The Children of
Cambridge,
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Charlamagne watched Cambridge awake in somber silence. A
blanket of clouds crowded the skies, delaying the light of day from its inevitable round.
The rain continued through most of the night, with only the briefest of respites just
before daybreak. The way it looked, Cambridge would be seeing a lot of storms in the near
future. Charlamagne knew, though, that the weather was the least of Cambridge's problems.
A storm far worse than any could imagine was brewing just beyond the edge of sight, and it
was heading this way.
The old black man was able to find out all there was to know about
the disappearances the afternoon he appeared in Cambridge. Such news travels fast in small
towns—no matter how hard you tried to keep things quiet, they had a way of finding
their way into the open. His inquiries were discrete, as a stranger in town, he'd become
suspect to the crimes if he were seen by too many people. But the need to learn what was
going on demanded throwing caution to the wind. He only hoped he'd find out what he needed
to know before the police inevitably arrested him.
He found the field where the Bryant child disappeared just after
midnight, the sense of evil so strong in the area that Charlamagne often felt weak and
strangled. In his eyes, Billy's trail glowed in the darkness like neon, pointing out the
very path he took the night the second child disappeared. Billy's path led to a small
shack in the middle of a field near the railroad tracks. Someone else had been here
recently, their footsteps obscuring Billy's at the door to the building.
The shack was wrapped in yellow police tape, a bad sign
Charlamagne wasn't happy with. Beating Billy’s game depended on him getting to these
places before anyone else to taste the blood bath first hand. He slipped past the tape and
into the small shack like a ghost, shivering against the thick evil permeating the place.
Where Billy's presence was strong before, now it was overwhelming. The darkest of evil
seethed from the wooden walls in invisible trails of slime. The air stank of it, the
ground trembled with it, everywhere was the evil that Billy was.
This was the place, this was where he would find Billy's
challenge, along with a belonging of one of the victims. Penciled in the ancient symbols
of the Great Old Ones on a piece of vellum, only Billy and he would be able to understand
the true meaning of the challenge. More important at this point, though, the parchment
held the identity of Billy's priest. As long as the priest still lived, the killings would
go on unchecked, each more horrible than the last.
Billy liked to do things this way. He knew Charlamagne was always
just one step behind him, hounding him, searching him out. It was a serious game the two
played, one that could cost thousands, if not millions, of souls depending on its outcome.
Billy saw it as a challenge of wits, Charlamagne saw it as survival.
Charlamagne's eyes adjusted to the darkness, revealing the
disarray of junk within the building. Billy's aura was strongest near the center of the
far wall. Upon closer inspection, he found the trash had been pushed away from the spot,
leaving a circle about two feet in diameter on the floor. The rest of the room showed
various states of disarray, probably from the police, but the circle seemed untouched,
almost virginal.
To Charlamagne’s disappointment, nothing was in the circle.
He pushed back the trash from the edge of the circle, hoping someone might have kicked the
item away from its resting place, but no such luck. The old man shook his head and closed
his eyes. Like it had been in Arkham in ’63, the police had the challenge.
This wasn't good. Fifteen children died in Arkham before he could
stop Billy. Had it not been for a sheer stroke of luck, ol' Billy might have even
succeeded. Then, as now, the police found the parchment and kept it well hidden, jealous
of the only piece of hard evidence they had in the case. Then, as now, that jealousy cost
the lives and souls of innocent youth.
Charlamagne had to make a decision. Would he try to guess Billy's
game and stop him as he had in Arkham 30 years ago, hoping he could do so before too many
children died? Or would he go to the police and try to get access to the parchment? If he
could only get the parchment without notifying the police of his intentions. He knew that
would be impossible. Small town police do not allow strangers access to case material,
especially strangers who looked as he.
The sound of footsteps sloshing in the mud outside brought
Charlamagne wheeling around. The bright beam of a flashlight slashed through the doorway
into the room, blinding him in the glare. He shielded his eyes. Beyond the light he saw
the outline of a huge man with the flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other.
