Arkham Nights

by Glynn Owen Barrass

  The phone rang twice before it was picked up; a stiff, too-thick British voice answered, saying, “Epson residence.”

  I knew I got the right place, recognizing the busboy’s snooty little tone right away. Geoffrey was just dodging calls, as usual.

  I said, “Tell Justin that Trevor Towers wants to speak with him. I know I’ve got the right number.”

  The voice said, “Quite, indeed, sir. Please hold.”

  There was the rattle of the receiver, followed by long, unending silence. I snarled and swore under my breath to while away the time. Barnes seemed to enjoy every second of it.

  Geoffrey picked up and did not sound pleased, speaking in his usually sarcastic tone.

  “Mister Trevor Towers,” he said, pronouncing my name in a slow, condescending manner. “If I remember correctly, you had reassured me that our score was settled.”

  Last time we had seen the dewdropper, Barnes and I had also been looking for a girl that had been snatched by a crowd of murderous book lovers, in service to a bug-eyed monster.

  Thanks to Geoffrey’s leads, we’d managed to thwart the cult before things got out of hand. I’d lied to him to get that juicy tidbit, telling him that it had been enough to square his debt to me.

  I went on the offensive, snapping into my no-bushwa tone, “We were settled up until you sent that Ashton Smith fella our way. That loon just about got us killed!”

  That case was a particularly harrowing tale that neither I nor Barnes ever wanted to go over again.

  “Tell Geoffrey to suck it up,” Barnes shouted from across the desk. “Or we’ll give him a special house call.”

  Geoffrey heard Barnes, loud and clear, gulped and said, “Point taken.”

  I got down to brass tacks and told him all about our case, from the sorry tale of Abernacky and his daughter all the way up to the weird guff about Innsmouth.

  He was quiet until I mentioned the town, then said, “You fellows should try looking for cushier jobs. Have you ever considered lion taming? At least that covers dental.”

  I put a hand over the mouthpiece and told Barnes, “What do you know, he’s heard of it.” Barnes grinned and I went right back to Geoffrey.

  “’Hardy har har pal,” I said. “So come on, spill it. What’s the skinny on Innsmouth?”

  “There’s nothing much to go by but rumors.” Geoffrey’s sounded hesitant, his arrogance fled. That snooty little bookworm’s reaction made me feel better somehow.

  “Towers,” he said, “the only useful advice I can give you is that you should stay out of Innsmouth. If you can’t help yourselves and you don’t just want to drive yourselves into an early grave, then I suggest you pay attention.”

  I looked at Barnes and found him staring at me, looking worried.

  Geoffrey’s voice got deeper, more confident as he went on. “Keep in mind, this is for your own good. Not that I’d miss you, Trevor, but there are things going on in Innsmouth that would turn your hair white.”

  I didn’t argue with him.

  “The Marshes, and the Esoteric Order of Dagon, they run the place. Don’t stay there after dark,” he said. “That’s when they really let loose.”

  I have to admit, I was creeped out. Then again, that’s Justin Geoffrey for you.

  “Like Orpheus, don’t eat or drink anything they offer you and keep away from those that have the Innsmouth look about them. You’ll know them when you see them. Also, keep away from the warehouses near the shore, and watch your back.”

  I interrupted him with, “What about the note?”

  He said, “If that note isn’t a trap, she might just be alive. I sincerely doubt it, though.”

  There was a long pause and I was about to hang up, when he added. “You’re armed, aren’t you?” I told him that I was. “Drop them,” he said, adding a kooky little twist to his string of bad omens. “Bullets... may not be as much use as you’d think. Think fire; lots and lots of fire.”

  I thanked the man and reassured him that this time, we were done for good. He hung up immediately after. Barnes pulled away from the desk and leaned in.

  I told him everything Geoffrey had said. Barnes waited until I was finished, then said: “Sounds like a pretty welcoming place. You think we should risk it?”

  “It sure as hell won’t be the first freak show we’ve had to shut down.” I replied.

