Harbinger Island

by Dorian Dawes

  "I have to agree with them on one thing," Pharaoh said. "You are special. I just don't know how yet. Give me time, let me play a little longer and I will. I'll unravel mysteries for you, show vistas of reality that would drive lesser men insane."

  Justin wanted to break away but found himself utterly powerless beneath his touch. "I want you to leave."

  Pharaoh shook his head. His voice dropped to a seductive whisper. "That's not what you want at all. I feel it, that deep yearning inside of you."

  "And what do you think I want?" Justin's voice quivered. His will weakened.

  Pharaoh smirked. "You want exactly what I want. Freedom. You want to feel unburdened by the constraints of this crap-sack city and its stuffy university full of antiquated ideas."

  Justin could feel himself practically melting in Pharaoh's grip. They were so close now, bodies pressed tightly against each other. He was aware of Pharaoh's hard cock against his body. Those warning bells inside his head felt far away now.

  They were interrupted by a sharp knocking at the door. Justin all but threw himself out of Pharaoh's arms. It was like a spell had been broken and he could think clearly again. He almost threw up in his mouth a little as he looked at Pharaoh standing there with that smug expression.

  "Put some fucking clothes on," he grumbled, drying his eyes with the hem of his shirt.

  Pharaoh sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He wrapped himself in a blanket as Justin cracked open the door. Bartleby was waiting, clearly agitated.

  "Professor?" Justin before the older man had pushed him further into the room and closed the door behind him.

  "You're unharmed, thank goodness."

  Pharaoh stared at Bartleby for a moment, then grinned. "He's like you, isn't he? Only he's fully transitioned."

  Bartleby scowled at the stranger, nostrils flared. "If you don't mind, I'd like a moment alone with my student."

  Pharaoh smirked, somewhat amused by Bartleby's visible distress and nodded politely. "Of course, Professor." He departed into the bathroom.

  Bartleby placed a hand on Justin's shoulder. "You were in the restricted section of the library. The book in the glass case - how much of it did you read, and did you say any of its words out loud?"

  Justin tensed. "What the hell is going on?"

  "Answer me, Justin!" Bartleby hissed. His grip on Justin's shoulder tightened and he stared intensely at him, peering close into his eyes. He looked deranged, and Justin could see through the deep circles and bloodshot eyes that he hadn't slept at all the previous night.

  Justin broke out of Bartleby's grip, stumbling backwards. "The fuck you talking about? I didn't say anything out loud! "

  Bartleby shook his head. He stormed to the window. His face contorted into a grimace at the corpse below.

  "Ned, poor bastard," he muttered. "Something dark is at work at this school."

  "Do you know who did this?"

  Bartleby continued to stare intently at the corpse down below. "A death-cult in service to a mad alien god. They thrive on sowing suffering and chaos. They are called the Maleficarum."

  "Pharaoh said the corpse looked like a gift. Do you think that's true?"

  Bartleby's eyes narrowed. He threw the curtain over the window and turned to face Justin.

  "Strange name for a fellow student …" he said, his voice trailing off as he stole a cautionary glance towards the bathroom door. He returned his focus to Justin. "Your new friend is perceptive. The Crawling Chaos is Rhamal, a creature they believe to be the descendant and servant of their god. There are stories that this servant walks among us in the guise of a man, fulfilling the wishes of its father."

  Justin placed a hand against his brow. "They think I'm their evil alien Jesus?"

  "Evil alien Jesus …" Bartleby repeated the words under his mouth. He shook his head. "Yes, I'm certain of it."

  Justin sat on the edge of his bed, suddenly exhausted. "This is so fucked. I just went into that section of the library, saw the book open, and thought it was a neat-sounding name. I didn't mean for this to happen."

  "You didn't know." Bartleby sat on the bed next to him. "None of this is your fault."

  "There's more, isn't there?" Justin said wearily.

  Bartleby sighed. "There's always more. This school isn't safe. Its sordid history has made it a receptacle for evil. Do you have friends you can stay with?"

  "I can ask Helena." Justin shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think her mom would mind too much. Mrs. Han already invited me to live with them early this year."