"This is a crime scene, didn't you read the tape?" the
man asked. "Who are you?"
"They call me Charlamagne." His voice was weak and raspy
against the dank evil still residing in the building. Charlamagne knew he wouldn't be able
to talk right until he got out, but the man didn't seem like he was going to let him at
the moment.
"You got a last name, Charlamagne?"
"None's that I remember."
"What you doing over here? Did you lose something?" The
tone of this man's voice told Charlamagne what he already knew. This man was a cop.
"I is just looking for a place to sleep, suh. I ain't one to
cause trouble for nobody."
The cop lowered the flashlight to the floor and took a step
backwards from the doorway.
"Come on out of there, and keep them hands where I can see
them."
Charlamagne did as he was told, happy to shed the dark slime of
evil for the fresh air outside. The moment he was outside the shack, the officer pushed
him up against the wall and searched him roughly. Handcuffed, he was informed of his
rights and led to a cruiser on a street nearby. Like it or not, the decision he fought
with a moment ago had been made for him. He was going to the police.
Daybreak came without fanfare, the only hint it was upon
Cambridge was the slightly lighter gray tint of the clouds overhead. The ride from the
rail yard to the courthouse was a quiet one. Charlamagne had dealings with cops before and
found the best thing to do was to stay shut until you found someone with half a mind in
his head. Southern towns were the worst, but rural villages in the mountains could be just
as bad.
Al made no attempt to find out any information about the scrawny
little black man. Ron would be able to find out what they needed to know from the guy, no
use in wasting his own time trying. Al was good at getting things done the physical way.
When it came to using the head, he let Ron handle it.
A light rain began to fall as Al parked the car in front of the
sheriff's office. In the distance to the west the rumble of thunder shook the sky, rolling
slowly eastward until it met the mountains and muffled itself in the forest. Al got out of
the cruiser and looked up at the sky. Another storm was brewing, another storm Cambridge
didn't need.
He hustled the prisoner into the building and sat him down outside
Ron's office. Knowing by the light in the office that Ron must've stayed the night, he
tapped lightly on the door and cracked it open just a bit.
"Sheriff," he whispered. A subtle snore answered from
the couch against the far wall. Al looked back at Charlamagne and decided the old man
wasn't going anywhere. He pushed the door open a bit more and stepped across the room.
"Sheriff," he said again, this time a bit louder. He
reached out and shook Ron's shoulder. "We got company."
Ron's eyes fluttered open and stared blankly at Al. Somewhere in
the back of his mind he was still deep in a dream, a dream filled with clay oceans and
angles askew against the laws of physics. A second later the last remnants of the dream
slipped into nothingness, leaving a feeling of lost helplessness in its place.
"What?"
Al waited a minute for Ron to sit up and rub the sleep from his
eyes. He took the opportunity to glance out at the prisoner. The old man was looking
around the room with half interest.
"I went back to the rail yards about an hour ago. You know
what they say, the culprit returning to the scene of the crime and all. Wouldn't you know
it but when I get there I find a panhandler in the shack where you found Bobby's
harmonica. Got him outside, waiting to see you."
Ron looked at Al and shook his head. The deputy was absolutely
beaming with pride for finding this guy, whoever he was. Given the creeping feeling of
desperation that was edging into the town, Ron didn't blame him. Deep down inside his gut
told him the guy was innocent, but it didn't hurt to question him anyway.
"What's his name?" Ron asked. He stood up and stretched
like an old cat, listening with satisfaction to his joints creak and pop. Nothing like
breaking in the old body for another day of work. Damn couch didn't help matters any.
"All he'd tell me was Charlamagne, and I didn't press it.
Wasn't there an Indian or something named Charlamagne?"
"I believe he was a pirate down in New Orleans." Ron
loosened his belt and retucked his shirt. After straightening his uniform, he stepped from
his office and got his first look at Charlamagne.
