“I did manage to reach into that car and grab out my machine. My microcassette recorder. Then I looked at my little bug-mike and saw that it was squashed, like somebody’d just squeezed it between his thumb and his finger, only he must have been made out of iron ’cause those bug-mikes are ruggedized. They can take a wallop with a sledge hammer and not even know it. So who squashed my little bug?
“Then Feinman finally got his car started and they pulled away. I looked at the Noyes kid and he looked at me, and we headed for his Nash wagon and we went back to his house. Nearly cracked up half a dozen times on the way home, he drove like a drunk. When we got to his place, we both passed out for twelve hours while Feinman and Akeley were going God-knows-where in that Ferrari.
“Soon as I got myself back together I phoned in to agency field HQ and came on in.”
When agent Whiteside reported to agency field HQ he turned over the microcassette which he and Feinman had made at the shack. Excerpts from the tape follow:
(Whiteside’s Channel)
(All voices mixed): Yeah, this is the place all right.. I’ll—got it open, okay... Sheesh, it’s dark in here. How’d she see anything? Well... (Buzzing sound.) What's that? What’s that? Here, I’ll shine my—what the hell? It looks like... Shining cylinder. No, two of ’em. Two of ’em. What the hell, some kind of futuristic espresso machines. What the hell....
(Buzzing sound becomes very loud, dominates tape. Then it drops and a rustling is heard.)
Voice #3 (Vernon Whiteside): Here, lend me that thing a minute. No, I just gotta see what’s over there. Okay, you stay here a minute, I gotta see what's....
(Sound of walking, buzzing continues in background but fades, rustling sound increases.)
Voice #3: Jesus God! That can’t be! No, no, that can’t be! It’s too....
(Sound of thump, as if microphone were being struck and then crushed between superhard metallic surfaces. Remainder of Whiteside channel is silent.)
(Feinman’s Channel)
(Early portion identical to Whiteside channel; excerpts begin following end of recording on Whiteside channel.)
Voice #1 (Marc Feinman): Vernon? Vernon? What—
Voice #6 (Henry Wentworth Akeley): He is unharmed.
Voice #1: Who’s that?
Voice #6: I am Henry Wentworth Akeley.
Voice #1: Lizzy’s great-grandfather.
Voice #6: Precisely. And you are Mr. Feinman?
Voice #1: Where are you, Akeley?
Voice #6: I am here.
Voice #1: Where? I don’t see . . . what happened to Whiteside? Listen, what’s going on here? I don’t like what’s going on here.
Voice #6: Please, Mr. Feinman, try to remain calm.
Voice #1: Where are you, Akeley? For the last time....
Voice #6: Please, Mr. Feinman, I must ask you to calm yourself. (Rustling sound.) Ah, that’s better. Now, Mr. Feinman, do you not see certain objects on the table? Good. Now, Mr. Feinman, you are an intelligent and courageous young man. I understand that your interests are wide and your thirst for knowledge great. I offer you a grand opportunity. One which was offered to me half a century ago. I tried to decline at that time. My hand was forced. I never regretted having... let us say, gone where I have gone. But I now must return to earthly flesh, and as my own integument is long destroyed, I have need of another.
Voice #1: What—where—what are you talking about? If this is some kind of...
(Loud sound of rustling, sound of thumping and struggle, incoherent gasps and gurgles, loud breathing, moans.)
(At this point the same sound that ended the Whiteside segment of the tape is heard. Remainder of Feinman channel is blank.)
When agent Whiteside and young Ezra Noyes woke from their exhausted sleep, Whiteside revealed himself as a representative of the agency. He obtained the film from young Noyes’ camera. It was promptly developed at the nearest agency facility. The film was subsequently returned to Noyes, and the four usable photographs, in fuzzily screened and mimeographed form, appeared in the Vermont UFO Intelligencer.
A description of the four photographs follows:
Frame 1: (Shot through window of the wooden shack) A dingy room containing a rocking chair and a large wooden table.
Frame 2: (Shot inside room) A rocking chair. In the chair is sitting a man identified as Marc Feinman. Feinman’s sporting cap is pulled down covering his forehead. His eyes are barely visible and seem to have a glazed appearance, but this may be due to the unusual lighting conditions. A mark on his forehead seems to be visible at the edge of the cap, but is insufficiently distinct for verification.
