A Lonely and Curious Country

by Matthew Carpenter

  “A statue,” I say. “A giant fish statue, in the back of the temple.”

  “Pennington claims it was moving.”

  “It was very smoky. We were all of us nerved up.” I shrug. I keep my eyes on Boone. “The air was full of smoke. All those people were howling and dancing. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more than incense in the air.”

  Boone nods, as if he’s thought of that already. He takes a cigarette from the pack at his elbow, lights it, breathes out smoke. It hangs in the stifling air. Behind him, two windows look out on Kingsport from their third-floor vantage point. From here, all I can see is a forest of buildings, but I know that somewhere beyond them lies the harbour. I can feel it.

  “Well,” Boone says. “You’ve come through for us again, Guilford. Any of those creatures get a good look at you?”

  “No, sir. We came in masked.”

  “Good man. Shame we didn’t bring one back. Bastards get more slippery all the time.” He barks a laugh, startled by his own play on words. “What we need us is a proper witness.”

  “What about the man we brought back? The wounded one?”

  “Ah. Yes. Your man.” Boone tamps ash into a cut-glass dish. The light from above highlights every crease of his jowls. He looks up, one eye staring through milky film into the middle distance. The other eye is fixed on me. “Your man,” he says. “Broke a chair leg into a stake, put it to his eye, and fell down on top of it.” Boone’s bad eye seems to water, as if in sympathy. “Old Dave Gilman’s in there right now, cleaning up the mess.”

  ***

  I am very young. There is little in my head but sky and water. I sit on a rotten stump of dock that juts out from below the overhanging eaves of an abandoned building. My legs dangle over the edge, into the salty swill. My sister cuts the webbing between each of my toes with a pair of medical shears. It hurts. My blood dyes the water red. She packs gauze into the wounds, then swathes each foot in a dirty, oversized sock. She stands hip-deep in the water, her tools on the dock beside me. The tide washes in and out, in and out, around her. The sun comes out like a pale eye from behind a filmy scrim of cloud, and she turns her unblinking gaze up to it, eyes full of wet, pearlescent colors.

  ***

  Royal Pennington stares into a mug of beer, his face set and hard, as if expecting something unpleasant to emerge from the foam. The bar is empty on this dreary afternoon, and the air hangs still and stale, sour with the ghosts of spilled pints.

  "Christ," Pennington says. "This whole county's wrong. You know that?"

  Jim Robertson, half obscured by the smoke of his own cigar, cocks an eyebrow but says nothing.

  "I mean it," Pennington says. "It's like being dosed with something. I can't hardly stand it. He turns on his barstool to face me. "You were born here?"

  "In Kingsport, yes."

  "Well I'm from Boston, and I'm telling you this whole goddamn part of the world ought to just sink into the mud. Christ." He grimaces. "We should have had back-up. Where was the goddamn back-up?"

  "We ain't all that important," Robertson says. "Rad Div has got teams all around here, up in Arkham, down in Vermont. If you're saying we're understaffed-"

  "I am."

  "I agree with you. What do you want to do about it?"

  "I'm like to quit and go drive a bus, at this rate."

  The door opens and Robert Harkaway steps inside, doffing his hat and shaking the rain from his coat. He joins us at the bar, but does not sit. His height, and the light in the room, combine to make him loom. "I've just come from Boone's office," he says. "Eamon Blakely is dead."

  Nobody says anything.

  Harkaway orders whiskey. He holds it up to the light, as if examining it. "You gents think maybe Washington hasn't got our backs anymore?"

  Pennington turns to him. "What're you saying?"

  Harkaway's eyes flick from his glass to Pennington. "What do you think I'm saying?"

  "Hoover's as concerned about the froggies as anyone."

  "You spoke to him, did you?"

  "There are monsters walking around in our world- in our country- preying on our citizens. Our wives and children."

  "There are monsters in Russia who want to turn all of us, our wives and children included, into slaves. Monsters with tanks and bombs, monsters with airplanes." Harkaway downs his whiskey in one go. "You think our government cares about a pack of inbred freaks up in the asshole of New England- no offense, Guilford."