The old man's skin was the color of chocolate, spiced with a raggy
beard of gray that grew from his chin into a halo around an otherwise bald head. His face
was cracked with age, but soft and gentle all the same. Charlamagne's skeletal form barely
supported the clothes he wore on his back. Ron couldn't see how tall he was, but figured
he could be not taller than his own five and a half feet.
Hidden beneath all of this, though, was an invisible glow that
shined in Ron's eyes like the sun. There was something about this Charlamagne that he felt
was right, just as right as the building he was found in was wrong. In Charlamagne's
company Ron felt secure, a feeling he did not often experience in others.
"My deputy here says you were found in the area were the
Bryant boy disappeared. You tell me anything about it?"
"I just got into town, sheriff, hadn't been here for more
than a day. I's just looking for a place to stay so I can get out of the rain. That's why
your deputy found me there, cause it was dry."
Ron noticed the southern twang buried deep in Charlamagne's voice,
along with the forced butchery of the English language along with it. The sparkle in
Charlamagne's eyes spoke of anything but a half wit. Still, Ron felt in his gut that the
guy hadn't done anything wrong.
"Want me to lock him up?" Al asked eagerly. Ron glanced
from the deputy to the old man and back again.
"Put him in the cell and fill out the usual paperwork. See
that he gets something to eat before I get back."
"Where are you going?"
"Lexington." Dr. Mendleson had called back the night
before as promised and given Ron the time of his arrival. Ron had been lucky that Al
showed up when he did or he might've overslept and missed the flight.
"Why are you going over there?"
"Got a visitor coming in from the coast," was all Ron
would say. In the off chance he was wrong about the prisoner, he didn't want to say too
much and tip him off. "Tell Sally to hold down the fort until I get back. As soon as
you get this guy set up, get some sleep in the back."
Without another word, Ron left the office and climbed into his car
on his way to Lexington. The sky overhead split with lightning and thunder, heralding yet
another storm's approach to the besieged Cambridge.
The hour and a half ride was uneventful and, had it not been
for the depressing situation back home, the ride might have even been a bit enjoyable. A
half hour out of Cambridge, the skies cleared to a soft blue and the warmth of a late
summer morning wrapped itself around Ron's car. Out here, away from the gloomy skies and
the cold, wet air, one could almost forget the horrible things that were going on. Almost.
Dr. Mendleson's plane out of New York was due in at 8:35 a.m.. If
he didn't run into any problems on the way, Ron would just make it. The night before, he
had tried to reason with the professor that whatever he had to say could wait for him to
catch a flight at a more civilized hour. But Mendleson was adamant and Ron finally agreed
to meet him at the airport.
What Mendleson had to offer was anybody's guess. He indicated the
police reports did little but scratch the surface of the true events that summer in
Arkham. Apparently, the police chief and his officers left their job of their own free
will, rather than being fired as the reports indicated. It is a terrible thing to have
such a tragedy erupt from your own back yard, but Ron couldn't see anything so bad as to
want to make him resign from his job.
In the light of the sun, all those things that ran through Ron's
head began to seem like so much gibberish. He reminded himself of the vision that met him
in the rail yard, but now it seemed so distant, so foggy. The clear weather made it too
easy to explain such things away as stress. Yet, Ron knew what he saw and felt there when
his daughter died before his mind's eye. It was a vision, granted, but it was as vision as
real as life.
Before he knew it, the sheriff was taking the airport exit and
parking the police cruiser in the short term parking lot. Dr. Mendleson told him what
airline he was arriving on, but failed to give him the flight number. It didn't matter, a
quick look at the arrival monitor near the entrance of the airport told Ron that the
flight was just arriving at gate four.
Ron had no idea what Dr. Mendleson looked like, but he was pretty
sure he'd be able to pick him out. Sure enough, when a bent old man dressed in gray tweed
stepped through the exit, Ron knew in an instant it was Mendleson. The old man pushed his
way through the crowd and approached Ron.
