CARNACKI: The New Adventures

Home > Other > CARNACKI: The New Adventures > Page 7
CARNACKI: The New Adventures Page 7

by Gafford, Sam


  “The marks on the throats of Mrs. Roosevelt and Fire Dog both healed, and the two of them appeared to suffer no ill effects from their encounters with this interstellar life form. Fire Dog’s fame as a medicine chief of great power, in fact, grew. We continue to correspond on occult matters, and he never fails to surprise me.

  “Was Wells right? Are we who are dwellers on this earth the descendants of a microscopic visitor from the stars?”

  Carnacki stood up and helped us on with our coats as he shooed us out the door. “Out you go!”

  The Spar:

  A Story of Carnacki

  Fred Blosser

  1.

  The hour was late, and the talk had turned to inconsequential things. One of us—I think it was Taylor—said, “I was on a jaunt to the East End yesterday evening.”

  We listened politely.

  “I passed a particularly disreputable-looking music hall on Hoxton Street, and do you know what I saw on the billboard? Your name, Carnacki.”

  Our host smiled. “Yes, it is a comic revue. I’m afraid that I have earned a certain notoriety in the public mind, thanks to Dodgson’s published accounts of my investigations. I’ve seen the show. ‘Carnacki the Magnificent’ is an impish fellow in an oversized Hindoo turban. His confederate, a boisterous Irishman, holds a sealed envelope. Inside the envelope is a sheet of paper on which a question is written. The showman in the turban pretends to ‘see’ into the envelope with his acute mental powers and ‘answers’ the question. Upon which, the Irishman opens the envelope and reads the question aloud to the audience.”

  Someone remarked that it hardly sounded entertaining.

  “Oh, it’s really quite amusing,” Carnacki said. “The ‘question’ that the confederate reads is the punch-up of a joke that the ‘answer’ has set up, usually of a mildly risqué nature. I introduced myself to ‘Carnacki’ outside the theatre after the performance, and I believe he was relieved that I didn’t threaten to sue or demand a cut of his profits.

  “As it happens, a rather interesting case came my way because someone overheard the conversation with my namesake. Do you have time for another story? Then let’s have a final go-round of Napoleon, and I’ll tell you about it.” We leaned in to listen.

  “As I mentioned, I had approached the stage-Carnacki and we talked for a few minutes. It was early evening, and there was a mellow summer glow in the sky.

  “As we parted—after I politely declined my namesake’s offer to substitute for his Irish partner in the next performance—a man walked up to me in a state of barely suppressed agitation. In the wan evening light, he was middle-aged, sallow, rather tall and thin, stooped, and dressed in a plain and very worn serge suit. He came near, stopped, prepared to turn and walk away again, but visibly gathered his resolution and stepped up.

  “‘Pardon me, sir,’ he said in a tentative manner—his English was slightly accented but not unpleasantly so—‘I couldn’t help but overhear: Are you truly the Carnacki whom I’ve read about in the magazines? The Carnacki whom they call the Ghost-Finder?’

  “I confirmed that I was.

  “‘I have a terrible problem, sir,’ he continued. ‘I have consulted others in an attempt to seek help; I have sought aid from the police, from private investigators, from the rabbi of my synagogue; I have gone to clergymen and priests, who were kind enough to assist a man who was not of their Christian faith. Or at least they attempted to assist. But nothing has availed me, and I despaired of finding someone who might relieve the terrible curse that afflicts me—and then, in passing just now, I happened to hear your conversation.’

  “I had planned to return home for dinner, but something in the man’s demeanour interested me. Clearly, he was troubled by something of grave import. I asked him to tell me more about the matter that so obviously vexed him.

  “‘My name is Kronstein,’ he said. ‘I am a merchant. I own a business on Bow Street; there I deal in marine stores. Through my agents on the docks, I purchase surplus goods, equipment from ship-owners, salvage, materials seized by creditors, and the like, and resell them at a modest profit. I have always lived a quiet life . . . until a few weeks ago. I am haunted, sir, quite literally haunted now by fiends; my life has become a nightmare, and my shop has become a den of unspeakable horrors.’

