by Guy Riessen
He gritted his teeth, anticipating pain, and slowly raised himself up on his elbows. Dreading what he might see, he tilted his head down, toward the source of all his pain.
He slowly cracked one eye open ... and saw ...
A bandage. Well, that’s anticlimactic.
His pant leg had been cut away, and his leg was elevated on an extra pillow. He reached down, and picking at the edges of tape around the bandage, he lifted one side to look beneath.
While there was still a ragged and puffy red wound where his femur had ripped through his flesh, his leg was now straight, and the bone was no longer sticking out. The whole wound region was a deep orange-red—the entire area had probably been drenched in betadine before the bone was pulled back in. Along the line of the puncture, there were several neat stitches, and while there was obvious pinkish drainage, it wasn’t much.
The stitches were clean and efficient. It looked like a field medic patch up. A skilled one certainly, but there was no splint or cast either. That meant the bone probably wasn’t really set. He wondered if the medic was a field medic from the Iraq war—it would explain the mess kits in the kitchen.
He turned his head slowly, balancing his curiosity with the vertigo. The walls were wood, like the ceiling. There was a door, with a window set in it, that although it was dark, appeared to lead outside.
Across from his bed, a dark wooden table was scattered with various medical implements. A bottle of betadine sat near a lit, hissing lantern that was the only light source in the room. A figurine sat on the other side of the lantern. In the flickering light, the eyes of the small green stone idol appeared to move, looking about the room. Derrick blinked and realized there were no eyes, only empty sockets. Black streaks had dripped from the empty holes, down the figure’s face.
What appeared to be the blood-soaked leg of his pants was wadded up next to the small statue. A small bowl with some metal medical equipment sticking out of it sat on a surgical pad. The pad was bloody.
At the far end of the table was a portable camping stove. On the floor near that end, an olive drab backpack lay propped against the wall. The top was open, and Derrick could see some packaging sticking out. The colorful logos weren’t legible from his angle, but it looked like packages of freeze-dried food. Stuff you could get at any camp store with backpacking supplies.
Where’s the bag of bones H. collected? It was laying by my head when the kidnapper sprayed me with that gas.
Derrick listened. The only sound he could make out was the loud drone of frog croaks coming in through the window.
His thoughts returned to the bones and dirt sample. He hoped Howard had the samples. They needed to get them back to MU. Mary was going to flip. A biologic that seemed to be neither entirely Mythos-related nor supernatural—a combo corporeal-non-corporeal entity. And his EMP burst collapsed it. Crazy. For their Miskatonic team, it could mean an influx of funding for new research. Maybe even enough to upgrade their research van to something better than that stupid VW bus.
The marimba ringtone of his cell phone broke through his scattered thoughts, and he reached for his pocket, but it was empty.
The phone rang again. He looked around. The sound was coming from outside.
“Hallo?” Derrick heard a man with a strong French accent answer. Either it was from a dialect he wasn’t familiar with, or the accent was tinged with something else, because while definitely French, it didn’t sound quite right.
If Howard were here, he would not only be able to tell it was a French accent, but also the region it came from and the general age of the speaker. Howard knew languages like a wine steward knows Cabernets. He was fluent in more than twenty with doctorates in literature in most of them. If it was spoken or written, he could not only understand it, but there was a good chance he could speak it and pass as a native. It was a rare talent that caught the attention of the DCV, Defendat Contra Velum, team at Miskatonic University.
“Hallo?” the voice spoke again, this time accompanied by the rattle of the door handle.
Derrick flopped back down on the bed and closed his eyes, laying still.
The door swung open, and he heard footsteps move through the room.
Derrick peeked, and the man was slipping the phone into his pocket.
“Good. Good. It is working” The Frenchman said to himself.
Derrick’s lips twitched slightly.
“Ah, you are coming around, mon frère?”