  Bartleby nodded. "Perfect. She can protect you."

  "Mrs. Han can protect me?" Justin raised an eyebrow.

  Bartleby allowed himself a smile. "Helena. Your friend is a truly gifted student. Keep faith, Justin. You're surrounded by people who love you."

  "You're always looking out for me, Professor Bartleby." Justin stood and sniffled, rubbing his watery eyes.

  Bartleby wrapped his arms around him and held the back of his head in a fatherly manner. "You'd manage fine without me, I'm sure. I'm so proud of you."

  Justin returned the hug, closing his eyes. A lump formed in his chest and he wanted to break down in the man's arms, then and there. He remembered approaching Bartleby last year, seeking advice on how to approach hormone-replacement therapy. Bartleby had gone a step further and shown him which doctors were safe and could be trusted. There'd been nights on the telephone when the professor likely should have been grading papers but was instead talking Justin out of committing suicide. Justin always felt guilty for that, but was certain Bartleby would have dropped everything if it meant he needed him.

  Even in this new and terrifying situation, Bartleby was here.

  "I'd be completely fucked without you," Justin whispered softly.

  Bartleby pulled away, patting his shoulder. "I wish I could stay, but I have other things that must be tended to. We're going to get through this. Get to Helena's house and stay there. I'll find you. I promise."

  He threw open the door and began departing down the hall. Justin hurried after him, eyes wide and panicked. He watched the professor rushing away.

  "Where you headed off to?" he called out, voice shaking.

  "To gaze into the heart of darkness!" Bartleby called as he disappeared down the stairwell.

  Justin stared, mouth hanging open. The lump in his chest grew larger and it was getting harder and harder to choke back the sobs. He rushed back into his dorm, slamming the door loudly behind him.

  "Pharaoh, whenever you get out of the shower, I need to talk to you," Justin yelled through the bathroom door.

  He knocked loudly. There was no response. He knocked again and called out Pharaoh's name. Nothing. Only the sound of running water. Justin turned the knob and, finding it unlocked, shoved the door open. Clouds of steam filled the room, but it was otherwise unoccupied.

  Brow furrowed and hands quivering, Justin walked to the shower and turned the knob. He shook his hands dry and inspected the tub. The drain was coated with something, a black putrid substance. Something about it instilled a sense of panic in him and he ran the faucet for several seconds to flush it away.

  Justin breathed heavily, staring at the drain, eyes widening. He turned slowly, coughing and rubbing the top of his head anxiously. He stopped, staring at the bathroom mirror with dawning open-mouthed horror.

  Words were forming in the steam on the glass. The language was incomprehensible. One symbol, large and looming in the center, was the same star that had been carved into the man's forehead outside.

  Choking in his panic, Justin rushed forwards with a towel to wipe the mirror with a towel. When the mirror was clear again, he saw a flash of a figure standing behind him. Their skin was the same black color and ichorous texture of the substance he'd found in the bottom of the tub. Their eyes were shimmering and gold. They didn't reach out to him or approach, they just stared.

  Justin grabbed a glass by the sink and smashed it against the counter. He whirled around in almost the
same action, brandishing the spiked shard in front of him defensively. His bathroom was completely empty. His eyes darted around the room while his chest heaved.

  A faint gurgling sound from behind caused him to turn once more to the sink. The same black substance was bubbling up through the drain, slowly filling the basin. It was almost like it was reaching for him, trying to get closer. Justin ran out of the bathroom, cutting his foot on broken glass.

  He slammed the door shut and collapsed against it, sliding down to rest against the carpet. He held his bleeding foot, mouth contorting in pain. This was the last fucking straw. Justin shut his eyes, lowered his head, and sobbed.

  * * *

  Bartleby climbed into his car and slammed the door closed. He was barely halfway down the road when he could feel the atmosphere in the vehicle shift, and a new presence invaded. Something pressed into the back of the seat. A nauseating stench of tobacco filled the air. Bartleby's eyes watered from cigarette fumes wafting their way towards the driver's seat.