  “‘I would like to see your shop,’ I said, and we proceeded toward Bow Street.

  2.

  “Walking, I asked him to elaborate on what he had told me.

  “‘It began with sounds, sir—sounds that I would hear in the shop as I went through my merchandise after closing, to tally the items I had purchased that day and to value them for resale. At first, they were the sounds that you may expect to hear in an empty building at night as a matter of course: shutters knocking in the wind, or the creak of old floorboards settling.

  “‘And then I began to hear other noises, faintly at first. There would be a quiet scuff or drag as of footsteps in the far corner of the storeroom, and a whisper of voices. Presently, after several nights, the sounds grew louder. I have, or rather had, two employees who helped clean the shop and bring in or take out merchandise during the day. I confronted them and asked if they were playing tricks on me by hiding and making noises after I thought they had left for the night. Poor boys! They are honest lads, and not very bright; they hardly understood my accusation.’

  “We had now entered Bow Street. Kronstein’s establishment, a two-storey brick structure, stood in a block of ancient buildings that hosted shops, stores, and lodging-houses, all of weathered and dilapidated appearance. There were a few people on the street; they glanced nervously at my companion as we strolled past, and slunk away. On the periphery of my vision, I saw an elderly woman cover her eyes with one hand.

  “‘My neighbours know that unclean things have invaded my store, and now they shun both the store and me,’ Kronstein muttered. ‘I can’t fault them for doing so.’

  “We were now at the front door of his store. He hesitated, and then with trembling hands he inserted a key in the lock.

  “‘Once the sounds grew louder at night, other manifestations began to appear,’ he resumed. ‘There was an offensive odour, slight at first but growing stronger night after night. As a youth, I was in the shambles of Arta a day after the Greeks fought the Turks, and many bodies were still unburied. The same stench of death that I smelled at Arta, I smelled in my shop, but mingled with another disagreeable odour, a damp foetor as might emanate from something too long under water. The odour was accompanied by a sudden chill in the air, as if an ice locker containing dead, damp things had been opened.

  “‘And then,’ he shuddered, ‘I began to see things. They were shadowy at first, or only glimpsed out of the corner of my eye when my sight was focused elsewhere. Just as the sounds and the odour gradually became more distinct, so these apparitions became clearer to my sight after several nights. My two assistants saw them too one night, when they stayed late to help me restock shelves—and they ran off in terror, never to return.’

  “Kronstein pushed open the heavy door, and we stepped into the shop. There was a small front office where he transacted business. He turned on the electric light, and I saw it was a neatly kept space with a desk, shelves of ledgers, a few chairs, a coat-rack, and a few items of merchandise lying in one corner. Nothing seemed to be out of order. I was unable to detect any unpleasant odour. The room had the smell of wood, paint, and varnish, slightly musty but not unusually so, that you would expect to find in any old but well-maintained building.

  “‘Come on into the stockroom, sir,’ he said, leading the way through a door at the rear of the office, into a larger space beyond where row after row and shelf upon shelf of sundry merchandise were stored. When Kronstein switched on the light, I was able to see the room better. It was crowded but orderly, with nothing to suggest the intrusion of malignant forces such as the merchant had described. Because the room was larger and more populated than the office, with some merchandise piled high e
nough to obscure the ceiling bulb, the light here was not as bright as the light in the outer room.

  3.

  “I breathed the cool, somewhat stagnant air, unable to detect anything out of the ordinary. I relaxed, drifting into a meditative plane of thought; I slowly relinquished conscious interaction with my surroundings and opened an avenue of passive, instinctive perception. And now, faintly, I could smell a repellent pungency from which I instantly recoiled. I willed myself back into control of my senses, emotionally shaken.

  “‘This is the first time I’ve been in the shop in a week, Mr. Carnacki,’ Kronstein remarked. ‘I cannot stay here any longer.

  “‘My assistants fled two weeks ago. I asked help of my rabbi ten days ago, the Ha-Gomeyl blessing to save me from loss of sanity or life. The next day, a Catholic priest came in, and the day after that, a minister from the mission of charitable works down the street. Nothing helped. I spent one more night here after that. When I was touched on the shoulder by something that came up behind me and gibbered in my ear, I ran out. I could not come back after that, not even to my apartment on the floor above us; I have been staying with a cousin.