Frame 3: (Shot inside room) Large wooden table holding unusual mechanical apparatus. There are numerous electrical devices, power units, what appears to be a cooling unit, photo-electric cells, items which appear to be microphones, and two medium-sized metallic cylinders estimated to contain sufficient space for a human brain, along with life-support paraphernalia.
Frame 4: (Shot inside room) This was obviously Noyes’ final frame, taken as he headed toward the darkened rear area of the cabin. The rough wooden flooring before the camera is clearly visible. From it there seems to rise a curtain or wall of sheer blackness. This is not a black substance of any sort, but a curtain or mass of sheer negation. All attempts at analysis by agency photoanalysts have failed completely.
Elizabeth Akeley and Marc Feinman were located at—of all places—Niagara Falls, New York. They had booked a honeymoon cottage and were actually located by agents of the agency returning in traditional yellow slickers from a romantic cruise on the craft Maid of the Mist.
Asked to submit voluntarily to agency interrogation, Feinman refused. Akeley, at Feinman’s prompting, simply shook her head negatively. “But I’ll tell you what,” Feinman said in a marked New England twang, “I’ll make out a written statement for you if you’ll settle for that.”
Representatives of the agency considered this particularly unsatisfactory, but having no grounds for holding Feinman or Akeley and being particularly sensitive to criticism of the agency for alleged intrusion upon the religious freedoms of unorthodox cults, the representatives of the agency were constrained to accept Feinman’s offer.
The deposition provided by Feinman—and co-sworn by Akeley—represented a vague and rambling narrative of no value. Its concluding paragraph follows:
All we want is to be left alone. We love each other. We’re here now and we’re happy here. What came before is over. That’s somebody else's concern now. Let them go. Let them see. Let them learn. Vega, Aldebaran, Ophiuchi, the Crab Nebula. Let them see. Let them learn. Someday we may wish to go back. We will have a way to summon those ones. When we summon those ones they will respond.
A final effort by representatives of the agency was made, in an additional visit to the abandoned shack by the sycamore copse off the Passumpsic-Ludlow road. A squad of agents wearing regulation black outfits was guided by Vernon Whiteside. An additional agent remained at the Noyes home to assure noninterference by Ezra Noyes.
Whiteside guided his fellow agents to the sycamore copse. Several agents remarked at the warmth and debilitating feeling they experienced as they passed through the copse. In addition, an abnormal number of small cadavers—squirrels, chipmunks, one grey fox, a skunk, and several whippoorwills—were noted, lying beneath the trees.
The shack contained an aged wooden rocking chair, a battered over-stuffed couch, and a large wooden table. Whatever might have previously stood upon the table had been removed.
There was no evidence of the so-called wall or curtain of darkness. The rear of the shack was vacant.
In the months since the incidents above reported, two additional developments have taken place, note of which is appropriate herein.
First, Marc Feinman and Elizabeth Akeley returned to San Diego in Feinman’s Ferrari Boxer. There, they took up residence at the Pleasant Street location. Feinman vacated the Upas Street apartment; he returned to his work with the compute
r firm. Inquiries placed with his employers indicate that he appeared, upon returning, to be absent-minded and disoriented, and unexpectedly to require briefings in computer technology and programming concepts with which he had previously been thoroughly familiar.
Feinman explained this curious lapse by stating that he had experienced a head injury while vacationing in Vermont and still suffered from occasional lapses of memory. He showed a vivid but rapidly fading scar on his forehead as evidence of the injury. His work performance quickly returned to its usual high standard. "Marc’s as smart as the brightest prof you ever studied under,” his supervisor stated to the agency. “But that Vermont trip made some impression on him! He picked up this funny New England twang in his speech, and it just won’t go away.”
Elizabeth Akeley went into seclusion. Feinman announced that they had been married and that Elizabeth was, at least temporarily, abandoning her position as Radiant Mother of the Spiritual Light Church, although remaining a faithful member of the Church. In Feinman’s company she regularly attends Sunday worship services, but seldom speaks.