  He flicked his eyes to the rear-view mirror to see an older man wearing a fine suit sitting in the backseat of his car. A cigarette hung loosely out of his mouth. He had a gun pressed against Bartleby's backside.

  "If you know who I am, then you know what I can do to make sure that not a single person ever knows I was here," the old man whispered, his voice dry and husky.

  "I saw you in the library. You put a great many lives in danger with your reckless meddling." Bartleby scowled.

  The man chuckled. "Good, then we won't have any problems."

  "We must have dramatically opposed views on what constitutes a problem." His fingers tightened about the steering wheel.

  "Just drive, it's not safe to talk in the city - at least, not so close to that school. I know a place where the entity won't hear us."

  Bartleby waved more smoke out of his face. "Would you mind not smoking in my car? It's very rude."

  The man ignored him. "Know where the Hendraick farm is?"

  "I certainly know it."

  "Then drive, Professor Prouse." The man rolled his cigarette between his fingers. "And hurry, that boy you love doesn't have much time."

  That was enough to scare him. He slammed his foot against the pedal and sped towards the Black Goat Woods just outside of Wakefield. The farm was an abandoned piece of property in a field located east of the wood. Little had been done to preserve it or take it down, and so it remained a bleak and unsightly reminder of Wakefield's blood-soaked past.

  Originally constructed in 1913 by Gregory Hendraick, the sturdy wooden barn had become discolored, fading with age. The house seemed less stable, the roof having caved in some forty years ago. There were rooms where thick brown stains covered the floors and walls. One particular stain in the kitchen had formed an almost perfect picture of the corpse whose blood had made it.

  As the sun rose, darkness gave way to moody gray skies. Bartleby kept looking out his window, seeing only ominous portents in the bleak horizon. He parked his car in the field across the little-used dirt road that led to the house. He didn't dare pull any closer.

  "I take it you know what happened here?" said the man in the back seat.

  "The mystery of the Hendraick Farm Murders has never been solved," Bartleby said. "October 1922, the maid quits after insisting the house is haunted, based on noises like footsteps she heard in the attic. Then in November, William Hendraick, the owner of the farm and then head of the family, notices a set of footprints in the snow leading from the woods to the barn but no footprints leading out of it. The barn is searched after fearing trespassers, but no one is found."

  Bartleby kept looking at the house as he spoke, almost afraid of seeing shadows behind the grimy dirt-encrusted windows. "A few weeks later, Martha Hendraick says that the keys to the shed are missing. Previously, scratches were found on the outside of the shed, as if an animal had tried to get into it in the night. A copy of the Wakefield Advertiser is soon found in the attic - dated for that morning, despite not a soul having gone into town that week.

  "In January, the new maid, Eliza Prouse, arrives. It is her first and last day on the job. Their bodies are not found until February when a search party fearing the worst comes to the farm to investigate. The bodies of William and Martha, and their eldest daughter Sybil are found in the barn, leaned against the wall to hide their faces. Their eyes have been removed. Cause of death is believed to be a bloody sickle found leaning against the tool shed, still with flakes of dried blood on the blade.

  "Eliza is found in the kitchen; she has been completely disemboweled. The two youngest children, the twins Miley and Tom, have been murdered in their bed. Like the rest of their family, their eyes have been removed.

  "Due to the fact that all the animals appeared to have been well-cared for and fed, and recent reports of smoke coming from the chimney of the house, it is believed that after killing the family, the murderer remained for at least a week or two afterwards. It's likely they fled into the woods at the sight of the search party."

  The man nodded. "I forgot, you teach history at that silly school. Any thoughts on the case?"

  Bartleby closed his eyes and attempted to relax his fingers. "An aura of evil radiates from this place. Even before his son William took over, there were lesser-known tales about his father. Livestock gave birth to stillborn calves. Gregory's first wife died in childbirth, but his second wife Shirley was committed to Wakefield Asylum after raving endlessly about stories of a sentient black filth in the well and occult rituals performed by her husband in the dead of night."