  I wave the comment away.

  "I won't hear this kind of talk," Pennington says. "Not from you, not from anybody." He moves as if to stand up from his barstool.

  "Look," Harkaway says. "I apologize. I'm angry and I'm shooting my mouth off. I lost a friend today. We all did. Listen, have a beer on me."

  Pennington, not looking at him. "Already got a beer."

  "Have another one. Christ knows we'll need it." Harkaway slides onto a stool and motions for the bartender. "We've a funeral to attend tomorrow."

  We live in the empty shell of an old hotel. When nor'easters blow in hard along the water, the sea will come into our home, emptying into the basement, bringing strange wriggling things in from the depths. On those storm-tossed moonless nights, I sometimes wake to hear cries, or sounds like cries, echoing over the harbour, as if something is calling to the deep water, or from it. Deep calls to deep, in the lonely hours of the night.

  I swim with my sister. We swim as far north as ancient Kingsport, following the deep water currents. We swim about the harbour, out to the tall stone where the white gulls tarry. One night, we swim up to the rocky headlands that form the bowl of the harbour, and into the caves at the water's edge. My sister takes me to the chamber where the great statue of the Father stands, surrounded by candles that never go out. My grandmother is there, and her grandmother, and hers. I am given a new name, which I may not utter, and rites are performed in the glittering waters of low tide.

  When I awake the next morning, I see the world with new eyes.

  ***

  The day is overcast, chilly even at noon. Gray clouds race across the sky, framed by trees whose skeletal arms are already visible behind their dwindling leaves. The funeral is a field of coats, hats held onto heads to keep the biting wind from snatching them. I stand off as far away as I can decently manage, listening to the birds call to one another. Apart from the gathering, and the rusty cries, ancient Kingsport is silent.

  Boone arrives late, parks his car at the cemetery gates, and approaches. His toadlike bulk, swaddled in a massive tan trenchcoat, plows through the windy air like a ship. He approaches me, the plumes from his cigar trailing behind him.

  "McGovern and the Arkham team telephoned me," he says. "They want you to come and take a look at something."

  I nod. "All right."

  "Something that might help us deal with the fr- the batrachians."

  "I'll go tonight."

  "Guilford."

  I turn to look at him.

  "He was very evasive," Boone says. "Wouldn't tell me anything on the phone."

  "Never know who might be tapping the lines," I say.

  "Is all of this..." Boone holds up his hands, as if groping for words. "On the up-and-up? I'm supposed to be in command here, but no one will tell me anything."

  "I'll drive down to Arkham and see. Lot of clever boys at Miskatonic."

  "I know," Boone says. "That's what I'm afraid of." He pauses. "Are you prepared to start again in Innsmouth?"

  "My cover is intact, if that's what you mean."

  "You're certain no one suspects you?"

  "I'm a shirt-tail relative of the Waites. Grandmother's side. They're used to seeing me about."

  "Mm." Boone watches the funeral service for a long moment. "You suspect anything, anything feels off, you get out of there. I can't afford to lose anyone else."

  "I know."

  "And while you're down in Arkham, see if you can get us any back-up. I don't want anyone going back in there without proper support. Chr
ist." He looks up at the sky, as if reading the scudding clouds. "Monsters. What we do to make this country safe, eh Guilford?"

  "This is a legend-haunted part of the world, Mr. Boone. It's old, and it's full of superstitions. But by light, and rationality, and science, we'll drive them all out."

  "I hope so, boy. I surely do."

  ***

  The nameless old man leads me up the steps to the ruined courtyard. The sky overhead is an endless, blameless blue. The gray stone, speckled with gull shit, looks white in the glare of the noonday sun.

  "The world is so very, very old," the man says. "It was old when Mother Hydra and Father Dagon first came from Outside. It was old before time began to mark the passage of year. When the ape-men first learned to crack skulls with the thigh bone of the antelope, it was already so old. It had seen countless civilizations come and go."