Dr. Mendleson was a textbook professor, from the umbrella tucked
beneath one arm to the horn rimmed glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose.
The man was very thin, suffering from the gaunt look that often plagued the elderly. Ron
had noticed that early in his life and hoped he didn't conform to the norm when he got
old. The old people he knew were either fat and jolly or skinny as a skeleton. What a
decision, to die of obesity or malnutrition.
Dr. Mendleson's hair was understandably fray from the trip, a
white fluff of cotton that stood on end across his head. Down deep, Ron got the feeling
that this was its normal state. Mendleson's skin was drawn tight across his bones and was
pasty white. This, too, could have been attributed to the overnight plane ride, but Ron
knew differently. The cracks that began at the edges of his eyes and trailed across his
face announced that Dr. Mendleson's features were the product of worry and even fear, not
old age.
Mendleson offered a skeletal hand and introduced himself. His New
England accent was more pronounced in person, his R's missing as is often the case in
those who come from the northeast. His smile was weak and forced, yet another sign that he
considered the present situation very serious.
"We've not a moment to spare," the professor said,
grabbing Ron by the arm and herding him away from the gate. For his size and age,
Mendleson had a surprisingly strong grip. "Lead me to the baggage area and we'll be
on our way."
"I thought we'd stop at a coffee shop, get some breakfast so
you could relax after your trip." Dr. Mendleson stopped and stared at the sheriff.
"Sheriff Myerson, do you have the slightest idea what you're
dealing with here." Mendleson stopped and shook his head. The tense lines scattered
across his face loosened their grip and his shoulders relaxed a bit. "I am sorry. Of
course you don't, and I hope to god we are wrong and you never will. I would enjoy a good
breakfast."
Ron smiled. "The baggage claim area is down this way."
Fifteen minutes later the doctor had two more bags in tow, huge
trunks that would make one believe he were moving to Cambridge permanently. Ron said
nothing, knowing from past experience with his ex-wife what some people pack when they go
on trips. He loaded the trunks onto a cart and wheeled them out to his cruiser. With some
luck and hard work, he got the trunks loaded and soon the two were on their way.
"I thought we'd stop up at Dave's Truck Stop," he said
to Mendleson once they were back on the highway. The professor nodded his head absently
while he watched the traffic outside.
"You know, I've not been a police cruiser since...well, for
almost 35 years. Ironic that it took the same set of circumstances to get me back into
one."
"Look professor," Ron interrupted, "you need to
understand something. You being here, the discussion we had yesterday, this is all
strictly between you and me. There isn't enough of a pattern yet to convince anyone of
spit. If the state knew what I was doing, they'd call me crazy, if not more."
Mendleson turned and looked at the sheriff. "You needn't
worry about that, sheriff. If there is a connection between what is happening in Cambridge
and what happened in Arkham 35 years ago, you've done the right thing. Whether or not
anyone will believe you is another matter, even after all the facts are out. Those
involved in the investigation in Arkham all know what happened, and yet we still wonder at
it ourselves."
"What the hell happened in Arkham, professor?" Ron
blurted out. He'd gotten the impression that a lot was missing from the police report, and
was hoping that the professor would fill him in. After a long pause, Mendleson looked up
at the sheriff with tired, sad eyes.
"Do you believe in God, sheriff?"
The question was so out of the blue that it caught Ron completely
off guard. He hesitated for a minute before answering.
"Well, sure I do, don't you?"
"Sheriff, I mean it. Ask yourself, do you really believe in
God. Do you believe in a God, demanding and full of wrath, a God of supreme power and
ability, or do you believe in something that was poured into your head as a child without
really understanding why."
"I don't understand what this has to do with what's going
on."
