by Edward Lee
The whisper drifted. “A monster baby...”
All right. Shock. A mental breakdown, plus whatever Frank’s done to her. I’ve got to get her to a doctor, Hazel knew. But that wouldn’t be easy. Getting a half-crazy pregnant woman all the way back down the trail would take...
All night, if she doesn’t miscarry in the process.
But she had no choice.
“Come on, we’re going home.” Hazel got Sonia on her feet, got her shoes and sundress back on. But she had to ask, “Sonia. Whose eyes are those?” pointing to lumps in the bloody puddle. “Are they—”
“They’re Frank’s,” Sonia said and gulped. “He said he pulled them out himself and then those things replaced them with red crystals, smaller versions of the Shining Trapezohedron. Frank showed them to me—”
“Sonia, you’re delirious—”
“—when he took off his sunglasses.”
The comment froze Hazel’s stare. Sunglasses. Just like...my nightmare... But then Sonia had insisted that it was no nightmare at all, that Frank had really been in Henry’s cabin last night. Yes, the reference to the sunglasses bothered Hazel very much, and also her mentioning robed “things” with “tentacles” for arms and legs. All too similar to what she’d seen—or thought she’d seen—in the jpeg of the Shining Trapezohedron...
Somehow, now, she knew that the focal point of all this weirdness, and all this insanity, was the Shining Trapezohedron.
Hazel had it with her in the plastic bag she’d brought, along with the metal box—
And along with the pistol she’d found in Henry’s desk drawer.
It took a great deal of effort to assist Sonia in squeezing her girth through the narrow window. But after she got Sonia all the way back outside...
She paused, still in the cottage.
“Hazel!” Sonia shot a whisper. “Come on! ”
“No, wait.” Hazel turned. She was looking back at the door. “I have to see, ” and then she strode for the door.
“No! Don’t! It’s some other place, Hazel! Some other dimension!
If you go in there, they’ll put a monster-baby in you too!”
We’ll see about that, Hazel thought. She didn’t hesitate to turn the knob and swing the door wide.
Hazel shouted. A gust of wind nearly took her off her feet. The lowering sun filled the room with an orangish tinge, something to be fully expected, and beyond stretched the heavily wooded valley, the lake, and the town.
“Do you see this, Sonia?” she shouted over the wind. “It’s just the town down there! There’s no monsters! There’s no other dimension.”
“That’s what you think...”
The wind whistled. Hazel began to push the door back against the fading gust, but she stopped when she thought she heard:
“Don’t go, Hazel. You don’t understand. There are wonders that await.”
Though the words wavered with the wind, she knew they were Frank’s.
“It’s Nyarlathotep,” the voice eddied back. “The messenger.”
“I’m not hearing this!” Hazel screeched to herself. “It’s hallucination!”
“Help us deliver the message, Hazel—yes, you and Sonia. Wait till the conduction flux refreshes, then you can come in here too...”
Hazel slammed the door shut, then slipped out the window.
“I know you heard him, Hazel...”
“I heard nothing,” she denied, taking Sonia’s arm and leading her through the pale mist. “I only think I heard something—”
“Frank.”
“—because of the power of suggestion.”
“I’ll bet you saw black mist, too,” Sonia insisted.
Hazel stiffened.
“That’s what Frank’s breath was like whenever he talked. It was black, not like this mist out here, but like the mist that crawled up from the floor. It held me there...”
Hazel shook it off, urging Sonia along. Don’t think. Just walk.
And a long walk it was, with Sonia stumbling and talking nonsense all the way. It was past midnight when they’d finally reached the bottom of Whipple’s Peak, and were back in the car and on their way out.
“Where are we going?” Sonia murmured from the passenger seat. She lolled groggily, cradling the great belly with distaste.
“I’m not sure,” Hazel said. Her hands gripped the wheel as her mind raced for answers.
“Oh, I’m so tired...But I don’t want to go back to the cabin.”
“Sonia, we’re never going back to the cabin, or that fuckin’ cottage either, unless it’s with dynamite.”
