arkham, England, that is. Not the place you probably heard of, in Massachusetts. Although I never heard of that, either, before Peabody approached me. This is Old Arkham, in the valley of the Kielder Burn, in Northumberland.

  I bet you never thought about it, but it’s logical that such a place should exist. Many North American place names were imported from Britain, or Europe—York, Boston. So there must have been a British Arkham, right? And here I am.

  Not that there is much to see. This is wild, open country, scoured by vanished glaciers and cropped to the rocky ground by wandering sheep. Old Arkham itself is just a tracery of worn stones that here and there make a rough line that might once have been a wall, a vague angle that was a corner. I’m an American, and I’m forever astounded by the depth of time you encounter here in little old England. Even now, the only way in is by a marching track laid down by the Romans. You’ll find Arkham in the Domesday Book from the eleventh century: a few families, a few fields, a few animals. But it’s been abandoned since the 14th century, supposedly because of the Black Death. Nobody has ever proved that, so far as I know.

  I ought to look up total solar eclipses in the 14th century.

  Not that the place is hard to find. I took a solo flight over the valley, and from the air these ruins are the heart of a circle of gray. You walk in, along that old track, past clumps of wood that are kind of odd, the trees growing too thick together, too fat and tall. And, yes, at the center of it, gray: desolation, like ash, a circle of blight, of blasted heath. Even the heather in the fall comes up spindly and colorless, the locals told me. And on the ground the grass blades crumble under your boots, gray and dead almost to the root, and oddly odorless.

  You wonder why nobody ever came back here, to rebuild. The place has some bottomland, some water. Not a good place for the imagination, I guess. My eyes keep being drawn to that Roman road, the only straight line anywhere in sight. The only bit of rationality in an irrational landscape. I’m a pilot; I like to find order, control. The secret harmonies of situations. I have to force myself not to bolt.

  Who the hell would take the name of a place like this across the Atlantic? Maybe the founders of Arkham, Massachusetts, knew something about their site even before the turf was cut. Black humor.

  Squadron Officer Mabel Peabody, of the Women’s Royal Air Force and the Human Protection League, didn’t come from this place. She never told me where she did come from. Military family, I guess. But, in the few hours we spent together in orbit, she told me about this, about Arkham. She was brought here as a kid for hiking vacations. Can you believe that? To a medieval plague village. Some kids get Coney Island. And then she came back during her training—there are big military ranges in the area. Childhood nostalgia amid the live firing exercises. Or maybe it was all some subtle grooming to prepare her for recruitment
into the HPL.

  Three months ago, Peabody needed an experienced Gemini pilot, and I was the best available. No, scratch that. I was the best there was, at that time.

  I flew with her to rescue Yuri Gagarin. Not for the Lovecraft crap.

  But everything changed.

  I

  My name is Magnolia Jones. I was born on a cotton farm in Atlanta, Georgia. On Saturday, July 20, 1963, I really did fly a Gemini spacecraft into orbit to save Yuri Gagarin. I guess it was the most extraordinary thing I ever did. So far, anyhow.

  Now, as you’ll remember, that was the date of a total solar eclipse over North America. That was no coincidence. And you’ll know that no Gemini craft has publicly flown yet. Our flight happened anyway. And Yuri Gagarin is still alive, officially; after his alleged first-ever manned spaceflight, he is still working behind the scenes on the USSR’s space program. If you have the appropriate clearances you’ll know how much of this is true, or not. Otherwise, just accept it. Very little of what you’ve been told, all your life, is true.

  We were to launch from Tarooma, which is a British-American space center in the dead, red heart of Australia. Dead for hundreds of miles downrange, anyhow, where for years spent rocket-boosters have been raining down on Aboriginal holy grounds. It’s a hell of a sight from the air: desert and scrub, and craters from launch failures, and nothing much to see at the center itself but tin huts and rockets.

  Everything was a rush, from my recruitment to launch day. Unlike the two Blue Gemini flights I had already made for the USAF to that date, there had been no real mission preparation, no simulations—there was barely a checklist, as it turned out. I would learn that official permission for our flight had been slow in coming, and it was only the imminence of that July eclipse that forced the issue, although it was a while before I understood why.

  I didn’t even meet my co-pilot, Squadron Officer Peabody, until we were actually on the transfer bus to the launch pad.

  By then I’d already gone through a major part of the pre-flight ritual, which was the same in Tarooma as it ever was at Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg. You start stripped naked, and the techs (all women for us Gemini 21 girls) stick med sensors all over your bare skin. Then it’s on with the cotton underwear and the urine bag, and if there’s one barrier to women in space it’s that damn catheter. Into the pressure suit, which is a kind of limbo dance until you force your head through the neck ring, and a zip up at the back, and the helmet forced on, and you start to breathe that sweet oxygen.