"If you and I are linked in our situations, than the only
thing that will see you through is your belief in God. Not the benevolent God taught to
you in Sunday School at the local church who watches over all of us with love and
understanding. The god I speak of is the god of power, the true ruler of the heavens whose
heavy hand strikes hard and true against any who would oppose him. That is the god I speak
of, sheriff, when I ask do you believe in him."
This was insane. Dr. Mendleson sounded more like a televangelist
and less like a college professor. Something held Ron's emotions in check, though. A
shadow in his mind, primal and long forgotten, awoke at the description of Mendleson's god
and offered recognition. Ron remained silent.
"Back in the spring of 1962, I was beginning my twelfth year
as head of the department of occult literature at Miskatonic University. Back then, it
bordered on the edge of lunacy to head such a department without the fear of being branded
a witch, or worse. In fact, had it not been for the area in which Miskatonic sits, such a
department would have been unheard of at all. As it were, the only reason we had such a
department in the first place was because of the arcane volumes of dark knowledge housed
in the Miskatonic University Library for study in the first place.
"We had just acquired one of the three surviving copies of
the cursed Book of Eibon, though the manual was incomplete, and some of the pages
were so defaced that they were impossible to read. I looked forward to diving into its
pages anyway, the book offered a glimpse into the practices of the darkest magic and would
prove invaluable to our studies." Again Mendleson hesitated, wringing his hands for a
moment in indecision.
"Before I go any further, sheriff, I want to make sure you
understand one thing. I share no fondness of the occult other than that of a scholar
wanting to know and to understand. The practices I have studied in my years are loathsome
at best and I would never partake of them myself. If I speak as if I were a witch or
worse, bear with me. I assure you I am not." With that, a certain weight seemed to
disappear from the professor's shoulders and he continued.
"Spring passed into summer, showing little progress in
deciphering the strange passages of the book. Though to this day I do not believe the
appearance of the book had anything to do with the incidents that summer, I cannot help
but wonder if it would've happened had I not brought the book to Miskatonic in the first
place.
"It was on April the 15th that the first child went missing,
I remember the day because of two things. First, one of my assistants unlocked a key
passage in the Book of Eibon. Second was the storm that ripped through the city
that afternoon. It knocked out power for over 6 hours and through Arkham into a near state
of panic.
"The child's name was Joshua Thomas, the four year old son of
a prominent local doctor. One moment he was asleep in her room and the next he was gone,
just like that. Back then, the disappearance of a child weighed much heavier on the world,
but nothing anyone could do could produce Joshua Thomas.
"As I said, a storm ripped through Arkham that very
afternoon, the likes of which had not been seen since 1931. A tenth of the population went
homeless because of it, their homes ripped from their foundations like paper houses before
a hurricane. Arkham sits near the ocean, sheriff, and storms of this magnitude are not
altogether rare. What was baffling was the fact that the storm came from the north against
the wind. To this day, no one can explain it.
"For three days the storm continued on, waxing and waning
like the moon in bitter fits of rage that tore at the heart of Arkham. The search for
Joshua was washed away by the torrential rains until on the child's parents and the
hardiest of souls were left to look for him. A silent agreement ran through the streets of
Arkham, Joshua Thomas was gone and would never be found."
For a long moment, Dr. Mendleson stared silently through the
windshield of the car. The restaurant Ron planned to stop at had long disappeared in the
rear view mirror. Dr. Mendleson's tale was too familiar, and Ron wanted to hear it all. In
the far distance, black storm clouds brewed at the base of the mountains. A spattering of
rain drops hit the windshield like tears from God.
"Sheriff Myerson, how much do you know about Arkham?"
The question came quickly, catching Ron off guard. He glanced at the professor and
shrugged.
