The Cry of Cthulhu: Formerly: The Alchemist's Notebook

by Byron Craft

  If you are seeking entry into an expanding nationally recognized corporation. Need key person with knowledge of photography for supervisory position with rapidly growing firm. Good pay, excellent benefits, with many opportunities for advancement. No previous job experience necessary. Veterans preferred.

  Apply in person at...

  The address that was given belonged to a temporary office that had been hastily set up behind a vacated storefront off of forty-second street, much like those that spring up at tax time, boasting cheap assistance, auditing individual returns.

  I figured that I didn’t have one chance in hell to get the job and knew how swamped they would have been with applicants. It had run in the previous Friday’s paper and by the time I read it, the ad was a week old. The position had to have been filled. If it hadn’t been for the blurb about photography I naturally would have assumed it to be another come on to sell vacuum cleaners door to door. My curiosity was up, I had nothing to loose and it at least deserved investigation.

  When I arrived at the address, I was pleased to see that they were still accepting applications. It wasn’t difficult to notice because a string of hungry applicants were lined up outside the front entrance for a block and a half, and taking into account the size of a city block in New York, that made for a heluva long line.

  The wait cost me over three hours and when my turn came around I was certain that I wasn’t going to get the job. If anything made up my mind for me that afternoon it was the conversation I struck up with a fellow from Pittsburg in line in front of me. He was ten years older than me, well polished and packing a very impressive portfolio with fifteen years experience to his credit. He was out there looking to relocate. He was willing to pack up the wife, kids and worldly goods, lock, stock and barrel and move to the big apple the moment he found something in his field. I was convinced that if anyone got the job it would be him.

  When my turn finally came I was directed to a small desk. There were only two other people in the room. One sat behind the desk shuffling papers and the other stood at the door ushering applicants in and out.

  The interviewer, if he can be called that, was very brief. He was a nervous, thin lipped man with the disgusting habit of salivating excessively so that the corners of his mouth welled up with little beads of moisture. He was about my age, but an unusual skin defect made him appear older. The skin on his neck was heavily wrinkled into folds and a kind of greasiness about the fellow added to my dislike. He was evidently given to hanging about the fish docks because he carried with him much of the characteristic smell.

  The man never looked up at me for more than a second at a time and refused to examine my portfolio. He was more preoccupied with starring at my hands while he kept his folded. He had little more than a worthless regard for my resume and asked few questions regarding my experience. Instead he was more interested in my personal life rather than if I knew one end of a camera from another. He asked where I was born, questions about my family background and military service. I questioned what it had to do with the job requirements and the interviewer replied that the owner of the company was a devoted family man and it was his policy to take great interest in the backgrounds of all his employees. He said “family” in a peculiar almost cooing voice and smiled when he said it.

  I found him even less cooperative when inquiring after the type of position and the company that offered it. The only explanation the interviewer would give was that it had to do with running a photo lab.

  I left there that afternoon knowing less than when I went in. I saw the gentleman from Pittsburg by the curb trying to hail a cab. We both smiled at one another and shrugged our shoulders. I guessed he had received the same run around as I did.

  ***

  “Fat chance” is what I said when Janet asked if I got the job. My conviction did not remain steadfast through breakfast the next day. Our morning meal was interrupted by a telephone call. A woman’s voice on the other end of the line said the job was mine. She didn’t ask if I still wanted the position just that I was to report to work the next day.

  I am not going to dwell on what happened next but will try to briefly outline some of the more unusual events while under the stateside employ of Emmerson and Pryne. By the way, that is the firm’s name. They are a public relations company, a very classy firm, as their uptown address indicated. A tall chrome and glass structure overlooking the Hudson.

  They made me a good offer. Truthfully, I would have accepted any offer. I couldn’t understand why I was chosen over all the other applicants. I hadn’t even finished college. I didn’t openly question their reasons because I was certain it had been a mistake. They probably had me mixed up with another applicant and I wasn’t about to say anything for fear they would recognize their error and I would be back on the street again.