  A wind blows out of the hills to the west, stirring the leaves on the trees. Beneath my feet, the vegetation is already reclaiming the courtyard, pushing up through stone with slow, patient feelers.

  "When the ape-men are gone, there will be others," the old man says. "Come from Outside, or brought up from the bosom of this Earth. Perhaps the Old Ones will reclaim the world, and drag it back through gateways of forgetting to the black abyss. Perhaps others will come from the starry oceans, swimming through the void to find us. An abyss of height and an abyss of depth. Do you ever think, child, that when you gaze at the night sky, you look not up, but out?"

  He traces a strange sign on the air before me, and my head begins to swim.

  -there is-

  A gap. A void.

  I wake, shivering, on the bare stone. I stretch my cramped limbs and stand. Night has come. The courtyard is empty. Up above me, cold stars look down on the citadels of Man. I look up. I look out.

  An abyss of height, and an abyss of depth.

  Something passes overhead, obscuring the stars. Something with great, silent wings.

  ***

  I drive to Arkham in the afternoon, and park on the university campus. McGovern and his men are using an empty fraternity house as their base of operations, making regular forays to and from the science wing at all hours. The beer-stained boards of their ramshackle house still resonate with the unsettled, frenetic energy that comes from a concentration of young men. McGovern's team seems to be putting out plenty of their own, on top of it.

  Neiman McGovern is deep in conversation with a local priest when I arrive.

  McGovern: And this church- you know where to find it?

  Priest: No.

  McGovern: Do you know anyone who could find it?

  Priest: No.

  McGovern: If the boy could find it, there must be others. Wasn't there a crowd gathered around, when-

  Priest: I don't know.

  McGovern: Father Paulson...

  Priest: It is not a good place. You would not wish to go there.

  McGovern (standing): Piece of luck, since no one will tell me how to get there. You're dismissed. Keep in touch. We may have more questions for you."

  The priest leaves without comment. McGovern does not see his backward look, but I do.

  "Guilford!" he says, and crosses the room to shake my hand. He has to weave his way around heavy tables scattered with papers and artifacts to get to me. Beside me, close enough for me to grab it and brain McGovern with it if I had a mind, stands the carven black statue that McGovern's people took from the witch-cult in southern Maine. The University had requested that it be deposited into the Armitage archives for study. McGovern, it appeared, had ignored them.

  I shake his hand. "Looks like you aren't making many friends in town."

  "Fucking locals." His pugdog face twists itself up. "Won't say a word because their daddies told them not to. Because it's 'evil'. Because there are some things Washington wasn't meant to know. Shitbags." He is leaning on the table, pushing around papers without realizing it, putting creases in old manuscripts. Near his left hand sits an open copy of Geoffrey's People of the Monolith, notes scribbled in the margins in fountain pen. Next to that is a book I don't immediately recognize until I crane my head around to read the text. It's a page-for-page copy of the Wormius Necronomicon. Apparently there are still some things the university can't be bullied into parting with.

  "Guilford. Up here." McGovern snaps his fingers under my nose. "I want your full attention on this. Washington needs you, boy."

  I stare at him.

  "Rad Div can't spare the men for a raid on Innsmouth."

  "No kidding."

  "Washington is a busy place, Guilford. They have bigger fish to fry-" He pauses to laugh at his own joke. "Hem. Bigger fish to fry than a town full of inbred freaks." He leans toward me and lowers his voice. "Our boys are out there, right now, making America safe. There are Communists and Fascists and fucking bomb-throwing anarchists just waiting in the wings to come and take down what we've built up. To wreck this great country of ours. Think about it." He straightens. "Anyway. That's where you come in."

  "How so?"

  McGovern gives me what he probably thinks is a hard, appraising look. Then: "Are you familiar with the concept of psychological operations?"

  "No, sir."

  "Come with me. I want to show you something."