"I thought so," Mendleson sighed. "There aren't
many who know of the place at all. Even those who live near it tend to forget, though
their reasons are anything but ignorance. There is a darkness about Arkham, a darkness
that no light can ever penetrate. The city of Arkham has always been one of ominous
design; a cursed city that was rarely afforded the chance to face life with a smile on its
face. Most of the country sat in mute ignorance of Arkham’s gloom, for most of what
has happened to this wretched place rarely occurred within the city limits. As every
occurrence in life and death has a center point, a place from which it originates, so does
the horror that blankets that cursed land. The hub of all that occurs is Arkham, of this I
am sure. Even the disappearance of the population of an entire town in Kansas can be
traced back to this place if one would but take the time to see. Like a spinning wheel,
the strangeness of that which is Arkham ripples outward until one day it will overcome all
in its path. Until the summer of '62, I was skeptical of the bad luck that hovered of
Arkham. After the events of that dread summer, I know that luck had nothing to do with it.
"The second disappearance occurred on the eve of the third
day. A little girl, six years of age, disappeared while walking in the rain to a friend's
house. A search of the neighborhood revealed nothing. A rumor began to circulate, a rumor
of a madman on the loose who preyed on children to satisfy his insane lust. If it had only
been that, maybe things would've been a lot easier.
"While searching the area on the following day, one of the
police officers found a small pouch near one of the girl's favorite play spots. The pouch
contained the head of the girl's doll, wrapped in a piece of vellum with odd symbols drawn
upon it."
The mention of the doll's head wrapped in paper made Ron wince. Of
course, Mendleson could be making this all up. Ron had told him about the harmonica last
night, and the professor might just be some crackpot wanting to get in on the act. A quick
glance at the old man calmed Ron's suspicions. The professor sat in a disheveled pile,
staring blankly at the passing scenery. His eyes revealed a look of desperation as they
sped toward Cambridge. Whatever the professor was talking about was real, at least to him.
"That's when I was brought in on the case. The university had
been called upon by the authorities in hopes it could offer assistance in deciphering the
strange symbols. As its most noted authority at the time, I did what I could. But I had
never seen the likes of the symbols and try as I might, I could not unlock their secrets,
at least not at first.
"The storms continued and so did the disappearances. With
each missing child the people of Arkham were thrown deeper and deeper into despair.
Parents locked their children away, some even went so far as to chain them up, but nothing
could keep the kidnapper from taking the children of Arkham away. The only common thread
between all the disappearances was the imaginary friend named Billy. His discovery came
late, after the eighth child went missing, and at first no one made any association
between Billy and what was going on. Who could blame a man who only existed in the minds
of children?
"I think the first real break came toward the middle of July.
We had worked night and day on the mysterious paper and only quite by accident did we find
a clue to its meaning. Hidden in the pages of the dread Necronomicon was a
reference to a being named Nyarlathotep, along with a description of the symbol to be
etched in a plate of copper upon his conjuring. We discovered the very same symbol as the
central theme to those drawn on the paper."
"Nyarlethowhat?" Ron asked. This was getting a bit
beyond him, he needed to reel the professor back in to the world of reality before things
got way out of hand. Mendleson looked over at Ron and smiled.
"Nyarlathotep. Do not think me mad, sheriff. I only relate
the story, I do not write it. There is an ancient mythology based from the Saudi Arabian
peninsula whose central theme revolves around a group of deities named the Great Old Ones.
The tome I spoke of, the Necronomicon, was written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.
Alhazred died an especially horrible death, devoured in broad daylight before a host of
witnesses by an invisible assailant.
"When we discovered the symbol's meaning in the book, we
began trying to piece together a profile on the madman we were dealing with. We had no
other choice but to assume the person responsible for the disappearances was a madman. To
kidnap children and then base oneself from the pages of one of the most horrible of books
could lead us to believe nothing else.
"We had to assume our suspect possessed a great intelligence.
Few men know of the existence of the Necronomicon. Fewer still are smart enough to
decipher the words written upon its worm eaten pages. We admitted to ourselves that our
suspect could have chanced upon the symbol by glancing through the pages of the book. But
the way he portrayed the symbol upon the vellum was too deliberate and linked in with
other things whispered of in the tome. Whoever drew the symbols did not do so out of
memory of the shape. Whoever did it knew the meaning of the symbol and was trying to send
us a message.