The second item of note is of questionable relevance and significance but is included here as a matter of completing the appropriate documentation. Vermont Forestry Service officers have reported that a new variety of sycamore tree has appeared in the Windham County-Windsor County section of the state. The new sycamores are lush and extremely hardy. They seem to generate a peculiarly warm atmosphere and are not congenial to small forest animals. Forestry officers who have investigated report a strange sense of lassitude when standing beneath these trees, and one officer has apparently been lost while exploring a stand of the trees near the town of Passumpsic.
Forestry agents are maintaining a constant watch on the spread of the new variety of sycamores.
The Plague Jar
by Allen Mackey
“Damn!” barked Professor Henry Winwood after he had slammed his office door. “Idiots! Obscurantists!” He ranted for several minutes, as if to an unseen audience, stalking furiously around his desk, waving a thick sheaf of papers with one hand, until there was a brisk knock at the door.
“Yes, what is it!” the professor harshly called out.
The door opened hesitantly and a youthful face peered inside. “Er, Professor Winwood? I wanted to ask about... my paper...” The speaker paused as he read the professor’s features. “If this is a bad time—”
"No, no, come inside, Jamison.”
Trent Jamison, a student in the professor’s afternoon seminar on Middle Eastern cultures, had never seen the usually stolid instructor so upset before. Jamison felt almost ashamed to disturb Winwood; he felt that he had interrupted the man at a private moment. He then decided that his business could wait.
“Sorry about the disturbance, Dr. Winwood. It’s really not that important; I’ll come back some other time,” he said, embarrassed, edging back the way he had come.
“Nonsense, come in,” Winwood urged, more his normal self. He then realized the source of his student’s trepidation. “Oh, Jamison, never mind my anger of a moment ago,” he began by way of apology, though he was still fuming on the inside. “It’s just that those damn fools at the university press have rejected my latest manuscript, a work entitled The Plague Jar. ‘Too controversial,’ they said. ‘It violates the established theological doctrines,’ they whimpered. ‘The university would never live it down,’ they muttered.”
His initial purpose forgotten, Jamison entered the small office, firmly closed the door behind him, and seated himself on one of the pair of wooden chairs before the desk. He gave the office a cursory glance; he had been inside on only three other occasions. The room was unremarkable: tall gray metal filing cabinets stood against one wall, a small set of book shelves along the wall opposite, with a paper-littered desk in the middle of the floor space. Directly behind the professor’s chair was a large window shaded with Venetian blinds.
The professor sat behind the desk and thumped the computer- printed sheets on top of the paper landscape. He wearily closed his eyes and inhaled deeply for a moment.
“Are you okay, Dr. Winwood?” asked Jamison, genuinely concerned.
“I’ve been better,” replied Winwood, resting his elbows on the desk. He had taken off his glasses and began rubbing his temples; apparently he had a tension headache. “What did you need, Jamison?”
“Nothing, sir. Look, forget what I need. What do you need? I mean, is there anything that I can do for you?”
Professor Winwood glanced up with narrowed eyes, studying his pupil’s face as if he were gazing into the depths of Jamison’s soul. “Yes, you are a gifted student,” Winwood slowly began while massaging his weak chin, speaking more to himself than to Jamison. “Perhaps you would be able to understand... yes,” he concluded with gravity. With that Winwood resolutely pounded the desk with an open palm. He then began sorting through the disheveled manuscript before him. With the pages he was searching for in his hand, he turned and looked his student squarely in the eyes.
"Jamison, you seem to be trustworthy. You’re bright, soft spoken, prompt with assignments—not like the other grad students,” he added with mild irritation directed toward those he felt didn’t take his class seriously enough. “Plus,” he returned, “you have an uncanny knack at things Middle Eastern—you’re a natural antiquarian. What I have to say will probably very much interest you.”
Jamison was pleased with the professor’s evaluation of his character but tried not to let it show. He said: “Thank you for the kind words, sir. I would be honored to hear what you have to say.”
Winwood nodded his balding head, relieved. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, a ponderous pressure that he had felt for over a year. It was one thing to have your soul bared on a computer file, to write about the secret of the ages, but it would be much more effective to tell another person. Jamison might understand, even if those imbecilic directors did not. Right now he needed someone to understand.