  Barnes got out of his seat, stretching his arms before saying, “We should draw up a plan over at Denny’s.”

  Denny’s was a barrel house just around the corner from our building. The place served nothing but coffin varnish, but it’d have to do.

  “Damn straight,” I said.

  Outside, Arkham looked dark and wet and foreboding but hey: at least it wasn’t Innsmouth.

  We arrived on the outskirts of Innsmouth just before dawn. We knew it as soon as we rolled down the windows and choked on the smell of fishheads, rotting by the thousands on the shore. We were parked on a narrow road that wound its way through the sandy dunes of the surrounding area.

  “Christ,” Towers growled, “who’d stand to live in this place?”

  I lit a smoke and grinned, catching a glimpse of Trevor’s scowling features. “Nobody human, that’s who, if your pal Geoffrey is anything to go by.”

  “Pal?” Towers said. “You’re a real riot, Barnes.”

  He lit a smoke and continued scowling.

  I grinned and said, “Better put on your vamp act, before you scare off any potential sources of information.”

  He put up his best mad dog grin and said, “What do you think?”

  “There we go,” I said, “there’s the lady killer I know.”

  We smoked and whiled away the time, until the eastern sky began to lighten. I started the car’s engine and drove into the town proper. We eased through what passed for the downtown area and spotted a hotel called The Marsh House.

  “You think we ought to check in there first?”

  “Why not?” Towers answered. “We might as well stomp our feet, see what sort of pinheads come crawl out of the woodwork.”

  “Place looks pretty quiet,” I said. “What the hell did Geoffrey mean, about the Innsmouth look?”

  “Who cares?” Towers replied. “I don’t give a shit what the locals look like as long as we get what we’re here for.”

  “Amen to that.”

  I turned down a narrow drive off Main Street and found the hotel’s small parking area. Towers looked at the empty clamshell lot and said, “Business is booming this time of year.”

  “Bet they’ll be thrilled to see us,” I chuckled.

  Towers smirked. “Most people usually are.”

  “At least someone around here was nice enough to send Abernacky that note.”

  “Well,” Towers said, “I hope the sonofabitch shows himself before too long.”

  I parked the car and said, “That would be nice, long as he’s made sure he’s covered his own ass.”

  The man at the hotel desk didn’t seem too pleased to see us. If anything, he looked downright spooked. I walked up to the counter and said, in my best Swamp Yankee impression, “Howdy friend; you got room for a couple of fish peddlers?”

  “Howdy?” Barnes mumbled. “Look at Barnes, hamming it up.”

  I elbowed him in the ribs. Trevor just stared daggers into me.

  The desk clerk looked at us through bulging eyes and seemed to struggle with the words.

  “Err... ah... We don’t get many tourists this time of year.” he wheezed.

  “Yeah,” Towers interjected, “we can see that. But what do you mean ‘This time of year’? It’s summer, for Christ’s sake!”

  “We err... don’t usually get any guests. Ever.”

  “You do have rooms, right?” I asked.

  “Not at the moment, I’m afraid...”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Towers asked. “Is the place booked of not?”

  “No it’s...” the clerk muttered. “Maintenance. That’s it. Rooms ne
ed maintaining. Also, we’re booked. Local function.”

  Towers growled. “So you have rooms, except no one can live in them, unless it’s people who already live here.”

  I reached into my pocket and took out my wallet, shoving a twenty on the counter. “There,” I said, “that ought to cover maintenance costs for a couple rooms.”

  “But the function...”

  “Hey, fellow!” Towers growled. “You trying to gyp us here? You want me to get Life magazine on the phone and let them know about your little racket? I can get two dozen journos crawling all over the place here before you know it.”

  The clerk cringed.

  “All right,” he croaked. “I guess I can spare two rooms.”

  I smiled. “We really appreciate it.”

  The clerk gave us a look of unfathomable misery and pushed a dog-eared register across the bench. “Fill this out and everything should be ready in an hour or two.”

  “Thanks, friend!” I said. “You’re real swell, you know that?”