  “‘Do you think these apparitions mean you harm?’ I asked.

  “‘Yes. They are not only unclean—they are also evil. They intend to do injury, and I believe they are gradually gaining the strength to do so.’

  “I wandered idly among the rows of merchandise, which included every manner of nautical tools, furnishings, and accoutrements: life-rings, weather-gear, sailcloth, port-windows, spars and masts, anchors, ropes, cables, and many other items that I could not identify by name or purpose. I asked Kronstein if he had an electric torch. When he brought one, I shone its beam carefully into the shadowy corners and into the dark gaps among the shelves and the piles of goods—discovering nothing.

  “‘Describe these apparitions to me in their visible form,’ I asked Kronstein, and then immediately reconsidered my request: ‘No, wait, don’t say any more about them. Are you game to remain here with me and see what transpires? Good! I don’t quite know what you’re up against, but let me see for myself. Then I’ll have a better idea.’

  “‘You don’t believe that I’m telling you a made-up story, Mr. Carnacki, or that I’m imagining these terrors?’

  “‘No, Mr. Kronstein, I believe that something has infested this place. From earliest times, humankind has known that emanations or intrusions from the immaterial world sometimes impinge on our material world. Or if you will, manifestations from beyond our earth sometimes gain footing on this earth. In so doing, these intruders may assume material form themselves. They thrive at night, when darkness covers the earth, but as they grow stronger, they can also materialise in the daytime. Modern science has given us new means for naming, characterising, and countering these forces. I believe that we can fight whatever it is that haunts your store, but first, so that we choose the appropriate weapon, I must determine its exact nature.’

  “Night was drawing on. Kronstein and I pulled chairs into the storeroom and sat down. I had the torch, and he had taken a pistol from the desk in the office. I doubted that the gun would serve any purpose, but it seemed to restore some confidence in the merchant.

  “‘Before you finally fled the store, did you smell the offensive odour at any time other than during the night hours?’ I asked. ‘No? Then I suspect that the intrusive force is growing stronger. I could detect the stench a few minutes ago, faintly but distinctly, after letting my psychic defences fall. We will have to be prepared for a tangible encounter tonight with something forceful and dreadful.’

  “I had not had dinner, but I wasn’t hungry. Time passed. The door to the outer office was open, and I could see a little of the shop window, through which a glow from the street lamps outside now dimly shone. I checked my watch and we waited, waited.

  4.

  “Presently, Kronstein grabbed my wrist. ‘There!’ he said in a strained whisper. ‘Look at that row where the cables and ropes are piled: something moved there.’

  “I peered in the direction he indicated, but I didn’t see anything. I continued to look. There was no motion that I could discern—but wait! Over in a far corner, visible for a second, a figure darted. It gave the impression of being a human form, but unnaturally elongated; before I could note any additional details, it was gone.

  “I was so intent on watching that several seconds passed before I realised that the terrible odour of dead dampness was manifesting itself. The air had grown noticeably colder. In inverse proportion, the overhead light had begun to dim to a weak orange glimmer, and shadows began to gather and slither in the corners. I heard a low murmur of sound like barely audible voices whose pitch grated on my nerves—a shrill, whiny, loathsome pitch.

  “As the overhead fixture continued to dim, sight became difficult, confused. I thought that Kronstein had risen from his chair and passed across my line of vision, but as his hand seized my arm, I realised that he had not stirred. A loud bang echoed through the room as the door to the office slammed shut under an invisible wind—or an invisible hand.

  “The storeroom was virtually dark now, the stench nearly overpowering, and I shuddered as something wet brushed my shoulder and tittered behind my ear. I jumped up, kicking the chair clear, and tried to turn on the torch. It emitted only a tiny spark of light, insufficient to counter the growing darkness. Kronstein’s hand was still clenched tightly on my arm, and he too had stood up, crying frantically, ‘Something has got hold of my leg—my God!’ I sensed a violent kick. ‘Get away, curse you!’