“You must know beforehand, Jamison, that what I will discuss is, shall I say... ‘explosive? You may not want to hear this if you are Christian or religious in any way...” He watched Jamison carefully. The student merely shook his head, indicating that he was not easily offended. “Good,” Winwood pronounced. “Now, then, let me tell you about my apparently never-to-be-published book, The Plague Jar...
“Everything to do with The Plague Jar began, for me, in this very office.” Noting Jamison’s confused look, he said, “Don’t worry, everything will shortly be explained. With your enthusiastic penchant for Semitic lore and antiquities, I’m certain that you know of the story that caused much excitement in archaeological circles a few years back, the one about the expedition that uncovered the ruins of Irem, the City of Pillars —”
Jamison gasped with disbelief; he had been waiting to learn more about the curiously silent details of that expedition since he first heard of the discovery. However, it seemed that the records and findings of the expedition had been buried—beneath red tape. “Of course I know about Irem,” he heartily replied. “In fact, that’s one of the things that cemented my interest in the Middle East!”
Winwood nodded. “Anyway, a few months after the initial reports of the expedition leaked into the scholarly journals, I received a bulky package in the mail from Professor Gordon Qualt, who teaches at Bedford University in Massachusetts. Among other things, he sent no less than six notebooks and first generation photographs that he got from Saudi Arabia—from one of the last survivors of that fated expedition!”
"Last surviving... fated?” Jamison uttered, perplexed. “But from what little I read in the journals, the expedition was a total success! I mean, Irem was long thought to be mythical, although it was mentioned in the Koran and the Arabian Nights and many other old books; its discovery—”
“Yes, I know,” Winwood interrupted. “Listen, almost all legends are based on fact. Haven’t you wondered why the site wasn’t exploited by the internati
onal media?”
“I always assumed that there were political factors involved,” Jamison honestly stated.
“There were, evidently. But there was more to it than that. The discovery of Irem should have been one of the most important archaeological events in modern times. Instead it was hushed up. And I have the answer to the obvious question. This manuscript,” he stated, holding the relevant portion in his hands for Jamison’s inspection, "outlines the details of the Irem expedition.”
Jamison was duly impressed. “But you said earlier that your book was rejected by the university press directors. Surely a book about a missing piece of history would be widely received and highly praised!”
“Be patient,” Winwood urged with a smile, holding his hands up, palms outward. “I’ll get to that.”
Jamison sat in place, listening to Winwood’s narrative without comment, nodding his head occasionally. Winwood spoke for fully an hour and a half, pausing now and then to redirect his train of thought. His words utterly engrossed Jamison, who absorbed them with something akin to religious awe.
It all began with Professor Ali Yaquud, director of Archaeology at the University of Riyadh. Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia, and the university is the most modern in the country. The Archaeology Department was renowned for its work in uncovering elder antiquities. Yaquud himself was one of the leading researchers in the Middle East. He was a well-versed man—perhaps overly well versed, for his drive for knowledge led eventually to his downfall. He had studied under
Professor Yuni Abdalmajid of the University of Baghdad, and some said he had perhaps learned too much from his Iraqi mentor.
Professor Abdalmajid was known as an eccentric; his colleagues tolerated him only because of his large body of scholarly accomplishments from earlier in his meteoric career. All brilliant, but comfortably conventional in assumptions as well as results. It was Abdalmajid who had scried the secrets of the pre-Sumerian Rawson tablets from Ur and thereby filled in curious gaps in the early Mesopotamian history. Ali Yaquud was a zealous student; like his young peers, he was mesmerized by his teacher’s every word, until one day in 1967 Abdalmajid did not appear for his classes. Two days later he was still unaccountably absent. The police were eventually called in. To everyone’s complete shock, investigators discovered that in his study blood had been splashed on the walls, floor and ceiling. He had been deciphering an unidentified manuscript at the time of his disappearance. The blood samples matched the professor’s own, but as no corpse could be found, no one could rule out the unlikely possibility that Dr. Abdalmajid himself had scattered the blood, presumably not his own, during the reconstruction of an ancient ritual detailed in the mysterious text.
Pyrate Cthulhu: Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Volume 1 (4.0) Page 15
