The Dunwich Dungeon

by Byron Craft

  “Get to the point Otto!” I shouted into the mouthpiece.

  “Remember when I told you that an elder race, creatures of immense proportions, created the Windlass?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, I just translated more of the symbols, and it appears that in order to preserve their race they interbred with humans. The Elder Beings were either dying off or leaving our planet for some reason I have yet to ascertain. Nevertheless, they still needed to maintain their foothold on Earth, even if it was an invasion by proxy. The offspring of such a horrible mating was the Myskat, a mongrelized hybrid. I strongly suspect that your man is a Myskat!” now he was shouting.

  I wasn’t happy with his deduction plus the thought of Sayter being one of Otto’s Myskats did make me a bit uncomfortable. “Got to go,” I answered back and hung up.

  It was an evening under a leaden sky. Not a single star in sight. There must have been a blanket of clouds up there, but you couldn’t tell, it was too damn dark. The entire setting added to the world that is vast and grim and hungry. Don’t get me wrong; I'm not a sap. I knew that it was a fearsome town in which we lived, cursed, legend haunted; whose sagging gambrel roofs and crumbling Georgian houses have brooded for centuries bordering the dismal streets of Arkham. But that night I felt extremely ill at ease while walking around the warehouse. Was Francisco Sayter a half-man, half-monster? And would the slug from a .45 take him down?

  “One more thing, Detective,” whispered Bell as we approached the front entrance to the Happy Innsmouth Fisherman’s place of business. “When we were researching Francisco Sayter's history we discovered something highly unusual.”

  “What's that?”

  "Well, Sir, from everything we could find out, it appears that he has never been to Innsmouth!"

  I chewed on that one for a good couple of seconds. “Not surprising," I answered, "it is probably a good cover.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it. If what the Feds told the Chief is accurate and Francisco is fishing some things out of the Miskatonic, then smuggling it out of town, what better place to set up shop then down by the docks?”

  “I see.”

  The door was wide open. Bell and I moved quietly, crossing the threshold. Not able to locate a light switch we kept our flashlights sweeping to-and-fro. The crates that we had witnessed, being unloaded, two-days before, were scattered haphazardly across the warehouse floor. Several of their wood lids had been forced open. A pry bar lay nearby. Of the opened ones we observed seaweed, used as packing, chucked about as if they had been rummaged through to remove their contents. On close inspection, besides the seaweed, they were empty.

  One crate, though, nearest the pry bar, had its top remaining and slightly ajar. I flipped the lid back. It was packed tightly with the green marine algae. I picked through the stuff. It was cold and slippery. I hesitated momentarily when my flashlight caught the glint of something shiny. Carefully brushing the seaweed aside, I saw that it was glass. What I first took for a Mason jar, after completely uncovering it, turned out to be a glass cylinder. About as big around as a canning jar, it was three times as long. Did Sayter fail to retrieve this because our two uniforms had spooked him?

  Setting my light aside, I carefully lifted the container from the box. I held it at eye level. Something was sloshing around inside. Bell focused the beam of his flashlight on the glass, “What in the world is that?” he asked. An object, a soft mass of tissue was suspended in liquid. When the light from Bell’s torch played across the glass cylinder, the thing inside moved. And so, did I. It startled me! I dropped it. The glass container shattered when it struck the concrete floor.

  Retrieving my flashlight, Bell and I shined both of our torches on the mess I just made. It was an arm! It kind of looked human. It was the portion from the elbow down. The arm didn’t appear to be amputated. It was as if it had grown that way. It was the flesh of the thing that gave it its inhuman aspect. The skin was gray, except for tinges of green where parts of it were still wet from the liquid it had been swimming in and it glistened. There was also a wrist and a five-fingered hand, but that was also where any resemblance to homo sapiens ended. It was the nails, or rather, the claws of each appendage. They were thick, black and pointed like large nails. Not fingernails, but like the kind you’d pound into a two-by-four. I took a few steps for a closer look, and it moved.