The tires hummed over asphalt; in front of them, the headlights bored into the darkness. “I’m thinking we should just drive back to Providence, get you to a doctor—”
“Yes! For an abortion!” Sonia moaned at the sight of her belly. “I have to get this monster out of me, and there’s no point worrying about Frank. He’s one of them now, in the other dimension.”
She’s hopeless, Hazel realized. But too much of what she’d said still simmered in her. She didn’t believe in portents, nor did she believe in shared dreams. But what other explanation could there be? Something I either don’t understand or haven’t thought of yet, so forget it. But one thing she could not forget was the plastic bag in the back seat.
That fucking crystal, and that box. Her mind ticked as the car whizzed through the road’s long curves. And right now Horace is making more of them, because someone unidentified had paid him to...
It had to be Frank.
The tire-sound had lulled Sonia to sleep. The Shining Trapezohedron, and the box, Hazel thought. Somehow they’re connected to everything that’s wrong...
Maybe Horace could remember something more that Henry Wilmarth said. There was nothing else to go on...
Instead of heading straight out of town, Hazel pulled off on the tree-lined dirt road to Horace’s.
Thank God he’s home. She saw lights on in the trailer and his pickup parked out front. Sonia remained asleep so Hazel grabbed the bag, jumped out, and trotted to the trailer.
On the rickety porch, she paused as a breeze set off a dozen tubular wind chimes. It was a lovely, melodic sound, even in its disorder. But then, between the notes, tiny words seemed to wander to her ears...
“Hazel, my child. I adjure you...”
She winced, shook her head, and strode on.
“Horace!” she yelled, banging on the thin metal door. “It’s me, Hazel! Please! I need to talk to you!”
She banged but there was no answer. Could he be asleep? Through all that racket?
She tried the knob, found it unlocked, and went in. Silence and dim lights greeted her. The TV was on with the sound off: a Japanese chef on some flamboyant cooking show. He brought a cleaver straight down the middle of a coconut, splitting it in half. “Horace?” she called. Each footstep caused the trailer floor to creak. Her brow furrowed; she entered his workroom...
What she noticed first was that Horace wasn’t present. What she noticed second was that the shelf on which he’d been storing the clay boxes was vacant.
What she noticed third was the suitcase.
It lay open on Horace’s worktable, a standard-sized Samsonite. It was filled with dozens of the clay boxes. Hazel didn’t bother counting them but if she had, she’d have counted exactly thirty-three of them.
The mystery order is finished, she realized. But WHERE is Horace?
Careful footfalls took her through the trailer’s depths. The cubby-sized bathroom? Empty. A storeroom and a small bedroom? No sign of Horace either. Only one more door remained, at the hall’s end.
As she approached, she heard a sound–a wet sound–that instantly reminded her of fellatio. Slick, steady, rhythmic. She froze. Shit! Maybe his girlfriend’s home on leave! Maybe she’s in there right now...
The slick, wet sound drew on.
The door stood minutely ajar. Hazel put her eye to the gap and looked down.
You’ve got to be shitting
me...
In the slice-like gap, she was able to detect what could only be Horace’s bare hips. He lay on the bed, and at his groin, a suitor was indeed performing fellatio. But Horace’s fat penis, which she’d seen in all its turgid glory only nights before, was flaccid, yet his suitor was sucking with gusto nonetheless. Certainly all men experienced erectile dysfunction on occasion, even sexual works of art such as Horace. This, however, was not the oddity that roused Hazel’s concern.
The “suitor” was not Horace’s girlfriend. It was no girl at all, in fact.
It was Mr. Pickman, from the curiosity shop.
There’s no way Horace is gay, she resolved. No way.
None of her business, true, but Hazel pushed the door all the way open. Mr. Pickman continued to tend to Horace’s groin, sucking voraciously at the very flaccid organ. Horace lay still on the bed, jeans down to mid-thigh. The angle of the door blocked his head from Hazel’s view.
“What are you doing?” Hazel demanded.
Mr. Pickman paid the query no mind at all. He just kept going at it, head bobbing steadily, bad toupee askew. He’d perched himself at the edge of the bed.