  “I had retained enough presence of mind to mark the location of the door before it became too dark to see, and now I lunged in that direction, putting one arm around Kronstein to haul him with me. He groaned and fired his revolver once, twice. The flashes of gunfire added to the sensory confusion of movement, cold, noxious smell, and elusive touch and grab of sinuous, boneless hands. In the flashes, I fleetingly discerned grey forms that seemed at once close and distant, and then it was dark again.

  “A rough, solid surface abruptly presented itself in front of us. In the force of my desperate forward momentum, I stuck against it painfully and rebounded. It was the door, but where was the knob and which way did it open, towards us or away? In my near-frenzy, I had forgotten. I dropped the useless torch and fumbled for the knob, found it, turned it, pushed the door before remembering that it opened in, and frantically pulled back instead. It hardly budged, as if great pressure were holding it shut.

  “Kronstein’s pistol discharged again and he slipped out of my arm. I made a grab for him with one hand as I applied the other to the doorknob, pulling with all my strength, knowing instinctively that neither of us would make it out of the room alive if I failed to open that door. Something brushed my trouser leg, and I reached down with the thought that the merchant was trying to regain his grip on me.

  “But it was no human hand that I touched. Have you seen an octopus in a public aquarium? I imagine that an octopus would have the clammy, leathery feel of whatever had brushed my leg. The thought that the thing would next attempt to seize my hand or my face gave me a burst of strength. I wrenched the door open against the pressure that attempted to keep it shut, fell through, reached back, grasped Kronstein’s coat, and pulled him out with me. The light in the front office had been smothered too, and the only illumination came from the wan glow of the street lamps through the storefront window. I seized a hanger from the coat-rack, snagged the doorknob, and pulled the door shut with a violent jerk.

  “Kronstein was breathing strenuously, his face sick and bloodless in the dim light from outside, and I daresay I looked much the same.

  “I remember little of the next few minutes. My next conscious memory is of being outside the shop, sitting on the curb. Kronstein was looking at his trouser cuff where something had clasped him as he rose from his chair. The serge was stained with a damp, colourless slime that he started to touch curiously.

  “‘No, for God�
�s sake, leave it alone and burn those clothes,’ I gasped, grabbing his wrist. He looked dumbly at his leg, and then over at mine, which was fouled with the same mess where a leathery travesty of a hand had gripped.

  “The shop door was wide open, the lights on again inside, and all was silence. I hoped fervently that nothing had come out with us. We sat where we were for hours, until the pallid sun began to rise above the rooftops.”

  5.

  Carnacki paused, and Jessop asked, “Is that the end of the story?”

  “No,” our host said, “not the end. I couldn’t let matters rest there. Kronstein’s shop had become the nest of something unearthly and infinitely foul. I sensed that it had not emerged with us, but remained there. Perhaps it had not grown strong enough to extend itself. However, it was certain to do so in due course, judging by how much more potently it had manifested itself since Kronstein’s last encounter.

  “I saw Kronstein to his cousin’s flat, where I said that he had been attacked by footpads while out on early business before sunrise, and I had come to his assistance. Then I returned home, where I changed clothes and burned the fouled trousers as I had advised Kronstein. Next I began to consult my books of the occult in an attempt to identify the nature of that monstrosity in Bow Street. I found some promising information in Harzam’s Monograph, which I have mentioned to you on other occasions.

  “It suggested that the manifestation or manifestations may have been intrusions from an outer dimension of darkness that impinges upon our own from time to time. Once in our dimension, these detestable things gain form and substance from association with some material object. I suspected that something in Kronstein’s storeroom provided such a focal point for the things we had encountered.

  “Several days later, I visited Kronstein, who had substantially recovered from the rigours of our adventure, at least physically. When I suggested that I must revisit the store, he violently argued that I should stay away: ‘Shortly after you got me settled here, I sent an associate around to close and lock the front door, telling him not to go into the store if he valued his life. He . . . he thought I feared he would steal from me! I haven’t spoken of the store since. Mr. Carnacki, the thought of walking back in there . . .’ His voice died away.

 

‹ Prev