  It didn’t squirm or wiggle, it propelled itself along the concrete with its four-fingers and the thumb. The pointy nails clickety-clacked on the cement, not unlike the advance of an aberrantly large insect. Halting within a few feet of where I stood, the perverse abortion of a human extremity reared up on its elbow joint. An array of short feelers resembling eels burst from the elbow and drove it towards me with a swimming action at a much faster rate. It had become a living mace, a tool for maiming and killing.

  I don’t remember, for sure, who fired first, I think it was me. What I do recall was the thundering noise our two .45’s made, within the warehouse, as we discharged a barrage of slugs into the thing. It flipped, then flopped like a freshly caught fish thrown onto a beach. Then it gurgled and erupted into a mass of brown sludge. Being the closest to it, some of the crap splattered my slacks. I was going to catch hell when I got home.

  “That was certainly disgusting, Sir!” observed my partner. “What do you think it was?”

  “Whatever it is, Francisco has more of it, and he has taken it somewhere else in town.”

  ***

  I was dog tired when I got home. The thought of finding a house with front and back lawns and a fence troubled me, even more, when I walked down the hallway to our apartment. The overcrowded building became augmented by the chattering conversations that echoed up through the garbage chute. One of our neighbor’s kids were running up and down the stairs screaming like a pack of wild Indians. Maybe I could find a place that needed some repairs, at a price I could afford. Anything, right then and there, would be ideal if we could only have a little peace and quiet.

  It was late, and Angel had pot roast and potatoes for me when I came in the door. She’s such a forgiving sort. “I was worried, you should have been home hours ago,” she complained.

  “Sorry, it’s the case I’m working on with Bell. Hopefully, it won’t last much longer.”

  “I was concerned that something bad had happened to you,” it was easy to see that she was troubled.

  I smiled. “I’ve no intention of getting hurt, Angel, but I have similar intentions for a mug named Francisco."

  I was starving. Dinner was great; I had three-helpings of everything. Robber had canned horse meat, Ken-L Ration. He ate it, but he still eyed my pot roast. After dinner, I downed a couple of belts of Cutty Sark. I was both exhausted and wide-awake. The long hours and the shootout played upon my nerves and kept me watchful. I hoped the scotch would have the desired effect.

  It felt like it had been a thousand black midnights since I had an undisturbed night of rest. How long had I wavered, unable to sleep much, because of the crazy dreams, I couldn't remember? I sprawled on the bed, still dressed, in frustrated wakefulness. I was staring at the ceiling when Nora entered our bedroom, hands on her hips. "Ok, Copper, off with the suit and on with the pajamas."

  I wished that Ian would not invade my slumber just this one night.

  ***

  Ian kept his torch aflame. He had been spending his wakeful hours roaming the catacombs, the warrens of his prison, that would more than likely become his burial chamber, he agonized. Every exploration would eventually have a stopover at his water source where he would drink of the smelly water and then continue. When each torch would be close to burning through its usefulness, he would locate another piece of wood, wrap it with an additional piece of cloth torn from his shirt and set it alight. It was tiring, and that was what he craved. Another chance to sleep.

  It was at Ian’s umpteenth sojourn to the watering place when he discovered the bag of gold. It had been in plain sight
all along. The discovery of running water in his Dunwich dungeon, up until then, had diverted his senses towards self-preservation only. His thirst had become so great that he had been oblivious to all other surroundings. No more than ten-feet from the trickle was a canvas sack. It was sitting on a flat rock, its top firmly tied with a strip of rawhide. His shirt was already in tatters from fueling so many torches, and the bag appeared to be a good candidate for feeding a fire. Opening it he ran his hand through the contents, gold coins, large ones, doubloons, he guessed. The bag of gold must have weighed fifty-pounds, but of this Ian was not certain, because of his weakened condition.

  Tying the bag shut, Ian dragged the treasure along the tunnel floor and brought it and himself to rest next to the metal door. In all the days of suffered confinement it was the only means, he knew of ingress to his prison and hopefully the egress. His exhaustion was complete. He was fully hydrated, nevertheless no matter how much water he consumed he still was starving. If he had had the company of some vermin residing in the caves, a rat, a lizard, even a snake he would have gladly rendered it senseless with a rock and roasted it over the campfire. Being as famished as he was he would have probably treated every morsel, scrap, bits of prey as an epicurean delight. Unfortunately, besides Ian, not a creature was stirring.