  The man in the backseat nodded. "I can confirm some of that for you. Gregory was indeed attempting to channel this farm into something else. The construction of this farm is a strange thing. A wealthy man from Oakridge moved to bum-fuck nowhere to build this shithole, and after that, most of the Hendraick fortune vanished into thin air.

  "Gregory was obsessed with other worlds, other planes of existence. He believed that there were lines in the soil, specifically here on Harbinger Island, which led to weak points between the worlds - thresholds crossing over from one world into the next. Probably what drove him mad and led to his suicide. Heh, found hanging from the rafters by his own kid."

  "Why have you brought me here?" Bartleby turned cautiously in his seat to look at the stranger.

  "Come into the barn, I'll show you."

  "I'd rather not venture any closer to that place."

  The man smirked and took a long drag on his cigarette before adding, "Professor Prouse, I know you've faced more terrible things in your time than the memory of murders."

  "In my line of work, memory can be terrible enough." Bartleby opened the car door and climbed out, his gaze resting on the barn. It was growing cold outside.

  The smoking man gave a wry chuckle at that and climbed out of the car to join Bartleby. For the first time, Bartleby got a good look at him. Possibly in his mid-fifties, with white hair and dark circles beneath his eyes, he had large hands that were almost prominently in view whenever he delicately pinched the cigarette between his fingers. They were killing hands, wrapped in black leather.

  "My associates refer to me as the Warden," the man said as they approached the barn. "Though I see myself as more of a sheepdog, herding little lambs where they need to go."

  Bartleby gave him a cold steel-eyed look. "And where am I being herded?"

  Warden chuckled then pushed open the barn doors. A gust of air billowed out from it as Bartleby peered inside. He got the feeling while staring at the gaping maw of impenetrable blackness that it would reject all light; it simply liked the dark too much.

  Once inside, Bartleby felt the aura of menace pulsing off the walls. He had to steady himself, laying a palm flat against the boards. That was a mistake. Every emotion these walls had witnessed flooded into him, fear and cruelty in equal measures. He watched through the killer's eyes as the sickle cut through each victim, saw hands smeared with black gunk and blood. He could see servants hanging th
emselves from the rafters, and stillborn calves strung up alongside them in ritualistic celebration.

  The visions passed. Bartleby set wary eyes on Warden. There was an awful moment where he couldn't distinguish the hate and malice he felt for the smoking man and the murderous intent from his psychic vision. Perhaps in that second, they'd been one and the same.

  "The maid who was killed in the kitchen," Warden said. "She related to you?"

  "The possibility has crossed my mind." Bartleby stood upright and adjusted his glasses.

  Warden shrugged and turned his back on him, eyeing the rest of the barn with cool interest. Bartleby stepped between him and the doorway, retrieving an old revolver from inside his coat pocket and carefully aiming it at the back of the man's skull. He cocked it, preparing to fire.

  Warden heard the sound and shook his head, tutting. "Damn it, Bartleby." Warden threw his cigarette onto the ground and stamped it beneath his heel. "I wouldn't think you had time for those kinds of dramatic gestures."

  "You put someone I love in great peril," Bartleby said coldly. "Why?"

  "This barn is a safe place for us to talk, despite all the evil, despite all it has seen." Warden never once turned to face him. "I think maybe whatever magic summoned that thing here now repels it."

  "You made Justin a target of the Maleficarum! For that alone I should kill you."

  A distinct moaning rose as if in response to the threat of violence. The sounds of chains clinking together could be heard. Behind Bartleby, the door to the barn seemed to be groaning, inching forwards as if someone were attempting to close it but lacked the strength to do so. Warden threw back his head and laughed.

  "The truth is there are other worlds, Professor." He continued to laugh. "And a lot of them intersect with ours right here on Harbinger Island. Lot of dumbasses like to take those weak-points and tear them open. Same thing happened here. Bad shit comes out. My job is to put them back."

  What little light there was in the barn was now disappearing as the crack in the door grew smaller and smaller. Slowly but surely, they were being trapped inside. Bartleby didn't falter. He kept the gun trained on Warden, who turned round to face Bartleby. Heavy shadows covered his eyes, giving the illusion that they'd been carved out of his face entirely.