“Inspector! I say ... have you made note of that clearing over there?”
Legrasse and Galvez both looked off in the direction in which Webb was pointing. From their lesser vantage, neither man could even make out that a clearing existed behind the bank of intervening rushes and overhung festoons of Spanish moss. So eager to investigate that which only he could see, the older man nearly fell from his high perch. The inspector ordered Carrinelle to assist the professor’s descent while sending Galvez back to bring the squatter’s flat bottomer around so they might all be able to move across the swamp to whatever it was that Webb seemed to have discovered. The lieutenant turned to head back for the boat, but just before he did so, he reminded Legrasse of a disturbing fact.
“Inspector, over there—that grove—I think that’s where, I mean, the men who saw the eyes ... and the big white shape ...”
“Get the boat,” the inspector said quietly. Staring over at the remote ring of trees, he thought to himself that he needed no reminder as to where they were heading.
It took some time longer than Legrasse had anticipated for the quartet to make their way to the hidden clearing. Although the recent rains had brought up the water level of the swamp, allowing them to navigate past many of the bog’s hidden traps—old logs, hidden sand shelves, grasping quick muds, and the like—that little traveled part of the swamp was dreadfully overgrown, forcing Galvez to hack their way clear several times while Carrinelle tried to hold their vessel steady with his pole.
Even climbing the bank leading to the clearing proved nearly fatal when professor Webb slipped, slamming into Carrinelle, sending him sliding backward down into the bog. Galvez managed to catch hold of his sinking fellow officer and pull him back to safety. Webb, of course, offered his profoundest apologies, which the policeman accepted with extreme good grace, commenting that if the worse thing that happened to him while they were there was a dirty uniform then he would be well pleased.
Finally, however, the four men reached the clearing. Descending the bank, the quartet moved cautiously, watching their step as best they could as they moved through the surrounding ring of trees and out into the open ... a strange and unnatural opening that should not have existed.
“I don’t get it, inspector,” offered Carrinelle. “What could do something like this?” Not having an answer for the younger man, Legrasse deferred to Webb. The professor took a moment, then just as he was about to speak, he spotted something at his feet.
“I, I think maybe ... yes, maybe ...?”
Bending down, Webb knelt to examine the strange matting beneath all their feet. The clearing was a circular space roughly thirty yards wide at its diameter. The longer the inspector stared at its circumfrential edge, the more convinced he became that it was a true circle, geometrically perfect.
Getting closer to the ground, Legrasse studied the flooring of the area with an interest to match the professor’s. He found the reeds and moss and other vegetation woven together into a type of matted carpeting. The sight stupefied the four, eventually dragging the others to their knees for a closer look as well. The inspector did not know what to think. He poked his hand vigorously against the pattern but could not force through so much as a single finger. Common horsetail and scouring rushes were webbed together with club moss and marsh ferns, all of it tightly interworked until it was virtually as solid as plate iron.
“Professor,” asked Legrasse in a puzzled voice, “what could have done this? The storm, maybe?”
“This is simply fascinating,” answered Webb, almost unaware he was doing so. Not looking up, crawling along the ground as if intent on inspecting every square inch of the puzzling phenomenon, he continued, saying, “look at the workmanship. Not a stem broken, not a leaf or shoot torn away from its mother stem. No storm did this. This is even beyond the work of human hands.”
When Carrinelle scoffed, the professor ignored his protests, saying instead, “Look—look, will you? This work isn’t recent, either. You can see this was done some time ago. Note how the new growth is all above the lines of intersection.” Standing, the professor told the others, “I’m no botanist, but I’d be comfortable guessing that we are seeing four to five months of winter growth here since this circle was woven.”
“You’re saying the cultist’s did this?” asked Galvez.
“No,” answered Webb noncommittally. “I’m merely implying that it was most likely done around the same time of their ritual.”
“Well,” asked Legrasse, disturbed to have discovered a completely new mystery instead of any new answers, “if the cult didn’t do it—and I wouldn’t suspect any of that lot being of a very artistic bent—who or what did?”