"We were bothered by the doll's head, though the authorities
offered insight on that piece of the puzzle. They said that serial criminals, especially
violent ones, often collected prizes from their victims in a display of their power. It
did not surprise the police that the suspect offered one of those trophies as a clue. It
was a deliberate taunt, as if he were laughing aloud and saying try as you might you'll
never catch me."
In the distance a peal of thunder shook the mountains, promising
yet another storm ripping through Cambridge. The rain became more insistent as the clouds
grew darker and darker. Mendleson's voice became agitated.
"By midsummer's end, 11 children were gone with us no closer
to discovering who was behind it all than when it first began. That was when we made the
second discovery, the discovery that led us down a path of darkness that none of us could
have ever foreseen.
"The country north of Arkham is wide open, littered with
farms that trace their beginnings back before the 1800s. One such farm located north of
Dunwich belonged to a family of lunatics named the Whateleys. In the early 1900s, the
Whateleys played a prominent role in a rash of murders that buried Dunwich beneath its
shadow. The town itself is dead, most the folk having moved away before the beginning of
World War II. Still, hikers go there from time to time to see what they can find. Most
leave within an hour of their arrival, and none ever spend the night."
The mention of the name Whateley set a buzzer off in Ron's head,
though at the moment he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why. Where had he heard
that name before? Where?
"It was one such hiker that found the skeletal remains of a
small child buried beneath a pile of stones on the old Whateley place. The state police
immediately began an intense investigation and soon discovered that the remains did indeed
belong to one of the missing children, a boy name Jimmy Bryner. He'd been missing for
almost a month, though no one could guess how long his body had been beneath the pile of
stones."
"Couldn't the forensic people pinpoint a time of death? I
know things were a bit rustic back in the early 60s, but they could've at least determined
how many days he'd been dead."
Mendleson swallowed hard and turned uncomfortably in his seat.
"You aren't listening to what I've said. The hiker discovered
the skeletal remains of the boy. Whoever killed poor Jimmy picked his bones clean. A
horrifying aspect of the autopsy was the discovery that the bones were actually polished.
In one afternoon, the kidnappings in Arkham had taken on an all new twist.
"But as meticulous as the killer had been to clean Jimmy of
his humanity, he made a mistake. A thorough search of the area provided us with two more
clues, each leading us in two very diverse, and terrifying, directions. These clues would
lead us beyond the realms of reality into a darkness that none of us knew could ever
exist.
"The first clue was a scrap of newspaper, almost overlooked
because of its apparent insignificance. Had it not been for the horror of the situation
which heightened the awareness of the search party, the clue would've been overlooked
completely. The paper was muddy and worn on one side, as if it had stuck to someone's boot
and dislodged by accident at the site of the murder. The partial headline couldn't be
read, but that didn't matter. On the lower left corner of the paper the words "...smouth
Tribune" peeked from beneath the dirt and grime. The word ...smouth no doubt
referred to Innsmouth, a coastal town of ill repute that had suffered the same fate as
Dunwich, though for an altogether different reason.
"The second clue was a broken piece of marble found in the
same vicinity as the paper. It, too, was covered in the same mud as on the paper, and gave
the impression that it might have also been stuck in the suspects shoe. The significance
of the marble took longer to discover, and ultimately lead us right into the heart of
Arkham."
The professor's story began to wrap Ron in a web of unease. This
was happening too fast. All this sounded right out of one of those horror books his
ex-wife used to read all the time. Old men did not just appear off a plane and begin to
weave tales of terror and expect you to believe it. At least, not until now.
"We decided to immediately investigate the Innsmouth
lead," Mendleson continued, not missing a beat. His voice was smooth and sure, he
either knew the lines by heart or he really believed what he was saying. "None had
been to the town before and most of us weren't really sure where it was at. In fact, it
came as a surprise to a few of us that there was an active newspaper in Innsmouth at
all."