  Ian stretched out on the tunnel floor. The sack of gold made an acceptable pillow. He needed to sleep and dream another time. He must attempt to locate his Arkham policeman friend once again and hopefully deliver another message as to his whereabouts. It was becoming more and more difficult to concentrate on his dream journeys. He was obsessing, about food. It was tough to think about anything else. Ian was ravenous. He almost laughed out loud at his dilemma. Of all the things, a starving man could fantasize about eating, Ian couldn’t stop thinking about a ham sandwich and a glass of milk, make that two sandwiches.

  ***

  I was up at first light. I had slept like a rock. No crazy dreams that I could recall. I was at the kitchen counter with my thermos and lunch pail. I hadn’t used it in years; it had been tucked away in the hall closet. I don’t know what possessed me to get it. At the last minute, just before leaving for work I decided to pack my lunch . . . for two. Nora came in, wearing a bathrobe and slippers. “Caught you in the act,” she accused.

  “Red handed.”

  “What on earth are you doing?” she asked rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

  “Going on a stake out. I’m taking Robber with me as well. He got a snoot full of the guy we’re after and may be able to track him down. It will probably be an all-nighter.”

  I could tell that I had riled her, “You promised to take us out to dinner tonight,” she objected.

  “Plans have changed, duty calls,” I tried to sound tough, but it never has the desired effect on her. So, I offered a bribe, “I'll treat tomorrow night, Chinese.”

  “I'll believe it when I smell it.”

  Nora's a sterling woman with a gold standard, but somehow, she found it in her heart to take up housekeeping with me on a policeman's salary. Ain't love grand. “You know Angel,” I said in defense. “I'm doing my best to make ends meet. You should have married some fella with dough, so you'd be sitting pretty."

  "Oh yeah wise guy, you know you gave me something I never had."

  “What's that?”

  “A family, you big lug!” and then she kissed me. The dame sure has a way of making me feel good when I'm off to the salt mines.

  “What kind of sandwiches did you make?” she asked rubbing my back.

  “Ham.”

  ***

  Francisco Sayter drove as though traffic lights and stop signs were just mere suggestions. We’d been tailing him and his big blue Duesenberg for over a quarter of an hour. The 420-cubic inch straight-8 engine in the luxury auto was powerful, but it couldn’t outpace the flathead V8 engine under the hood of our Model A. Francisco had the bigger engine but our Ford was several hundred pounds lighter, and that made up the difference. We got word that he had been seen returning to his warehouse but the attempt had been cut short by the appearance of the two uniform officers that were still covering the joint. They phoned his location into Station House 13, from the call box, and the station house radioed the info to Bell and me.

  Every time we were close to coming alongside his vehicle, attempting to pull him over, he’d go road hog, nearly approaching a broadside, and we’d have to drop back into our pursuit position again. Bell was driving, and I was shouting directions. The poor kid probably couldn’t decide which would be worse; a tussle with our culprit, or me barking in his ear when to speed up and when to slow down. Sayter picked up speed and shot past the Garrison Street Witch House followed by a screeching left onto College Street. That was when we lost him. It was my fault. I have lived here all my life and knew the streets of Arkham like the back of my hand. I should have guessed his plan of diversion. Francisco Sayter had been circumnavigating town, adhering to the same circuitous route, with us behind. After turning on College, he gave the Duesenberg all it had and flew into the oncoming path of a streetcar riding the tracks between Miskatonic U and Saint Mary’s Hospital. Sayter narrowly missed being clobbered by the trolley, and we were left parked by the curb waiting for it to pass. When the way became clear, Francisco Sayter was nowhere in sight.

  Officer Bell and I drove around for a while cruising side streets and alley ways, but Frances had given us the slip. Neither one of us wanted to return to the station house and tell the Chief that we had lost our tail. “Maybe we need to stop chasing this guy and let him come to us?” I reasoned out loud.

  “Set some sort of trap for him, Detective?” queried my young partner.