  He leads me through the tangled mess of tables into a back room that might once have been a sitting room or library. The shelves have been cleared off and piled willy-nilly with artifacts, boxes, crates, and loose papers. McGovern goes over to a sturdy lockbox, fishes in his pockets for a set of keys, and selects one. He fits it to the lock, opens the box, and takes out a pint-size lab-glass bottle full of liquid. The liquid appears clear to me at first, but when McGovern holds it up to the light, it flouresces briefly with the kinds of colors I see when I rub my eyes too hard. "Any guesses what this is?" McGovern says.

  I shake my head.

  "About twenty years ago, there was a meterorite fell to earth not far from here. It evaporated, but before it did, the bright boys here at the university got a look at it. There was something inside, some kind of chemical, something that could affect your mind. Our boys managed to synthesize it, and mixed it up with an ergot derivative, and- bang-o! Magic." He hands the bottle over to me. I hold it up to the light and watch the colors crawl and bloom over the liquid's surface.

  "Don't look at it for too long," McGovern says. "And don't get any of it on your skin. A few drops of this, and you'll go screaming, pants-pissing mad. We had a volunteer who threw himself out a fifth-story window. Just like that." He looks suddenly uncomfortable.

  "What do you want me to do with-" I pause, as implications come rolling in.

  McGovern smiles.

  "You want me," I say. "To poison the town."

  "Got it in one."

  "Why?"

  "Psychological operations, Guilford. Remember those words. You'll be hearing them a lot in future. We're playing the long game with the Reds now, and it's not enough just to have the biggest guns. We need an edge. And to have that edge we need data."

  I stare at him.

  "Think about it, Guilford. Imagine if we dropped this stuff on Moscow? Imagine if we snuck it into Stalin's vodka supply? We could turn the tide of this conflict in a day."

  "Or start a war."

  McGovern waves this away. "You haven't seen our miracle drug in action. Hell, neither have we, on any large scale. That's why we need you. How many towns out there do you think we can experiment on? How many places where nobody will miss the locals? Nobody will find it odd if they all run mad and kill themselves?" He puts a hand on my shoulder. "And, Guilford, it might work in your favor. If these froggies cause enough trouble, Hoover might just step in and give you the resources you need to exterminate them. Get you a commendation. Get your picture in the papers. How does that sound?"

  "You want me to poison the water supply."

  McGovern raises his chin. "This assignment comes from the highest levels. This is knowledge we need to have. You know
the locals. You know the town. Are you fit for this?"

  I weigh the bottle in my hand. It feels very heavy. "Yes, sir. I am."

  "Good man. Knew I could count on you." McGovern straightens, takes a flask from a coat pocket. "Snort? No?" He drinks, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. The room is very stuffy. Tiny beads of perspiration have gathered at his hairline. "I'll want a full report. Everything you see. Take some pictures, too, if you can. Let's make this look good for Washington."

  "Yes, sir."

  I walk back to my car through the university grounds, past empty buildings whose original purpose is unclear. I pass by an abandoned warehouse, its windows dark, dusty eyes. In each window, an identical spider, sitting at the center of a geometric web.

  I drive out of Arkham, and take the Briggs Hill Road through the ghost-town of Zoar. The sun sets in a fireball of red behind the hills, and the shadows merge into one encompassing darkness. Past Zoar, the light fades out of the sky, and the stars emerge one by one. The road narrows, and I drive through a forested hill country, lonely and unpeopled. From time to time I see movement, beyond the range of my headlights. Something in the woods, shying away from the light. Something walking out there, in the lonely country.

  The land rises, and the trees thin out, giving way to rolling farmland and open fields. I pass the blasted heath, where nothing walks by day or night, and then turn northwards, following the mostly-forgotten road that leads past Newburyport. I pass no cars, and see no one. Overhead, the stars are very bright.

  At last, I come over a rise and look down on the bay, still water lying glimmering in the light of the moon. Quiet Innsmouth, where the seas bring in strange tidings from the deeps, and the wind, sighing through the stones, tells tales of outer places where the star-wind pours from unimaginable gulfs. Innsmouth.

  I park outside of town and walk down the chalk lane that leads into the commercial district. The countryside is silent. There are no other motors here, no commerce and no traffic. I hear my footfalls loud upon the overgrown earth.