by Laird Barron
Mr. Blaylock said, "Why, I was born here. We all were born here." He inclined his head to include his companions. Something in the curl of his lip, his archness of tone, indicated here didn't necessarily refer to Kansas or the heartland, but rather the continent, if not the world itself. So Mr. Blaylock was that smug species of academic who delighted in double entendre and puns. Asshole. Lancaster drained his whiskey, masking a sneer.
Ms. Diamond pressed against Lancaster as a spouse might and muttered, "What the hell are you doing?" She maintained her pearly shark smile for the audience.
"It's a fair question," Mr. Blaylock said, as if he'd somehow overheard the whisper. "Mr. Lancaster, you've been around the block, yeah?"
"I've heard the owl hoot," Lancaster said. "And the Sri Lankan Frogmouth too."
"I hear you. You Limeys speak your minds. You're inquisitive. No harm. I approve."
"Not much harm," Ms. Diamond said.
"You are exceedingly generous, Mr. Blaylock. But I'm American."
"Oh, yeah? Odd. You must spend loads of time on the island."
Dr. Christou said, "Our kind patron heard a Frogmouth hoot. Have you seen a Rakshasa, perhaps?"
"Not in Kansas," Mr. Blaylock said.
"What's a Rakshasa?" Mr. Cook said.
"It's a flesh-eating monster from Indian mythology, dear," Mrs. Cook said. "There are packs of them roaming about in classical Indian literature, such as the Mahabharata."
Dr. Christou said, "I've not encountered one either, nor do I know anyone with firsthand knowledge. However, in 1968 I visited a village on the Greek island of Aphra and interviewed the locals, including a Catholic priest, who were thoroughly convinced vorvolakes stalked them. The priest showed me a set of photographs taken by a herdsman that were rather convincing."
"Ha! The ones in The Feral Heart were far from convincing, old friend. Very, very far."
"Certainly the lighting was poor. Sunset, so the contrast of light and darkness was jarring. Of course, shrinking them down to fit the page also compromised the quality."
"Was there a creature in the pictures? How exciting," Mrs. Cook said.
"Eh? You haven't read his famous book?" Mr. Rawat said.
"In fact, yes. I read books for the words, not the pictures."
"There were at least four creatures, actually," Dr. Christou said. "The shepherd spied them emerging from a crypt in the hills at dusk. The man was on a bluff and they glared up at him. Horrifying once you realize what you're dealing with, I assure you."
"The goat herder took a picture of something," Mr. Rawat said. "To settle the matter, the film should be sent to a laboratory and analyzed."
"Alas, that is impossible," Mr. Christou said. "I returned them to the priest after they were copied into the book. The village was abandoned in 1970, its inhabitants scattered along the mainland. What became of the herdsman or the film remains a mystery."
"Rubbish," Mr. Rawat said. "I've studied the photos a million times. Our nameless shepherd captured images of youthful vagabonds. Perhaps grave-robbers at rest, if one is inclined toward drama."
"No mystery about the missing film," Mr. Blaylock said. "When the Greek government repatriated the villagers to the mainland I'm sure such materials were confiscated or lost. You mentioned a priest-perhaps the Church spirited away the evidence for secret study. Too convenient?"
"Too conspiratorial, I'd think," Lancaster said. "Most of the tinfoil hats amongst the clergy were exiled to the fringes by the '70s, were they not?"
"You are familiar with the Eastern Church?" Mr. Rawat said, raising an eyebrow.
"There was this girl I met in Athens who'd gone astray from ecclesiastical upbringing in a big way. She gave me the history lesson. The infighting and intrigue, the conspiracies."
"I bet," Ms. Diamond said.
"Life is full of little conspiracies," Dr. Christou said and looked at Mr. Blaylock. "Imagine running into you here of all places. I thought you lived in British Colombia."
Mr. Cook said, "What were those other critters you mentioned earlier? A vorvo-something?" He sounded bored.
"Vorvolakas," Mr. Rawat said.
"Vorvo-whatsis?"
"Blood-sucking undead monster from Greek mythology, dear," Mrs. Cook said. "There are scads of them in the old writings of The Eastern Church."
"There's also that Boris Karloff movie," Mr. Rawat said. He smiled coolly and sipped his rum. "You can watch the whole thing on the internet. I'm certain my esteemed colleague has done so in the name of research."
Lancaster said, "Val Lewton's film. Scared me pantless when I was a wee lad. What a great old flick."