  After signing the register, we headed out to the car. Towers could barely keep himself from laughing. “So that’s the Innsmouth look, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I answered. “Creepy as all get out.”

  “No argument there,” Towers replied. “I get the feeling we won’t be seeing the welcome wagon around here.”

  “Who cares?” I said. “Not you, with your journo friends over at Life.”

  Towers nearly bust a gut laughing all the way down to the pier.

  It was the damnedest thing. In all of Innsmouth there wasn’t a living soul who would rent us a boat. Apparently, they were all either already spoken for or being repaired. Towers tried to tell them that he’d spotted a couple that were seaworthy but their owners didn’t seem to go for it and told Trevor to scram. It didn’t help that Trevor got into a fight with one of the froggier-looking fools, who went definitely cross-eyed after getting a right jab right in his bulging peepers. Towers was quick to tell the few locals who would listen just what sort of lucrative business opportunity they were turning down, for all the good that did. It was pretty obvious that Innsmouth wasn’t going to be opening up its doors to us anytime soon. Towers said that it didn’t matter; sooner or later, by brain or by brawn, we’d wriggle our way behind their locked doors and get the answers we needed.

  We walked back to the center of town and plotted our new approach.

  “I think it’s safe to say,” I said, lighting a smoke, “That they’ve caught wind of us by now.”

  “Don’t bet on it. Bet those half-wits don’t even know how to start a rumor, never mind spread it.”

  I offered Towers a smoke. His hope chest had been crushed during a disagreement with one of the boat owners back at the pier. He lit up eagerly.

  “Barnes,” he said, smiling, “Where does a person usually go if they want to get the lowdown?”

  I immediately knew where he was going with this. I answered it with another question. “Would it be a place where horn-dogs get together to get their privates wet and feed each other lines until they’re fit to burst?”

  “I was thinking of a speakeasy,” he said. “But a whorehouse is fine, too.”

  We laughed at that and went looking for the raunchiest juice joint we could find. After a short walk, we spied a place called The Kraken’s Mistress and headed for the door. The place was far from crowded. There were a couple of Chinamen, a Russian and three Swedes, mixed with a smattering of local seadogs.

  We caught the dirty looks and heard some mumbled curses as we stepped to the bar and ordered our drinks. “Nice little shithole you got here,” Towers said, loud enough for all to hear “Really brings out the best in this town.”

  “Keep it down,” I whispered. “We’re looking for a lead, not a fight.”

  “Lead? In this dump?” he said. “These surly bastards ain’t gonna spill anything but their drinks.”

  “Point taken,” I answered.

  I finished my drink and ordered another. Downing it in no time flat, I grinned at Towers. “Yeah,” I bellowed, “I hear that if you wanna get laid in Innsmouth, you’re better off kidnapping a girl from Arkham.”

  “For crying out loud, Barnes,” Towers mumbled, then added, “Can you blame them? I mean would you risk dipping your wick in a slimy glob of frog eggs?”

  Behind us came sounds of chairs, roughly kicked away from tables. We turned to greet our fellow drunks.

  The big Russian said something in some gobbledygook language and all the foreigners suddenly decided they had places to be. This left us facing five of the local bad-asses, each hell-bent on murdering us.

  “Trevor, do you think we went too far?”

  “No,” Towers replied. “Everyone knows that folks from Innsmouth are suckers for honesty.”

  A big lug—not as far gone with the Innsmouth look—smashed a whiskey bottle into a makeshift shank and stepped forward.

  “You think you’re so fucking clever, don’t you, townie?”

  Towers spat on the floor and laughed. “It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see what’s been going on around here. Bet you degenerates have to steal a dame every once in a while just to spice things up. There’s only so many times a fella can screw his mother before the novelty wears off.”

  The young tough roared and came charging forward, right on cue. Towers tensed up, ready to throw down. I watched the young man slash blindly, going for Towers’ face, so I grabbed his arm and twisted it up.

  The man screamed and flailed helplessly, before collapsing on the floor behind the bar. Towers followed up with a shot to the young thug’s kidney that would have him pissing blood for the next couple of weeks.