Derrick opened his eyes all the way. He felt a tickle in his brain ... the tentative touch of a none-too-subtle telepath. He looked over at the man, but he wasn’t even looking at Derrick. The man was opening the narrower door next to the table and slung a rucksack that had been on his shoulder into what looked like a closet. Derrick slammed down barriers in his brain, like the MU psych team had taught him, watching the Frenchman closely. There was no visible reaction on the Frenchman’s part. Odd. Normally a telepath would be startled ... perhaps there was a partner nearby?
“Good morning. Did you have a good rest?” The man grabbed the chair from the table, dragged it over to the bed and sat on it. Crossing his legs, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of the brown leather bomber jacket he wore. He slapped the pack against his leg an unnerving number of times, his gaze locked with Derrick’s. The man’s eyes were a piercing blue.
He ripped the foil from the pack, opened it and took out a smoke. Fishing in one of his other pockets he brought out a lighter and lit up, pulling a long draw on the cigarette.
“Wasn’t bad,” Derrick said. “Had the weirdest dream though. I was at game night and we were playing D&D. My level twenty fighter was battling a golem.”
The man laughed. “Indeed.” Smoke leaked from his mouth and nose as he spoke, then he turned his head and blew a white cloud into the room. With a practiced motion, he shook the end of a single cigarette from the pack and extended it toward Derrick.
Derrick shook his head. “No thanks.”
“As you wish. I do so love them. So, Mr. LeStrand, or can I call you Derrick, perhaps?”
Derrick raised an eyebrow.
“You are surprised I know your name?”
“Not really, I assume you’ve been through my wallet. I’m just surprised at your uhm, friendly nature.”
The man smiled. “Well, there is no reason for us to be enemies here ... the circumstances of our introduction notwithstanding, of course.”
“Well, in that case, could I have some water, Mr. Uhhh ...?”
“My name is François,” the man said as he rose from the chair. He paused, his head turned toward the small stone idol, then he reached for a tin cup on the table and proceeded to pour some water from a metallic blue water bottle. He set the cup down and added a pillow under Derrick’s head before handing him the water. “Slow sips, Derrick. The nausea can be significant from the, ah, aerosol.”
Derrick nodded and took a drink. The water was cool and refreshing to his dry throat. He licked his lips, moistening the dry cracks he could feel with his tongue, and said, “I’m sure you understand my suspicion. It’s not every day that someone shoots at me, drugs me, and kidnaps me.”
“An unfortunate necessity, I’m afraid. I needed to get you out, and away from the, how do you say, danger in that house.”
Derrick took another drink. He was feeling better. The danger François mentioned seemed cloudy, distant. His eyes drifted over to the statue on the table. The holes where the eyes should be, blinked.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Derrick opened them to look at the idol again. It sat, unmoving, but the lantern light flickered and something deep in the sockets seemed to move.
François was speaking again, and Derrick frowned, trying to concentrate on what the man was saying. “We are two sides of the same coin, so to speak. But that doesn’t mean we can’t cooperate. I was very impressed with the speed at which you dispatched the golem. When I was trying to save you, I uhm, tried shooting it without, uhm, any apparent effect.”
>
Derrick nodded, taking another drink. He felt pretty good now, a warm glow suffused his belly, and the headache was almost entirely gone. “Oh crap,” Derrick said, a realization dawning on him.
“Pardon?” François leaned a little closer.
“Oh, I said, uhm, ‘Oh snap.’” Derrick realized he felt good most likely because the water was drugged. The Frenchman was obviously looking for something. He tried to concentrate. Derrick said, trying to cover the slip, “You know, because you tried to shoot the golem. Bullets didn’t do much, am I right?”
“Nothing, yes.” François drew another long pull on his cigarette. He leaned back in the chair and studied Derrick for a moment. “I saw your campus ID card from Miskatonic University. You are a professor there, perhaps?”
“Yeah. I teach physics, linear mathematics, and astrophysics. Most of my research is in Plasma Astrophysics.” The words tumbled out. Derrick brought the cup to his lips, but didn’t drink.