  “Yes. Obviously, Sayter can’t go back to the warehouse because he knows that our boys are waiting for him. He was hightailing it somewhere just now, but where? Where would he go? I am guessing that there are more of those cylinders and he’s been transporting them somewhere.”

  “A hideout maybe,” Bell added. “Maybe he’s taking them to where he has the Windlass stashed, and that’s how he eventually moves them.”

  “A hideout huh? A place where nobody would think to look or . . . would be reluctant to explore because it is rumored to be haunted!” So, I didn’t go to college, and I can't speak English. But Charlie Chan has got nothing on me. I had a hunch and a damn good one. “The old mansion!” I hollered. Sometimes I can amaze myself. Just for the moment, I felt useful.

  ***

  It didn’t take us long to get hunkered down and out of sight. We camped towards the rear of the ram-shackled place, at the north end of the ballroom, where the six decaying French doors led to the interior. We stayed outdoors peering in, waiting for our quarry to reveal itself. I had sent Bell to the station house to get some firepower. Both of us had our Roscoes’ with a spare clip a piece, but I wanted more, a Sherman tank would have been nice.

  Robber was patient; he was gnawing on another bone I brought for him. I watched, from outside as dust-motes drifted in the last beams of sunlight that shined through the lofty ballroom windows. After dusk, there was very little light, for clouds curtained the moon; I've always loved the night and the darkness. Old houses, such as this one, can be strange and sinister places when the sun goes down. They can also be terrifying. I couldn’t help noting how much it seemed like a setting from a gothic novel. The surrounding grounds with clinging weeds and dirty windows were thick with cobwebs. A flashlight can do wonders to banish dark spirits, except I was unable to use mine for fear of blowing my cover. I felt like a kid again, that thrill up your spine that comes with trespassing and danger. I was a dweller in the dark.

  When Bell returned, he drove the Model A, as I had instructed earlier, through the yard and over to the side of the house with the headlights off. Robber and I were crouched down below the steps to the French doors. So far Francisco was a no show.

  Bell popped the lid on the trunk and motioned me to join him. Illuminating the trunk’s interior, he revealed the arse
nal he had procured. My eyes went wide. A brand-new Remington pump shotgun and a box of 12 gauge, 00 bucks smiled at me. The shells hold nine-pellets each. The buckshot is used for two purposes; self-defense and hunting medium to large game; appropriate, I thought. Next to it were two tear gas grenades, one a piece, a good choice. But the icing on the cake was the Thompson submachine gun. Its large .45 ACP cartridges can fly out of its barrel at a rate of seven-hundred rounds per minute. This model was equipped with a one-hundred-round drum magazine. That means if fired continuously you'd be out of ammo in just eight-and-one-half seconds. I was in love.

  “Matthew Bell how in heaven’s name were you able to amass such an arsenal?” I must have sounded like a kid on Christmas morning.

  “My cousin, Sir, manages the precinct’s armory.”

  “And that enabled you to acquire all this without a written requisition?” I was amazed by Bell’s resourcefulness.

  “Not exactly, Sir. I told him if he didn’t give me what I wanted that I’d tell my aunt, his mother, that I saw him enter Sean Hoade's speakeasy Saturday night.”

  The kid reeked of originality. I snatched up the Thompson, I was ecstatic. “It's a Lollapalooza,” I announced, careful not to raise my voice. We were still playing hide and seek.

  “What do you mean, Sir?” he asked I guessed that he was not yet familiar with the term.

  “Have you ever seen a weapon better than this, Bell?”

  “Never.”

  “Then it's a Lollapalooza. They don't make em' like this anymore. I’m taking the Thompson.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  We divvied up the tear gas, and he got the Remington. Bell and I stretched out on the porch stairs leading to the French doors and waited.

  The hands of my wrist watch appeared fixed in place every time I looked at it. It was two a.m. and black as pitch outside when I heard a click. At first, I thought it was someone cocking the breach on a rifle. I strained my eyes against the darkness and was able to detect movement within the ballroom. A large shadowy figure materialized and then seemed to shrink in size. It was moments before I made the connection. It was Sayter, and he was bending down fiddling with the floor boards on the south end of the room, near that charcoal drawing on the wall.