"I like you more and more. Yia mas!" Dr. Christou knocked back yet another Canadian Club.
"Val Lewton," Mr. Cook said, his glazed eyes brightening. "Now you're talking. My dad owned a chain of theaters. Lewton was a hell of an auteur, as the kids say."
"Oh, honey." Mrs. Cook smiled with benign condescension and patted her husband's cheek so it jiggled. "Val Lewton? Really? Goodness."
"Hellenic vampire tradition is quite rich," Mr. Christou said. "The damned rise from their graves-day or night-and creep through villages, rapping on doors, tapping on windows, imitating the cries of animals and children. It is said one must never answer a door after dark on the first knock."
Mrs. Cook said, "As I understand it, Grecian vampires are actually more akin to shape changers. Lycanthropes and what have you."
"Quite right, dear lady! Quite right!" Dr. Christou said. "The Balkan Wars led to a minor usurpation by the Slavic vampire myth of the Greek antecedent. Or, I should say, a co-option, though who ultimately co-opted whom is open to debate. Ah, you would've been a much brighter assistant than the clods I was assigned on my expeditions. And lovelier to boot!"
"Oh, hush, Doctor," Mrs. Cook said, casually patting her hair as she cast about for the waiter. "Seriously, although you're the expert, doesn't it seem plausible that these legends-the Rakshasa, the lycanthropes and vampires, the graveyard ghouls, the horrors of Dunsany, Moses, and Lovecraft, are variations on a theme?"
"If by plausible you mean impossible," Mr. Rawat said.
"Certainly," Mr. Blaylock said. "And a hundred other beasties from global mythology. Each iteration tailored to the traditions and prejudices of individual cultures. However, as Mr. Rawat so elegantly declared, it's rubbish." He smiled slyly. "Except for ghosts. The existence of ghosts is a theory I can get behind."
There were more rounds of drinks accompanied by tales of werewolves, vampires, and other things that went bump in the night. An orchestra appeared and began to play classics of the 1930s. The Cooks ventured unsteadily onto the dance floor, and gallant Mr. Rawat escorted Ms. Diamond after them-she, ramrod stiff and protesting to no avail. Mr. Rawat's continental chauvinism doubtless nettled her no end.
Lancaster excused himself to visit the restroom. He pissed in the fancy urinal and washed his hands and dried them on a fancy scented towel. He checked his watch in the lobby, decided to risk a few moments away from the party, and ducked into the stairwell and lighted a cigarette. Moments later Mr. Blaylock and Dr. Christou barged through the door, drinks in hand, Dedrick hot on their heels, a pained expression replacing his customary stoicism. Dr. Christou and Mr. Rawat immediately lighted cigarettes. Both smoked Prima Lux. "Ah, great minds!" the doctor said, grinning at Lancaster, who covered his annoyance with a friendly mock salute.
A few minutes later, cigarettes smoked and drinks drunk, everyone headed back to the table. Lancaster did the gentlemanly deed of holding the door. Dr. Christou hesitated until the others had gone ahead. He said in a low voice, "I confess an abiding fondness for Boris Karloff and Val Lewton. Anyone who holds them dear is first class by my lights." The doctor leaned slightly closer to Lancaster, scorching him with whiskey breath. "In recent years I've become convinced the priest of Aphra was duped by the shepherd. Those cemetery photographs were surely a hoax. Which is a damned shame because I think there truly was an extraordinary event o
ccurring in that village." He laid his very large hand upon Lancaster's shoulder. This drunken earnestness would've been comical except for the glimmer of a tear in the corner of the aged scholar's eye. "Please extend my apologies to our fair company. That last drink was a bridge too far. I'm off to my quarters."
Lancaster wondered if the evening could possibly become more surreal. He watched in bemusement as the big man trundled away and boarded an elevator.
He returned to the ballroom where Ms. Diamond sat alone at the table. She watched the others dance, her mouth sullen. He sat next to her and, feeling expansive from the booze, said, "I have a bottle of twelve yearold scotch back at the Chateau." His blue eyes usually had an effect on women. He was also decently-muscled from a regimen of racquetball and swimming. He assiduously colored the gray from his expensively-styled hair, and all of this combined to smooth the rough edges of advancing age, to create the illusion of a man in his late forties, the urbane, chisel-jawed protagonist of sex-pill commercials rather than a paunchy playboy with stretch marks and pattern baldness sliding into the sunset years. But Ms. Diamond was having none of it.