  Towers grinned and said, as the other seadogs charged us, “See what happens when you talk trash about Innsmouth?”

  The barroom brawl lasted only a couple of minutes. The Innsmouth rowdies had the brawn, but they lacked the brains. Me and Towers weren’t exactly world-class boxer material, but we’d picked up enough tricks to outdo any run-of-the-mill street brawler.

  We left six badly injured men lying in the bar and strolled casually down the street. Our current plan was getting us nowhere and we had to pick up the pace if we wanted to find the Abernacky girl. Turning to Towers, I asked, “Did Geoffrey give you any hint about where to find the head honchos around here?”

  Towers rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. “He gave me some bushwa about an ‘Esoteric Order of Dagon’ running the place.”

  “Sounds like a lodge,” I replied.

  “Sounds like a clubhouse for nutjobs.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Seems like half the nuts we deal with feel the need to go off and form their own religion.”

  “Geoffrey once told me that most of these so-called new religions we’ve come across are actually ancient.”

  I raised my eyebrows and grinned. “’Look at you, Mister fancy academic. I hear the dean’s chair at Miskatonic U is up for grabs, if you want it.”

  “Screw you, Barnes.”

  I was about to reply when a noise came from the boarded-up shop window we were walking past. We stopped and squinted at the pitch blackness between the planks.

  “Probably wharf rats,” I said.

  The door creaked open just a crack. “Psssst!” a voice said from inside. I reached for the piece in my shoulder rig but Towers shook his head.

  “You talking to us?” he said, looking at me as if we were having a conversation.

  The voice from inside answered. “I was the one who sent the note. I know where the girl is being kept.”

  “Could be a trap,” I whispered.

  “Or,” Towers answered, “It could just be the break we’re looking for.”

  Towers continued to smile at me and said, “Just so you know: if this is some kind of a set up, we’re going to find you and stomp on your skull until it’s lopsided. Are we supposed to come in?”

  “No!” the voice hissed. “Not from the street... too many witnesses.”<
br />
  “Okay, where from then?” I said, looking at Towers.

  “Behind the store. There’s an alley door. It’ll be unlocked.”

  “Wanna give it a shot?” I whispered.

  Towers grinned. “We got nothing better to do.”

  I was relieved to discover that we hadn’t walked into a trap. A young man holding a kerosene lantern ushered us in and locked the door behind us. He seemed fidgety, the kind you get when you’re either hopped up on dope or scared half out of your mind. He didn’t quite have the Innsmouth look, apart from the bulging eyes. He caught me giving him the once over and said, “Yes, I’m like the others.”

  “You know where they’re keeping Jennifer Abernacky? Towers asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “My brothers are holding her in the basement of Dagon Hall.”

  “Your brothers?”

  “My name is Ronnie Marsh,” he answered. “I’m... the black sheep of the family.”

  I extended my hand and said, “It’s good to meet you, Ronnie Marsh.”

  He reached out for my hand, but pulled back at the last second. I looked at it and saw that it was dry and covered in scales, with the webbing beginning to sprout between the fingers. I reached out and clasped it. Looking Marsh in the eyes, I said, “We tend to go beyond skin-deep.”

  “Most don’t,” he answered, looking sad.

  Towers said, “That’s all real touching. How about you put a lid on it until we’ve saved the Abernacky girl?”

  “You’re right,” Marsh agreed. “Time is running out.”

  “How long do we have to get her out and what’s the best way to go about it?”

  “There’s a secret entrance into the hall,” Marsh said. “I know the way in. They plan to sacrifice the girl at midnight.”

  “It’s always got to be midnight,” Towers complained. “God forbid any of these weirdos would get anything done sooner.”

  Turning to Marsh, I asked, “Not that we don’t appreciate it, but... how come you’re helping us?”

  He smiled. “The Marsh name was respectable, once. But over the years, my family have brought our name low and degraded our people. Just a few years ago, their carelessness brought the Feds down on us. The town has... lost its luster, since.”