by J. D. Crayne
Steve shook his head wearily.
"I think you ought to know that a Bay Area businessman who was in the crowd claims that what everyone saw was a black cloud of methane gas bubbling up from underwater pollution caused by local businesses and condoned by the City Council."
"I can just guess who that was. Hubert Pigott, right?"
"He says it was a gas explosion set off by a speedboat that caused the deaths of those four people."
"What does he say about what Ernie Shah saw? Ernie saw a creature with teeth that...
Skulper waved a dismissive hand. "Hallucinations from the gas, that's all. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but Mr. Pigott is urging the relatives of the deceased to sue the Solitaire City Council."
"Yeah, he would," Steve said bitterly.
"Okay," the officer said, standing up. "You can go now, but don't leave the County."
Steve shambled wearily out of the restaurant and stopped abruptly by the parking lot door, blinking dazed eyes at the lights that seemed to be everywhere. A large crowd was milling around, and he counted five TV vans in the parking lot and along Main Street.
"Well, we wanted publicity and we sure as hell got it," a bitter voice said at his shoulder.
Steve turned to see Paul Berquem sitting slouched on one of the benches by the restaurant door. He shuffled over and sat down beside him.
"What happened?"
"Damned if I know," Paul said, shaking his head. "We got over to the Bilgewater Creek outlet just as the guys were paddling the raft out into the lake. I told George to call you on the walkie-talkie, but he couldn't seem to raise you. I figured maybe the batteries were dead."
"I had to keep it turned off. That damned TV reporter was right there, trying to make me look like an idiot."
Paul nodded. "Sounds typical. Well, we dropped the monster into the water, and I started up the remote. It worked fine! No guidance problems or anything. I headed it out into the lake, aiming for the raft." He stared at his hands, which were hanging limply between his knees.
"And?"
"And it was okay. Everything was okay! I used the remote to start up the music, and it worked just like it was supposed to work." Paul spread his hands helplessly.
"Then everything sort of went to hell," another voice said.
They looked up to see a shadowy form leaning against the wall next to them.
"Hullo, Carlton," Steve said glumly. "You were watching?"
"Yeah. Couldn't see much though. Just the raft turning over and then that Glastron going ass-over-teakettle and down." He laughed hollowly. "I wonder if that smarmy TV reporter got his footage in before he went overboard."
"Overcome by methane gas!" Steve muttered.
What?" Carlton asked.
"Methane gas. The cop who took my statement said that Pigott is going around saying the whole thing was caused by methane gas bubbling up from the bottom of the lake."
"That's ridiculous," Paul said. "There's never been any sign of something like that in the lake, and if they're blaming it on our plastic Tlaklot it's even more absurd. It was running on the surface. There's no way it could disturb something over a hundred feet under water."
"Tell that to the Marines," Carlton said idly. "Face it, guys. They're out to nail our hides to the wall, and they're probably going to do it."
They were silent for a moment, listening to the murmur of the seething crowd and watching the shifting and blinking lights.
"Have you seen George and Janey?" Paul asked.
"They're over at the liquor store with Marlow, getting plastered together," Carlton said.
"I think I'll do the same," Steve said, getting to his feet. "With a little luck this will all turn out to be a bad dream."
Paul shook his head. "You're luck's out, pal."
Steve walked slowly along the back alleys, to avoid the crowds and anyone who might recognize him. He wondered how Ernie was doing. He'd seen his friend into the hands of Uncle Hank and he had an odd, –probably misplaced–faith in the elder man's ability to take care of almost anything. He also wondered how Sancy was. She'd been shivering with shock, but the town's one and only nurse-practitioner, a motherly soul, had taken her in charge and assured Steve that Sancy would d be just fine with a little rest. As for himself, he just felt numb.
He was mildly surprised to see lights on in the bookstore, but he walked along the side of the house and in through the back door as usual, and then went to the front of the house, with the vague feeling that he ought to know what was going on.
A female figure, enveloped in an oversized red shirt and dark slacks that he recognized as belonging to himself, arose from behind the front counter and peered at him furtively from under knotted brows, claw-like hands scrabbling at a collection of rune stones strewn on the glass top.