"I think you also probably have a dozen STDs," she said. "Half of them exotic and likely incurable by fire."
"Well, I don't like to brag," he said.
The group dispersed, shuffling off to their respective rooms, and Lancaster shook the hands of the men and kissed the hands of the ladies- Kara's skin tasted of liquor, and Mrs. Cook's was clammy and scaly and bitter. He glanced at her face, and her eyes were heavy-lidded, her thick mouth upturned with matronly satisfaction at his discomfort.
***
Lancaster hailed a cab and made it to his townhouse a few minutes after 2 a.m. Nothing spectacular-two bedrooms, a bathroom with a deep whirlpool tub and granite everything, and a kitchen with wood cabinets and digital appliances. In the living room, lush track lighting, thick carpet and a selection of authentic-looking Monet and Van Gogh knockoffs, a half dozen small marble sculptures imported from Mediterranean antique shops, a gas fireplace and modest entertainment center, and of course, a wet bar tucked opposite bay windows with a view of the river.
He wasn't in a steady relationship. His previous girlfriend, a Danish stewardess twenty-five years his junior, had recently married a pilot and retired to, 'make babies', as she put it in the Dear John email. He dialed the escort service and asked for one of the girls he knew. The receptionist informed him that person was unavailable, so he requested Trina, a moderately attractive brunette who'd stayed over a few months back, and this time he was in luck, his Girl Friday would be along in forty-five minutes. He dropped his coat into an oversized leather chair, hit the remote to dim the lights, a second time to ignite a romantic blaze in the hearth, and once more to summon the ghost of Jeff Healey through speakers concealed behind a pair of African elephant statuettes.
The drink and Ms. Diamond's dragon lady glare had worked him over. That and the bizarre dinner chatter and the raw emotion flowing from ponderous Dr. Christou. Lancaster brought forth the special box, cur rently hidden upon a shelf inside a teak cabinet that housed his cigars and collection of foreign coins. Tonight he needed to gaze within the box, to drink it with his eyes, to satiate the nameless desire that welled from his deepest primordial self.
He sat for a while in the thrall of conflicting emotions. The ritual calmed him less than usual. He shut the box and returned it to its cubby. His breath was labored.
Cigarette in one hand, a fresh glass of scotch sweating in the other, he sank into the couch and closed his eyes. The doorbell went ding-dong! and his eyes popped open. The glass was dry and the cigarette had burned perilously near his knuckle. He set the glass on the coffee table and crushed the cigarette in the ashtray. At the door it occurred to him the bell had only rung once, and it bothered him somehow. He peered through the spy-hole and saw nothing but the empty walk, yellow and hazy under the streetlamp light. The doorknob throbbed with a low voltage current that tingled momentarily and vanished.
He opened the door and Trina-the-escort popped up like a jack-in-the-box, still fumbling with a compact that had slipped from her stylish red-lacquer handbag. She wore a slick black dress and had dyed her hair blonde since their last encounter. "Hiya," she said and caught his tie in the crook of her finger as she stepped past him from the dark into the light. As the door swung closed, a breeze ruffled his hair and he shivered, experiencing the unpleasant sensation that he'd forgotten something important, perhaps years and years ago. His brain was fairly pickled and the girl already slid out of her dress and the strange unease receded.
When they'd finished, Trina kissed his cheek, dragged on their shared cigarette, then briskly toweled herself and ducked into the bathroom. He dialed her a taxi and lay in the shadows listening to the shower, the edge off his drunkenness and succumbing to exhaustion as he recalled the faces of his dinner guests-Dr. Christou's haunted eyes, Mr. Blaylock's predatory smile, and Mr. Rawat cool and bland even as he dissected and debated. The others ran together, and uneasiness crept back in as his damp flesh cooled, as the red numerals of the alarm clock flickered in a warning. The girl reappeared, dressed, perfumed, and coifed with a polka dot kerchief. She said she'd let herself out, call her again any time. He drifted away, and-
Ding-dong! He sat up fast, skull heavy. Only three or four minutes had passed, yet he was mostly anesthetized from the alcohol and overwhelming drowsiness. He waited for the next ring, and as he waited a chill seeped into his guts and he thought strange, disjointed thoughts. Why was he so nervous? The vein in his neck pulsed. Trina must've forgotten something. He rose and went to the door. As he turned the deadbolt, he experienced the inexplicable urge to flee. It was a feeling as powerful and visceral as a bout of vertigo, the irrational sense that he would be snatched into the darkness, that he would meet one of Dr. Christou's unknowable marvels lurking in the cracks of the Earth.