“Mr. Pickman!” she bellowed. “Horace! What the fuck is this?”
Pickman’s head slowed, then stopped. He looked up quizzically, and when he recognized Hazel standing there, he smirked.
“You’re shitting me, right? You two are lovers? ”
The smirk deepened. Then Pickman, first, straightened his toupee, then fiddled with his hearing aid.
“Blasted thing. Cost six thousand dollars,” he muttered.
Hazel could not repress being taken aback.
“Step farther into the room, miss, and all your questions shall likely be answered.” He chuckled. “Well, one of them, at any rate.”
Hazel did so, turned toward Horace...What she saw slammed her back against the wall.
The reason Horace lay so still during the oral ministration was now clear: he was dead. His face was split, his head having been halved very precisely from the center of the crown of his skull to his adam’s apple. Blood drenched the pillow on which his head lay.
It was perhaps Hazel’s rather demented subconscious that framed the exact words to her demand: “Why are you sucking a dead man’s dick?”
Aggravated, Pickman stood up. “Well, if you must know, it’s something I’ve always longed to do,” came the high, creaky voice. “You see, I’ve always loved the man but, as is generally the case, Horace was not bent to the same proclivities as I. What’s the old saying? You can have what you don’t want, but what you want you’ll never have?”
Hazel was mortified. “So, what? You told him you wanted to suck his dick? And then he turns you down so you kill him?”
“Oh, no, no, no,” he fussed. “I knew Horace would never consent, but I always imagined his cock was magnificent. It was providential that I’d never get to see it while he was alive, but what’s the harm, really, now that he’s dead?”
“Somebody cut his head in half!” Hazel shouted. “If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
“Oh, I confess to the deed”—he bent over—“but I did not end Horace’s life for the reason you seem to be harboring.” He rose again, hoisting a double-bladed ax. “I did it with this, and not too bad of a job, if I may say so. But you must understand that I didn’t want to kill Horace. I was instructed to.”
“Instructed by who?”
“Our emissary.”
Emissary? “Is his name Frank? Frank Barlow?”
Pickman paused. “I never did get his name, but nevertheless he’s our indoctrinator. An amiable enough chap, I suppose, if a bit testy at times.” Pickman pointed toward Hazel’s cross. “Like your Jesus, he can walk on water.”
Hazel’s tone lowered. “Was he wearing sunglasses?”
Pickman seemed surprised. “Why, yes! So you know of him.”
She had to keep her eyes averted from Horace so she could think. Frank ordered this fruitloop to kill Horace, AFTER Horace finished the clay boxes. “And you’re the one who put all the boxes in the suitcase, right?”
“Right, again.” He huffed. “But they’re hardly mere boxes, miss. I’d explain but I’m certain you’d never understand. Understanding only comes after indoctrination.”
“The box is some kind of a carrier or activator for the Shining Trapezohedron, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” Pickman said. “I’m impressed.”
“Horace told me the box is supposed to hold the crystal, like some sort of a storage box, but Wilmarth’s notes referred to it as a ‘power carrier.’ The only thing I can guess is that you put the crystal in the box, then...something happens.”
“Something incredible,” Pickman intoned, but now his eyes had drifted down to the sagging plastic bag. “Miss, if I may? Is that the Shining Trapezohedron you have there?”
“Yeah,” she said at once. “And the gold box from Henry’s cabin.”
Pickman contemplated something. “Give it to me, please, then you may go. I’ve no instructions to kill you. ”
“I’m not giving you shit,” she blurted.
Pickman’s eyes rolled; he hefted the ax. “Need I remind you of the implement in my hands? If you don’t give me the crystal, I’ll simply take it, after I do to you what I did to Horace.”
Hazel pulled out the revolver and pointed it.
“My, oh, my...”
“Yeah.” Hazel eyed him with complete disdain. “Why did you call Frank an ‘indoctrinator?’”
Pickman sat down at the bed, took a last forlorn glance at Horace’s dead genitals, and slumped. “Because he indoctrinated us all–the chosen. He helped us see the truth, he brought us into the fold, when he came to us.”
“In dreams?” Hazel reasoned. “He came to you in a dream, and there was black mist coming out of the floor?”