"Mom?" Steve asked.
The figure smirked and crooned, "I am here to show you pathways to opening the doorway of the mind. The gates of Thelema and the sacred Child beckon you."
"Who the devil do you think you are?" Steve asked wearily.
"The Beast – six, six, six!" the figure said, and cackled.
"Aleister?" Steve sighed. "Dammit, Aleister, I thought I made it clear that I did not want to see or hear from you ever again."
He flicked a finger against the nearest of the rune stones, causing the whole collection to skitter across the top of the counter.
"Bad, bad!" the entity said. "See, you have changed the voice of fate. You have recombined the nodes of predictability."
"Just what is that supposed to mean?" Steve asked, sinking down onto the padded bench in the window seat.
"It means you have created a new future probability."
"I can change the future by changing the pattern of these rocks that are supposed to predict it?"
The figure nodded. "That's right! It's sympathetic magic, lore well known to every magus of the past."
"So, which of these runes are the really good ones?" Steve asked, staring at the scattered stones.
"Those three, and that one," the entity said, pointing a crooked finger.
Steve picked up the rest of the stones and tossed them into the metal trash can by the counter, where they clattered to the bottom.
"Now I've changed the future and my luck?"
"You've done it!" the spirit said, and cackled again, happily.
"I've done it all right. Aleister, you're full of crap. Beat it!" Steve snapped his fingers.
His mother's figure hunched an offended shoulder, and then collapsed backward into the office chair. A moment later she was blinking and looking reproachfully at him.
"That was really unkind of you, Steven. I do hope that poor dear Mr. Crowley wasn't terribly upset."
"Poor dear Mr. Crowley? What do you want me to do? Come home some evening and find him sacrificing a goat in the living room?"
Bedelia Cullinan looked distressed. "I sure that was just a phase he was going through. Why, I believe that he was a perfect gentleman, and quite a favorite with small children at birthday parties, in the last years before he Passed On."
"As far as I'm concerned, he has definitely passed on and ought to keep moving," Steve said, running his fingers through his hair. "Why don't you ever conjure up someone I can have a sensible chat with? How about Shakespeare or Thomas Jefferson? Hell, even Roosevelt or Truman would be an improvement."
She looked doubtful. "I don't think Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Truman were astral minded, dear. I might be able to get Harry Houdini to come for a little chat. Perhaps if we sat down with the Ouija Board we could get through to him."
"I'm sorry I suggested it. Look, Mom, it's been a shitty day, okay? I'm not in the mood for any of your fun and games."
"Why don't you..."
"No, Mom," he said, holding up his hand. "I don't want to hear about ley lines, or meditation, or crystal therapy, or anything else. I want to go to bed and try to forget that four people are dead and my ass is trash. And you know something else? If I get out o
f this with a whole skin, which is very doubtful at the moment, I am leaving this town, you, and the whole damned mess. You can be anyone you want. I don't want anything more to do with it. Good night."
CHAPTER 5
The next day Steve emerged from his house around noon and saw Uncle Hank, turning up the walkway to the bookstore. The shaman whipped a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and presented it to him with a broad smile.
"I was hoping I'd see you here."
"What's this?" Steve demanded.
"A request for reimbursement."
Steve ran quickly over the list, which included two deer skin drummer's costumes, one Sacred Virgin costume, two propane tanks, and two drums."
"Costumes?" he asked dubiously.
"Water damage. They're stiff as a board."
"Okay, but those propane tanks drifted ashore with the rest of the raft. Paul Berquem called me this morning and said that he talked to the guy who found them!"
"Yes, but the fellow who found them sold the tanks to a scrap metal yard in Santa Rosa," Uncle Hank said smoothly, "so we didn't get them back."
"And the drums? We only owe you for one. That other drummer was hanging onto his with a death grip and brought it aboard when we pulled him out of the water."
"Have you ever tried to play a water-soaked drum head? It's as limp as a ninety-year-old contortionist's lizard."