“I appreciate your curiosity, inspector,” answered the professor. “And I will tell you the only guess I have, although I’m afraid none of you will want to hear it.”
The men around Webb all hesitated to varying degrees. Each had been wishing to turn the bizarre puzzle of the swamp into something easily processed and stored within the human mind. The professor’s offer did not sound as if he would be providing such an answer. Having nothing of their own to add, however, each of the three nodded their willingness to hear what Webb had to say.
Understanding their apprehension—actually feeling some of it himself—the professor told them, “Again, gentlemen, I am not trying to mock you, nor am I saying that what I have to offer is the only answer. I am merely going to relate to you several stories I have heard.”
All three policemen remained quiet, their eyes riveted to Webb. Nodding his head in tight-lipped acceptance of their attitude, the professor swallowed a breath of the gray swamp air, and then launched into his tale.
“Back a few years, what was it ... ‘83, I believe. A Mexican astronomer named Jose Bonilla photographed over one hundred circular objects that moved across the solar disc. Before the end of that same decade, a Texan farmer saw a large circular object flying overhead. He called it a saucer. Now, mayhap none of you heard of either of those cases, but I’m certain that you’ve all heard of the scores of sightings of like objects over the past ten years.” The professor paused to swat at a large, blood-seeking insect. Sending the buzzing annoyance on its way, he wiped at his brow, then continued.
“All across the country, people have been seeing giant ... what would one call them? Airships, I suppose. Travelling much faster than any dirigible, capable of changing course at what appear to be frightfully high speeds, many have described them as seeming more alive than man-made.”
“Very well and fine, professor,” interrupted Legrasse. Pointing downward with both hands, he spread them apart to indicate the entire clearing while he asked, “but what exactly does any of that have to do with this?”
Nodding with the understanding that he had failed to come to the point, Webb answered, “Wherever in the world these ‘saucers’ have been seen in the sky, sooner or later, on the ground below, circles such as these have appeared ... almost without fail.”
#
Legrasse raised his glass to his lips, downing another healthy slug of bourbon. He was not usually one to drink with his men. In fact, he was not usually one to drink at all. “Usually” no longer seemed to apply, however.
After exiting from the swamp, Legrasse, Galvez and Carrinelle had taken professor Webb to Jim Dandy’s, a tavern of little repute on one of the darker back streets of the Quarter. Once properly hidden from public view in a dark, practically moldering corner, the four had set to work on a bottle of local bourbon. When that one was finished, they promptly started a second. Older than the others, Webb found the opening of the second bottle his cue to remove himself to the toilet for a moment’s relief. He had reached a state of nervous agitation on the way back from the swamp, the edge of which hard drinking had not yet been able to remove. As the elder academic tottered off, Carrinelle made an announcement with a thickening tongue.
“Sir, I don’t know what to think.”
“About what, Joel?” answered L
egrasse. The liquor bending him to a more familiar tone than usual, he explained, “I mean, I know ‘what about,’ but ‘what about’ in particular?”
“Oh, Hell, sir,” admitted the more than slightly drunken officer. “Anything. Everything. I mean, I mean ... I ... I mean ... what? What was that? That professor ... sayin’ he wasn’t certain anymore about, about ... what was that again?”
“About ‘the timetable of arrival,’” quoted Galvez.
“Yeah? Lookin’ in his little book, climbin’ all over that damn hunka stone. What was he talking about? And the way he’s been gettin’ since we left—spooky, crazy. I don’t know. I don’t know.” Carrinelle raised his glass to knock back another powerful slug. Suddenly, however, he simply set the glass back down and asked quietly, “What? What’re we doin’, sir? What?”
“I don’t know, either, Joel,” answered the inspector honestly. Staring over the rim of his glass, his eyes leveling off in a straight line made up of heavy hoods and broken blood vessels, Legrasse said slowly, “Who could know? Do you know, Joe?” When the lieutenant merely waggled his head back and forth, blowing a few foamy bubbles through his moist lips, Legrasse pointed toward the lieutenant as drunken proof of some sort.