  Emmerson-Pryne, public relations, had a wealthy client base comprised of large corporations and government service contracts. They would take ground floor products, concepts, up and coming politicians and even new ideas in law enforcement and legislature and promote them favorably into the public eye. Most of the work was done on a consulting basis outlining new programs and supplying data but some of it was commercially handled by the firm. Primarily in the line of new products and politicians. That was where I came in. It sounded to me like a field that would be in need of my photography skills. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the part I eventually played wasn’t all that glamorous.

  After completing a very thorough medical examination, another of the company’s policies, I was shut away in a darkroom with the tedious task of developing someone else’s work.

  My involvement with other employees in the firm was seldom, most of my dealings were with Falbridge, the nervous little man with the continuous drool, and he kept me so busy that I hardly had a chance to meet anyone. At times, the work would pile up and I would have to take my lunch in the lab. I hadn’t the opportunity to meet the owner but Falbridge was continually full of praise and said on many occasions that Mr. Pryne was very pleased with my work. This was a bit of a surprise because most of the work was mundane. What was given to me was handed over with little or no instructions as to what was to be done. Sometimes I was given exposed film never really knowing if I was to just develop the negatives, make prints or blow ups. I spent a good deal of time once making enlargements. A lot of it was commercial work. New products, mostly in the electronics field, and children’s toys.

  I did work for a whole week touching up a series of publicity photos for a governor and ex-real estate magnate that had entered the presidential primaries.

  Their political track record was astounding. Out of thirty-three Senatorial candidates across the country that they had helped promote, twenty-seven of them had attained office. Most of this work was done by someone else and I was left with the lonely and tiring tasks of simple printing and developing. When I first came there, I was told that I would be running a photo lab. I thought I would be working with other people.

  A straight diet of this soon developed into a lack of enthusiasm. I began to play around with the material that was given me. On one occasion, I printed every other frame on a roll of negatives, just to see what the reaction would be. Once I did some enlargements where I purposely overexposed the entire batch. In all cases, the work was accepted with the highest praise from Falbridge and never returned.

  I had definitely grown bored after two long tedious months of this and would sneak in books, a radio and a thermos of coffee to kill the time. It wasn’t difficult to bring in comforts from home. I was instructed to use a rear entrance by Falbridge. He said that Mr. Pryne forbade his employees to use the front entrance, although I never met any of the employees when I arrived daily, because the entrance was right across the hall from my lab. I even had my own private restroom in the lab. So I had no idea if Mr. Pryne’s rule was strictly enforced, besides in my case.

  After a while my work fell behind and I would only turn out a bare minimum so as to
have something to give Falbridge at the end of each day. My skin grew pale from continual darkness and I soon gave way to listening to footsteps at the keyhole.

  I had been instructed that if I was to leave the building I was to take my lunch at one. Whereas my keen listening had perceived everyone else broke for theirs at twelve. I felt like a freak, left out of everything, a crazy relative shut away in a closet.

  Determined to mingle with the other employees, one day at noon when I heard them coming from the other end of the building, I threw open the door to my lab and leaned against the jamb maintaining a casual manner. There were at least a dozen people coming down the hall in my direction.

  Several of them were limping and one had so much difficulty that he needed the aid of a metal walker. All wore dark glasses. Some were clad in white lab coats and the rest in dark suits. I only saw their features briefly, because when they noticed me they turned away, covering their faces. The ones I saw their skin was shinny, oily and their noses flattened.

  I remember thinking that they looked disfigured, as if by fire or disease. Two appeared to have physical deformities. One, a woman attempted to conceal her hand within the lab coat she wore. It looked flattened and narrow. I could not discern any separation of the fingers and the impression I got was that of a flipper rather than a hand. The man in the walker moved along with a peculiar shambling gait and his feet were abnormally large. The more I studied them, the more I wondered how he could find shoes to fit them.