"How come the the leather drum head is limp and the leather costumes are stiff?" Steve asked suspiciously.
"One was doe skin and the others were buckskin."
"Oh."
Steve looked helplessly at the list. "I'll send you a check," he said, folding the list into his pocket. "How is Ernie doing?"
"He suffers from a sickness of the spirit. I have sent him to the Huchnom sweat lodge up in the wilderness, to purge his soul and open the eye of his perception to spiritual awakening."
"Meaning?"
Uncle Hank shrugged. "After you pulled him out of the water he went home and drank most of a fifth of Old Coltsfoot and two six packs of Dos Equis. I've got him up at the lodge sweating it out."
"Did he say anything about what he saw, what got Zed?"
"He keeps muttering things about large, white, teeth and bad breath but I think that's the Old Coltsfoot talking." He turned away with a casual wave and started up the walkway.
"Hey, where are you going?"
"To the bookstore, of course," Uncle Hank said with mild surprise. "Surely you don't have any objection?"
"I'm not sure," Steve mumbled, as he watched the jaunty little figure walk up the front steps and into the shop. He stared blankly at the door for a moment, and then shook his head and continued down the street, over to Main, and then up Madrone Avenue, where Sancy Pitt, her mother, and brother, lived in a small, yellow house with white trim.
Her mother, a round, normally good-tempered, woman with graying hair, opened the door, and looked at him without favor. "What did you get my girl into? She's a nervous wreck and jumps at every little sound!"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Pitt," Steve said. "Things just sort of went wrong. Could I see her for a moment?"
"I suppose so, but only for a little while. That nurse said she was to have peace and quiet, and no stress or excitement!"
Sancy was sitting on a couch in the sun room at the back of the house, wearing a blue robe and looking out the window at the garden. She turned around at the sound of his footsteps.
"Hello, Steve."
"Hello," he said, feeling a little awkward. "I just wanted to come by and make sure you were okay."
"I'm fine. Mama just likes to coddle me, that's all. She's got the idea that I'm going to fall apart over every little thing that goes wrong." She grimaced. "Not that having four people eaten by a monster is exactly a little thing."
"That's what I wanted to ask you about," he said, sitting down next to her. "Did you see it, whatever it was?"
She shook her head. "Nope. Everything was fine to start with. I could hear the whale music, and all I was worried about was whether that costume I was wearing was going to split down the middle. Then I saw the water go all frothy and our monster started coming apart, like something was shaking it to bits. The next thing I knew, something big and black hit the raft and then I was in the water and paddling for dear life."
"Damn!" he said. "I was hoping you'd gotten a good look at it. Pigott is going around saying that it was a high pressure jet of methane gas shooting up from some kind of pollution on the lake floor, and that everyone was so shocked by it that they thought they saw a monster."
Sancy looked dubious. "Well, I guess it could have been. I've never seen a runaway gas plume, except in a movie with Jimmy Dean, about wildcat oil wells in Texas."
"I don't think it was gas," Steve said, "but I'm going to have a hell of a time proving that it was anything else. Meanwhile, Pigott is inciting everyone he can think of to sue the pants off of the City, the City Council, and anyone else who might be involved, individually and collectively."
"He's just doing that so he can get a handle on the town! We can't let him get away with that!"
"If Pigott gets his way, Solitaire will be bankrupt and sold off as a private get-away for some oil sheik," Steve said gloomily. "Unless we can find some other explanation for the way those people died, we might as well kiss Solitaire goodbye and move to a yurt in Outer Mongolia."
She reached over to touch his hand. "Steve, I've been thinking about what I said the other day, and I want you to know..."
Mrs. Pitt poked her head in the door. "All right, that's long enough! It's time for Sancy to have a bowl of hot soup, and then she's going to lie down for a while."
"Mama! It's eighty degrees outside, and no time for hot soup! " Sancy said, exasperated.
"Never mind, kid," Steve said. "When your jailer gives you a reprieve we'll go over to Redwood Valley for pie and ice cream."
He grinned at her, nodded to Mrs. Pitt, and left the house feeling at least a bit better than he had when he got up.