“See?” The inspector drained a third of his glass as if in triumph. Then, instead of refilling it immediately, as had been the quartet’s wont throughout the evening, he set the tumbler back down. Closing his eyes, Legrasse held his neck rigid, then shook his head several times. He could feel the bones at the top of his spine crack, could trace a sluggish pain within his head—the beginning screams of mild alcohol poisoning. Ignoring them both, realizing Carrinelle deserved a better answer, he took a deep breath, then tried to find one.
“What are we supposed to do? I don’t know. We put an end to some swamp voodoo. Kill a few of the sect, capture some, run the rest off. That’s it—usually. But, no, not for us.” The inspector waved his hands in frustration.
“No, we can’t just have a group of entrail readers painting each others’ faces in chicken blood,” he started again. “Oh, no ... not us. We’re special. We have to have ... have to have ... what? Some kind of monumentally evil devil worshiping secret society from the beginning of time. A human-sacrificing illuminati that hides in frozen mountains and swamps and every other out of the way place in the world.”
“It’s our luck,” said Galvez thickly, lifting his glass. Both the other officers lifted their own glasses as well. The trio brought their tumblers together, clinking them softly.
“Our luck,” they all slurred, taking large sips immediately after. Then, as Carrinelle topped off all their glasses, Legrasse pushed his spine against the back of his chair, its rattan covered top curve pressing into his shoulders.
“It’s all so odd,” the inspector announced, more to himself than to the others. “These cultists ... murdering swamp squatters. Why? Monsters watching us, flying monsters, cultists happy to die. Why? And Webb’s saucers in the sky, that clearing ... that horrible little statue ... I wonder ... I mean to say ...”
And then, Legrasse froze. The words he was trying to utter hung suspended in his throat, trapped behind the weight of the connections his brain had started to make. In a blinding moment of clarity, the inspector had suddenly made a jump in reason too frightening for him to accept without further consideration. Next to him, Galvez began to raise his glass once more. Legrasse stuck out his hand, though, grasping at the lieutenant’s wrist.
“No,” he ordered, desperately pushing at the fogging clouds settling within his brain. “No more for now.”
Understanding the tone in his superior’s voice, Galvez asked,” What is it, sir?”
“Webb ... he treats this all so, so ... serious. He’s the only one who doesn’t act as if he thinks we were children who scared ourselves out in the swamp. You tell me, Joe—did you see something out there last year or didn’t you?”
“Well, I ...”
“Damnit, lieutenant. Did you or didn’t you?!”
“Yes, sir,” answered the excitable Spaniard. Propelled by the liquid courage of many a deep sip, he pushed aside the cautious responses he had given months before and finally admitted, “Yes, I did. You can throw me off the force for saying it, but I swear on my grandmother’s grave ... where we stood today, where the reeds and all were wove together like some damned devil basket ... I saw a pair of demon eyes—gigantic things—watching us through the trees ... shining yellow slits carved in a mountainous white bulk ... Madre Dios, it was there. I swear it, inspector.”
“Don’t worry, Joseph,” said Legrasse reassuringly. “I believe you.” Before the inspector could say more, however, the owner of Jim Dandy’s came to their table. Bending low, he whispered to Legrasse who merely nodded an assurance to the visibly disturbed man.
As the owner left the table, the inspector told his men, “It seems the professor is having some difficulty in the toilet. Joel, see to him.”
The officer rose without speaking, heading straight off to see what the matter was and to deal with it as quietly as possible. Legrasse and Galvez did not speak while he was gone. It somehow did not seem proper to either man to discuss what was happening to them all with one of their number absent. Finally, after some ten long minutes, Carrinelle returned to the table with Webb in tow. As they took their seats again, Legrasse gave the newly returned officer a look which asked what the problem had been.