  A grotesque thought struck me while watching the unusual procession. I remembered reading once about the physical defects caused by thalidomide. It was a sedative used in the late 1950’s to treat morning sickness. Thalidomide was withdrawn from the market after being found to cause severe birth defects. I had heard tales of small societies of the commonly afflicted people. I wondered if this was one of those groups.

  My demeanor changed but I kept up a pretty good front so I wouldn’t offend any of them. Before I could open my mouth Falbridge appeared from behind pressing me into the lab, inquiring if there was anything I needed.

  “Who are those people?” I demanded once inside.

  “They are employees of Mr. Pryne. They are of a special nature and I must ask you not to interfere.” He hesitated briefly, then patted me on the shoulder. “They are very sensitive and Mr. Pryne doesn’t want them upset.”

  He left, closing the door behind him. His manner, although firm, was sincere and I felt like a fool. I was beginning to get the picture of this Mr. Pryne. He must have had a particular interest in the severely handicapped, so much so that he had dedicated an entire department just for them and my presence would only make them feel uncomfortable. I gave up any further attempts at making social contacts with anyone in the building besides Falbridge and went back to listening at keyholes only to pass the time.

  There were others that I heard coming and going besides at lunch. One in particular would travel from one end of the hall at two-thirty every afternoon, then fifteen minutes later I would hear him walking in the other direction. I am sure it was the same person both times because of the unique sound of the shuffling strides. The person must have been badly crippled and probably used a cane or crutches to help propel themselves along. The noise of his walk through the keyhole resembled a short hop followed by the dragging of feet.

  It was at these times between the coming and going of the footsteps, that I detected an odor. It was a fishy smell. Like the odor I detected on Falbridge during the interview. At times I couldn’t detect the odor on him while, at others, the faint scent was apparent. On the occasions of the shuffling feet the odor was much stronger.

  Remembering my embarrassing encounter with the other people in the building, I set upon an idea to get a view of my two-thirty traveler. The cracks around the door to my darkroom were shielded by pieces of weather stripping used to block any light from leaking in, that might spoil undeveloped film, and consequently didn’t afford me a view of anything on the other side. I removed the screws securing the metal and rubber strips one afternoon and shortly after two placed my chair next to the door and sat there waiting. When the half hour struck the shuffling and hopping began. Whoever was in the hall crossed in front of the door and a shadow blocked out the light. The smell was stronger than ever and the shadow lingered. I became upset, unglued. Whoever it was, was just standing outside my door...possibly listening or trying to peak in through the keyhole. Then it dawned on me. This had been happening every afternoon. What I mistook for the common comings and goings of one lone person down the hall as two separate jaunts were in reality just one with a rest stop at my door for a fifteen minute interval.

  The full quarter of an hour elapsed with me sitting there facing the closed door trying to summon up the courage needed to fling it open and see who was on the other side. The smell as I said was stronger than before, probably because of the removal of the strip from around the jamb. It also enabled me to detect breathing. Twice I reached out for the doorknob but my hand on both occasions dropped to my side after loosing the nerve. At 2:45 my visitor departed and I just sat there staring at the closed door.

  I never related these events to Janet. Oh, she knew that I wasn’t too happy with the job, but the money was good and when I returned home at the end of a day all nonsense of the afternoon was dispelled by our happy home life. That evening was different though. I started to take my job home with me, mostly in the privacy of my own thoughts, but I am sure Janet detected the change.

  I decided that I had to get out of that darkroom either by means of a promotion, a transfer or as a last resort by way of a resignation.

  An idea had come to me while developing a batch of photos given to me by Falbridge. He had requested a series of large blowups made from specific frames. The request itself wasn’t unusual, but as I came to learn after working there for a while, that any request, no matter how small, from Falbridge in regards to my work was abnormal. I didn’t question him at all but rather attacked the job with a new found zeal for I felt that I was given my first assignment since I joined the nuthouse.