Pickman looked quizzical. “Surely you haven’t been indoctrinated.” He looked closely at her hands. “If so, you’d have a ring.”
“Like that one on your finger?” she challenged, noticing the uneven scarlet stone, just smaller than a marble.
“Yes. I’m afraid I was being disingenuous when I told you it was a Nova Scotian corundum.”
Hazel was getting a headache trying to make sense of this. But there was still the objective problem of what to do with Mr. Pickman. Questions, however, continued to peck at her.
She noticed no such ring on Horace’s corpse.
“Horace wasn’t ‘indoctrinated,’ as you say. But he still must be part of what’s going on. He made all those boxes.”
“He’s no more a part of it than you are, miss. He was merely an unknowing pawn. Our only interest in him had to do with his skill as a craftsman.”
“So he didn’t really even know what he was making.”
“No, the poor fool. And when he’d completed the task...” Pickman raised the ax.
“You killed him ‘cos you didn’t need him anymore.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Frank, she kept thinking. It’s all centered around Frank.
“So Frank indoctrinated certain people into this cult of yours—”
“Not a cult. A congregation.”
“Fine. But what’s this got to do with thirty-three passport applications for a bunch of local rubes?”
“My, you do know a lot,” he said. “But I’m afraid on that note, I’ll elect to keep silent.”
Hazel leveled the gun.
“I’m not afraid to die, miss, because, in a sense, I won’t die, just as the emissary promised.” He smiled, pointing again to her tiny cross. “Our god is much more generous in the dispensation of immortality that yours. ”
What was the name I heard? Hazel strained her memory. “Narl-something? Narlo...”
“Nyarlathotep...” His thin-lipped grin beamed. “Give me the Shining Trapezohedron and you can enjoy the fruits of the Messenger as well.”
“Nyarlathotep. The Messenger.” Hazel stared. “But...who is
he a messenger for?”
“And even greater god,” Pickman whispered dreamily. “Yog Sothoth.”
The word was familiar, wasn’t it? Yes! Henry’s computer password! “All right. Then what’s the message?”
“I’m afraid it’s not for me to say—”
Bam!
Hazel’s hand jerked up when she squeezed off one round into Mr. Pickman’s belly. The ax clunked, and Pickman was shoved to the wall where he slumped to the floor, blood pouring.
Agony contorted his face. “Whuh—why did you do that?”
Hazel shrugged. “Let’s see. One, you murdered Horace and I liked Horace. Two, your pursy face pisses me off. Three, I hate that arrogant, pedantic tone of voice of yours. And four?” She glowered at him. “Your paintings suck.”
Pickman gurgled, looking up at her appalled. Hazel put the gun down and picked up the ax. She lined the blade up with the middle of Pickman’s head, steadied herself, then took a deep breath and raised the ax high, arching her back, lifting up on tiptoes, and then—
Swoosh!
She drove the blade back down in a perfect arc. The impact split Pickman’s head in half, in fact, splitting the entire neck and stopping only at the sternum.
Somebody needs a hug...and I guess it’s me. She looked at Pickman’s halved head, then rationalized that he deserved it for killing Horace. An eye for an eye, a cut-in-half head for a cut-in-half head.
Hazel grabbed the bag and walked back to Horace’s work room. She had every intention of retrieving the suitcase full of clay boxes but when she looked down, that intention became moot.
The suitcase was gone.
“Fuck.”
She left the trailer in haste, fairly sure that her nostrils had detected the smell of raw meat...
Hazel drove just short of lead-footing it, soaring down the road’s long curves, heavy-boughed trees passing on either side. The only guy in this whole fucked up town I trust is dead. So, what now?
The tires shimmied through another winding turn. Wait a minute. There IS one other person I trust...
Several minutes later, her headlights roved across the front of Bosset’s Way Woodland Tavern. The parking lot looked full. “Sonia, I’m going inside to talk to Clonner, then I’ll be right back out, okay?” She nudged the groggy Sonia. “Okay?” Sonia nodded sleepily, mumbled something, then drifted back to sleep.