Trina stepped back with a small cry when he flung the door open and stood before her, sweat dripping from his torso. A taxi idled on the curb. She regained her composure, although she didn't come closer. "Forgot my cell," she said. Dazed, he fetched her phone. She extended her hand as far as possible to snatch the phone. She hustled to the taxi without a goodbye or backward glance.
The canopy of the trees across the street shushed in the breeze, and fields littered with pockets of light swept into the deeper gloom like the crown of a moonlit sea. The starry night was vast and chill, and Lancaster imagined entities concealed within its folds gazing hungrily upon the lights of the city, the warmth of its inhabitants.
Lancaster was not an introspective man, preferring to live an inch beneath his own skin, to run hot and cold as circumstances required. Fear had awakened in him, stirred by God knew what. Imminent mortality? Cancer cells spreading like fire? The Devil staring at him from the pit? Momentarily he had the preposterous fantasy that this primitive terror wasn't a random bubble surfacing from the nascent tar of his primordial self, but an intrusion, a virus he'd contracted that now worked to unnerve and unman him.
Whatever the source, he was afraid to stand in the tiny rectangle of light that faced the outer darkness. That darkness followed him into sleep. The gnawing fear was with him too. The dark. The hum of the stars.
***
Lancaster arranged for a limousine driver named Ms. Valens to pick the party up in front of the hotel after lunch the next day. He suggested a helicopter for speed, but Dr. Christou had an aversion to flying in light aircraft-a train and bus man, was the good doctor. Mr. Rawat and the Cooks were traveling to the airport that evening immediately following the tour of the corporate property, so the chauffeur loaded their luggage, which included Mr. Cook's pair of golf bags and no less than five suitcases for Mrs. Cook. Lancaster chuckled behind his hand at Ms. Valens' barely concealed expression of loathing as she struggled to heft everything into the trunk while Ms. Cook tutted and tisked and the muscular Dedrick stood impassively, watching nothing and everything at once.
The
two hour drive was along a sparsely-traveled stretch of secondary highway that lanced through mile upon mile of wheat fields and sunflower plantations. The sky spread black and blue with rolling storm clouds, and crows floated like gnats beneath the belly of a dog. Light distorted as it passed through the tinted windows and filled the passenger compartment with an unearthly haze.
Lancaster and Ms. Diamond poured champagne from the limousine bar: A glass to celebrate surviving their hangovers, Lancaster said. Dr. Christou took his with a couple of antacid tablets, and Kara refused, covering her mouth with exaggerated revulsion. The others finished the magnum of Grand Brut with the diffidence of draining a bottle of spring water. Lancaster had seldom witnessed such a tolerance for booze except when playing blackjack with the alkie barflies in Vegas backwaters during his wild and wooly college days. He checked the stock to estimate whether it would last until he got his charges onto the plane. It was going to be close. Ms. Diamond's eyes widened when she met his and he felt a smidgen of uncharacteristic pity for her distress.
Mr. Rawat took a sheaf of blueprints and maps from his gold-clasped leather briefcase and spread them across his knees. Mr. Cook and Ms. Diamond sat on either side of him. Their faces shone with the hazy light reflected from the paper. Lancaster's eyeballs ached. The scenery slid past like a ragged stream of photographic frames. He pondered the previous evening's gathering at the hotel. Mrs. Cook winked and knocked his knee under the table. Mr. Blaylock grinned, minus an eyetooth, and Christine, the voluptuous vamp, stroked Blaylock's shoulder, her nails denting the exquisite fabric of his dinner jacket. Luther and Rayburn were a blur, unimportant. Mr. Cook drank with the methodical efficiency of a man who'd rather face the scaffold than another day with his wife, and he smiled with the same, superficial cheer as Ms. Diamond did-probably a reflexive counter to deeper, darker impulses. Mr. Rawat debated Dr. Christou with a passion reserved for a lover, while fox-sharp Kara looked on with jaded boredom, and Lancaster wondered how close the men might actually be and perhaps, perhaps the NSA thought to use them against one another, to leverage a clandestine affair, and damn, this trip might actually prove interesting. Lancaster snapped out of it. His sunglasses disguised the fact he'd dozed for a few moments, or so he hoped.