  The photographs were unlike anything I had developed for them. I couldn’t see where they had any commercial or political value at all.

  They were aerial photos, the kind used for geological map making. Most of it was of the countryside but there was a small town pictured in a few of the shots. I had no idea where they had been taken. I found myself staring at them for a long time. I wished myself into the small town, wondered how many people lived there and what they were like.

  That was when this idea struck me. The photo of the town reminded me of a time years ago when I was stuck in a little burg in Indiana and the sale of a portrait of the town hall to the mayor awarded me with enough money to escape. Falbridge had mentioned to me in passing one day that they were going to do the cover for a special issue of “Life Magazine.” The cover story was to depict the anniversary of the World Trade Center. The company had never seen any of my work as a photographer and if I could be awarded the cover photo, my life with Emmerson-Pryne could change radically.

  I wasted little time in putting my plan into effect. I had to wait until the following Tuesday for an overcast day to get the right light. It had rained the night before and the effect was tremendous. I used up two rolls of thirty-six exposure on the Twin Towers in order to insure the proper angle and about the same on the Empire State Building.

  I know you’re probably wondering what the Empire State Building had to do with my project. I won’t bother with the details but I did what is called a paste-up in the lab. I found a remarkable old photograph at the library of a dirigible in flight. I copied and reduced its size and had it hovering over the top of the old skyscraper. Over the World Trade Center I air brushed in a jet stream. The end results had the skyscrapers side by side in a wide angle perspective, leaning away from one another, contrasting the old with the new.

  I blew the whole thing up to cover size and waited for Falbridge. He came ar
ound at his usual time but on this occasion I had two parcels for him. One parcel was the aerial photo assignment and the other with my work inside. I had taken the liberty to mark the outside “Attention Ephraim Pryne”. When I handed him mine, I said that they were for Mr. Pryne personally. I received a raised eyebrow for my boldness but Falbridge was condescending as usual. When he took the package I noticed for the first time a webbing of flesh between the forefinger and middle finger of his left hand.

  After it was all over, I felt a bit nervous wondering if I might have been out of line. I went home that evening, still wondering.

  My usual solitary arrival was disturbed the next morning when I discovered Falbridge waiting for me in my lab. He came to deliver a message. Mr. Pryne wanted to see me. Falbridge seemed irritated at having to fetch me but he did confess that Pryne had liked the work I turned in. “Life” didn’t use my photo that month, nor any month after that. My work had been knocked down in favor of an article about the Trade Center’s excessive expenditures during construction and the loss of profitability from its original projections. A monument to New York’s dying economy. A real epitaph for an anniversary.

  What the boss did like was my enlargements of the aerial work. It came as an ego deflating compliment, if you can imagine such a thing, and would have spoiled my whole day except for the nature of our first encounter.

  Stepping out of the elevator onto the top floor I couldn’t help but notice that the halls were literally adorned with fire protection equipment. There were twice as many extinguishers than on the ground floor, with manually operated alarm boxes at every ten or twelve feet and an abundance of heat sensing alarms and sprinkler heads cluttering the ceiling tiles.

  Falbridge noticed my curiosity and chuckled in a voice that had almost a maniacal ring saying that, “water is the enemy of fire.”

  He led me through a set of double doors into a large study.

  Mr. Pryne’s office was a penthouse. A large office was at the center with adjoining rooms running in all directions. Many of them probably housed his living quarters but I never saw them. I suspected that he lived there all year around. The room smelled from the excessive use of air freshener. The atmosphere felt heavy and moist. There was a set of glass doors off to the right of a large desk that overlooked a patio. The area beyond the doors was generously landscaped with bushes and shrubs that had been allowed to become overgrown and wild. In the center was a swimming pool that showed the signs of being ill-kept. The water had turned green with algae, there were reeds growing up from the bottom and a portion of the watery surface was covered by lily pads.