Carrinelle, knowing Legrasse did not want him to embarrass the professor, merely rolled his eyes and gave a shrug of his shoulders, moving his lips in a manner that indicated Webb was loosing his grip. The inspector took the hint and decided to ignore whatever troubles there had been, having a feeling he already understood anyway. Thus, instead of wasting time worrying about the professor’s nerves, Legrasse grabbed up their bottle and topped off Webb’s glass.
“So,” he asked the older man directly, “is this all real or isn’t it?” When the professor protested the unsubstantiated theoretical stand the inspector’s question would force him to take, Legrasse brushed aside his complaints, adding, “Listen to me, professor, you’ve been pushing us as if you want us to believe all this ... well, fine. Maybe we do. The question is—do you ... or don’t you?”
“Inspector Legrasse, I don’t want to argue with you now. You’ve had a great deal to drink and I ...”
“Goddamnit,” roared Legrasse, “do you or don’t you?” Heads turned throughout the tavern. Lowering his voice, the inspector continued. “You said their cult was a religion, that it had a god and angels. You said people have been seeing saucers in the skies and that wherever they see these saucers, circles appear on the ground ... just like that one out in the swamp.”
“Well, yes, but what I ...”
“Listen—maybe the world’s just changed too much for me. Maybe I can’t keep up with it. When I was a boy men couldn’t fly. Now they can. We have submarines, paint that comes out of guns, air conditioning, those, those ... vacuum tubes, and freeze dried blood.” Legrasse jammed his teeth together, stopping the flow of words spilling out of him. Shaking his head again, trying to drive away some of the alcohol blurring his vision, he snapped,
“What I mean is, the cultists murdered the squatters. You said they were blood sacrifices. What if those sacrifices brought that thing my men saw—called to it? Or that damned statute—maybe that’s their beacon.” Not looking at any of the others at the table, the inspector found himself shaking his head, not so much consciously, but merely allowing it to twitch. Forcing the motion to stop, he slapped the table again, snarling.
“Who knows? Who even cares?! What does it matter—how and why! Where! That’s all that matters. If round things are flying down out of the sky and making those vegetation circles all around the world—then why not here? You said this damned Cthulhu cult was hidden in all the dark corners of the world. There’s plenty that call New Orleans a dark corner of this world. So, tell me, professor ... why not here?”
Legrasse grabbed hol
d of the edge of the table to calm himself. Instead, the shaking agitation raging through him caused him to set the table to bouncing nervously, startling both Webb and his own men. A terrible excitement pelted the inspector’s consciousness with information, linking connections faster than he could vocalize them. Licking at the inside of his mouth, driving back the bourbon taste, he let go the table but continued on, asking questions in an excited tone.
“The cultists being executed—each one has said the same thing at the moment of their deaths. The same thing they were shouting when we broke up their ceremony. Is it a prayer? Are they priests?”
The professor turned away from Legrasse, his own hands trembling. Reaching across the table suddenly, the inspector captured Webb’s lapels in his hands. Dragging the professor half across the table toward him, knocking over several of the glasses in the way as well as their new bottle.
“Their god,” he answered in an excited voice, “whatever he is, this Cthulhu ... you said he was sleeping. Well, what if they’ve decided it’s time to wake him up?! What if these flying things everyone’s seen are the same things we saw, heard ... what if ...”
And then, Legrasse went calm. The building madness fled his eyes in an explosive moment of acceptance, replaced by a singularity of purpose. No longer questioning his beliefs, he asked Webb, “When you examined the monolith, you said your calculations had been off. That you had been mistaken about when this god of theirs is supposed to arise. So tell me, if it’s not to be in the next month, when is it to be?”
With a shudder, the shaking professor answered, “I didn’t know then. It all seemed ... seemed so, so academic. So orderly. It was a great mystery to set into place. The pieces were fitting so nicely ... I never thought ...”
“When, professor?” Asked the inspector again, giving Webb a harsh shake. Terrified, the old man yelped a single word.
Cthulhu Mythos Writers Sampler 2013 Page 18