“Strange for you to be out here, yes? All the way across the country, and with school in session too?”
So, he was still on the west coast anyway, but it was hard to concentrate. Derrick said, “I came out for research.”
“Ah, I see. You had a telescope in your VW, yes, for your astronomy?”
Derrick’s mind was soft, fuzzy. “Most astrophysics isn’t optical.” Part of Derrick could hear his words slurring slightly, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
“I see. And what brought you to the house?”
“Reports from the Forest Service.”
“Really? Does Miskatonic often send its professors places based on Forest Service reports?” François stroked his sideburns. Smoke curled up from the end of his cigarette, making loops and spirals as it floated toward the ceiling.
A lopsided grin slid across Derrick’s face.
1975 called, François, they want their sideburns back. Funny right, H?
Derrick’s eyes loosely drifted around looking for his friend.
François was watching him. Derrick shrugged.
“Please, drink. Don’t let my questions distract you.” François tapped his ashes onto the floor.
Derrick took another drink, forgetting to just pretend to swallow.
François nodded. “And how did you know about the house itself? That your research might be necessary?”
Derrick peered into the now-empty cup. “I’m sure we got a report from MARC.”
“Mark?”
“Mythos Automated Recognition Computer, MARC.”
François dropped his cigarette to the floor, and uncrossing his legs, crushed it underfoot. He pulled a small notebook and pen from his pocket and began to write.
“Who does MARC report to?”
“Our department at MU sometimes other places ... I don’t always pay attention during briefings, man.”
François laughed. “And what MU department is that again?”
“DCV.”
“DCV?”
“Defendat Contra Velum.”
François’ brows beetled for a moment before he waved his pen in dismissal. “I’m not familiar with that department of study, Professor LeStrand.”
“Because it’s secret,” Derrick said, the words tumbling out before he even realized it. He tried to count prime numbers to focus again, but his thoughts drifted after seventeen.
“And who are the members of your Department?” François asked.
“Uhm ...” Derrick began, but then the marimba tones of his cell ringtone interrupted him. His hand moved in slow motion toward his pocket even as he remembered that François had his phone for some reason. Why was that again?
François pulled the phone from his shirt pocket and glanced at the screen, then pulled another phone from his pants pocket and appeared to compare the screens. Derrick wondered what happened to his Steam Epic Wars phone case. He’d won the phone case at a raid event in-game during the release week of the last expansion. He was going to be really upset if François lost it.
“Ah, your team is very fast, my friend.” He stood and took the empty water cup from Derrick.
Derrick nodded and smiled. Everyone always said the French were rude, but François sure was a nice guy. In his head, Derrick pronounced “guy” like the French “ghee.” His headache was gone, and his leg didn’t hurt much if he wasn’t thinking about it.
Not much pain at all. Hey, isn’t pain French for bread? I could sure go for a loaf of pain right now. Get it, H?
Derrick glanced over to see if his friend was laughing, but only saw François opening the closet door. The Frenchman pulled out the rucksack and shoved something inside. He turned and pulled two gloves from a box on the table and stuffed his hands into them. They made funny squelching noises and Derrick couldn’t help but laugh, thinking Howard would make a crude fart joke. He frowned as he remembered he didn’t know where Howard was. Then François turned and leaned down to the floor in the closet and pulled out something dark. His back was turned to Derrick, but he adjusted some straps over his head.
“Whatcha doing, Franky?” Derrick asked, his words slurring.
François didn’t answer, but pulled the hood of a black sweat jacket up, from under his bomber jacket.
Pulling the hood over his head, the Frenchman turned to face the bed, and Derrick screamed.
An insectoid face peered out from under the hood.