He walked back down Main Street, and was half way to the Mayor's Office when the sound of yelling voices caught his attention, and he changed directions, half running toward White's Boat Rentals. He almost collided with a woman screaming and running in the opposite direction, and caught her by one arm.
"What's happened?"
"They're gone! Just like that!" she yelled hysterically. "Let me go! I'm not staying around here!"
Steve released her and ran as fast as he could to the boat rental dock. A group of stunned people, including Marlow White, were cowering against the lake-ward wall of the corrugated iron building.
"What's wrong?" Steve demanded.
"Man, they are gone!" Marlow said, his eyes wide.
"What do you mean? Calm down and tell me what happened."
There was a babble of voices, and Steve finally shouted them down and pointed to Marlow.
"Tell me!"
"Those two old soaks from the Big Dipper trailer park. They're over here most mornings with a six pack, okay? I leave them alone, they don't do no harm."
"Yeah?"
"Well, I was just launching this boat for these people..." he gestured at a small party of fishermen who were wearing identical stunned expressions, "...and those two old duffers were sitting on the end of the dock drinking beer with their feet hanging off into space. And then, WHOOSH!"
"Whoosh?"
"Yeah, whoosh!! Something the size of a one-man submarine came up out of the water and nabbed both of them! Just pulled those suckers off the dock and into the water faster than you could whistle the Marine Hymn."
"What did it look like?" Steve urged. "Could you see it?"
"Hell yes, I could see it! That thing had teeth like you wouldn't believe!" Marlow blinked and rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Man, I need a drink. In fact, I need several drinks. See you in about a year." He pushed a couple of people aside and tottered off down the street.
"Marlow! Wait!" Steve yelled after him, but the bo
at rental owner had already disappeared.
Steve shoved his way through the spectators and went into the boat rental office, where he telephoned the Sheriff's department to report two missing men.
Sergent Skulper arrived about an hour later, in company with a young officer to take notes.
"Oh, it's you again," Skulper said, without enthusiasm. "What is it this time?"
"Something jumped up out of the water and pulled two men off of the dock in back of the boat rental building."
"Yeah? You see this?"
"Well, no," Steve admitted. "I was walking down the street when I heard a bunch of people yelling, so I ran over here to see what was going on. That's what they told me."
"Any eye witnesses?"
"Sure! There must have been a dozen people that saw it!"
"Okay, so where are they?"
Steve looked around and swallowed hard. Somehow the crowd that had been standing around when he arrived had mysteriously vanished. The only one left was Crosseyed Benny, the town drunk and a well-known local character, who was leaning against the corrugated iron building, grinning, belching and radiating beer fumes.
"Hey, you!" Skulper said to Benny. "You see anything funny around here in the last couple of hours?"
Benny grinned broadly and hitched up his dirty trousers. "Just the Tlaklot monster! That's what old Ernie told me to say. Anything funny happens around here, must be Tlaklot! He gimme a bottle too."
Steve felt a sinking sensation as Skulper turned around to stare at him. "Someone's going around telling these so-called witnesses what to say, is that it?"
"No!" Steve said. "It's not like that. Not really," he added, lamely.
"I could cite you for filing a false report," Skulper said, "but this time I'm going to let you off with a warning. I don't want any more calls about monsters in the lake, okay?"
"Sure, yeah," Steve muttered, as Skulper and the younger officer climbed back into their cruiser and drove away. He kicked the side of the building, which only made his toes ache.
He decided to find Marlow and, if the man had calmed down, try to get a less hysterical description of whatever it was that had happened at the dock. Finding Marlow wasn't easy. After asking around and getting several sets of conflicting directions, Steve finally drove out into the forest on the northeast side of town, along a potholed dirt road with no signposts. Marlow's house, when he found it, turned out to be a round-topped metal building that looked like a miniature quonset hut. The trees and brush had been cut for about fifty feet around it, and there was a barbed wire fence, topped with coils of razor wire around the entire perimeter. Another strand of wire, supported by ceramic standoffs, appeared to be electrified, and a camera by the front gate swiveled ceaselessly back and forth.