“I must go.” The insect was clearly speaking accented English, but the voice was muffled and hollow. There were LEDs on each side of the perfectly round eyes. Derrick squinted against the brightness. A proboscis ran from the thing’s face and down to a box at the creature’s waist. It turned slightly and scooped some things off the table and into the open rucksack. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, it stalked toward Derrick. “Sorry, my friend,” the fly-thing said, “I hope we can continue our chat soon. Bon nuit.”
The creature pulled something from its jacket and Derrick recognized the small handheld aerosol just a moment too late.
Oh yeah, that’s not an insect, it’s Franky in a gas mask ...
Two tiny puffs of air washed over his face, then everything went black.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“WAKE UP, SLEEPING BEAUTY.”
Ah dang it, not again. Derrick’s head was fuzzy and pounding in rhythm to his pulse. If I get puffed by that aerosol one more time, I swear ...
Derrick cracked his eyes open. The room was shades of beige and brown with a bright tinge of sunlight flooding in from where he remembered the window was. Prizing open his gummed eyelids, the room twisted and tilted. He felt his stomach lurch. Then he realized he was staring into Howard’s grinning mug.
“Holy Crap! H!” Derrick croaked, his throat dry.
“The one and only,” Howard said. He dropped a med kit annoyingly close to Derrick’s broken leg and opened it up. He pulled out an inflatable field-splint with a wire wrap. “Dude, this’s some nice work here,” he said, peering under the bandage, “You’re alone here though, so did ya set your own femur then stitch up the wound yourself?”
Derrick groaned in pain as Howard manipulated his leg. His stomach flipped, and he turned his head and vomited over the edge of the bed. Howard deftly dodged the green bile that splashed to the floor.
Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Derrick said, “Sure did. Right after I dragged myself ... uh, how far did I drag myself?”
“Almost seventy kilometers”
“Right. I stitched my own leg right after I dragged myself seventy klicks to my little country cottage here.”
Howard wrapped the splint with the wire and ran some wide tape across the top where the skin might rub. “Stitches look good, D, but can’t tell how the bone is set without an x-ray. Might need to rebreak this and reset it when we get you home.”
“Man, you get me home and the docs can do whatever they like.”
“How’s the pain? You need morphine?”
“No, but a couple aspirin for this raging headache would
be cool.” Derrick’s eyes were half-closed.
Looking in the med kit, Howard pulled out a small package, and tore it open with his teeth. He reached for the water bottle on the shelf.
“Whoa, stop, H!”
Howard looked at Derrick.
“That stuff’s drugged. He put something in the water.”
“No shit?” He handed the two aspirin to Derrick and said, “Sorry dude, I don’t have any other water on me.”
Derrick popped them into his mouth and crunched them up. The taste was bitter, dry, and hard to swallow without much saliva. He coughed several times but managed to get it all down.
Howard was up and moving around the room, snapping photos with his phone.
“You get the guy that grabbed me?” Derrick asked.
“There’s no one else here, buddy. We did a thermal overflight. Yours was the only reading ... Well, except for some deer in the brush just north of here.”
“Think they could be using therm-suits?” Therm-suits worked like most insulating fabrics but blocked 98 percent of a person’s body heat from radiating, turning the wearer nearly invisible to thermal imaging devices.
“If they are, we’ll get ‘em when they move. Sarah’s running your mass-vector-protocol up in the Raven.” The Raven was DCV’s helicopter ... the one Sarah almost never requisitioned.
“Sweet.”
“Yep. She’ll see anything dog-size or larger that moves in the area. I have a feeling though, whoever kidnapped you, made a clean getaway before we arrived.” Howard pulled the front door open and hauled in some plastic boxes and bags. He grabbed gloves from his pants pocket and pulled them on. Opening the first bin he transferred the contents of the table top inside.
“François,” Derrick said, twisting slightly to lean on one elbow.
“Non, monsieur, je suis désolé, je m'appelle Howard.”
“What?”
“‘No Sir, I’m sorry, my name is Howard.’ It’s French you know.” Howard was squatting down, pressing the lid in place. He looked up from the box, grinning.