"What do you mean?" Ron asked.
"Innsmouth suffers a, how should I say this, a plague of
sorts. Among the older folk of Arkham it is not uncommon to hear one refer to the citizens
from that town as having the Innsmouth look. Fish-eyed and pasty skinned, they were said
to remind one of a frog.
"No matter, we had the paper and we were determined to go to
Innsmouth to find out who was behind the kidnappings. Had God in heaven been merciful he
would've caused us a calamity, anything to keep us from that cursed place. We arrived in
tact, though only myself and one other left."
"The police reports mention something about that, but it says
the group went to Dunwich."
"An intentional mistake, I assure you. What lies in Innsmouth
is better left asleep. To name the place with such prominence would've certainly spelled
disaster for Arkham. No, what we learned in Innsmouth helped us to understand what was
happening in Arkham, but the individual responsible was not there."
Ron stole a glance at the professor and immediately realized that
any pursuit in the direction of Innsmouth was useless. Whatever happened in that place
would remain locked away in Mendleson's mind. Maybe it was better that way. The feeling
Ron was getting about this was getting worse by the minute. No use in making it any worse
than it needed to be.
"Innsmouth did reveal one thing about our suspect. He was
indeed the imaginary friend the children named Billy, and he was not of this world as we
understand it. I realized with horror that I was right, though I never wanted to be more
wrong in all my life.
"Nyarlathotep was Billy's true name, messenger of the Great
Old Ones and harbinger of doom and destruction. In the Necronomicon, it is said
that he precedes the coming of the Old Ones, spreading their word and horror among those
they would come to devour. Of course, I always thought of Nyarlathotep as a myth, but now
I wasn't so sure. The way the children described him, as if he had stepped right out of
the Arabian Knights, was the same way as he was described in the Necronomicon.
"Unfortunately, this was not enough to put a stop to the
kidnappings. We found no more bodies, but now we were pretty sure what was happening to
the children. A meeting of the city council decided that the findings in Dunwich, and in
Innsmouth, would be kept quiet, and all present were sworn to secrecy. As far as anyone in
Arkham knew, the body discovered in Dunwich belonged to a youngster missing in Maine for
three months.
"The summer continued on its ride of terror, and so did the
disappearances. It was just after the 15th disappearance that we finally deciphered the
second clue discovered at Dunwich. The chip of marble had puzzled me for weeks, for I knew
I had seen such a stone before but I didn't know where. One night late, while I was
studying the Book of Eibon in hopes of discovering more information about
Nyarlathotep, it finally came to me.
"The city mausoleum. The stone chip reminded me of the same
textured stone used in the lower crypts. The lower crypts were built just after the city
was founded in the 1600s and used Italian marble for ornamentation. The crypts were sealed
at the end of the 1700s for fear that witches used the place to summon their ghouls. I had
been in the crypts once to make study of one grave, and that was where I had seen the
marble before.
"I notified the sheriff of my recollection and he immediately
gathered a group of men to investigate the crypts. We descended on the place just before
dusk, for we could not chance another night going by, and another child going missing. I
know this sounds a bit melodramatic, a group of men bearing torches descending into the
depths of hell to kill the monster. Its one of those things you read in a book or see in a
movie and say to yourself, I'd never do that if it were me. I am here to tell you,
sheriff, when that sort of situation comes up, you really feel you have no other choice.
"What horrors we encountered as we descended into the ancient
tombs were nothing compared to what we found in the bowels of Arkham. A central chamber
had been carved from the earth, connecting the crypts by a series of tunnels that all
deposited in this one place. A fire roared in the middle of the chamber, telling us that
someone else was down here with us. Yet with all this, what we saw next nearly drove each
and every one of us into raving lunacy.
"Propped around the roaring flames were the bodies of 12 of
the missing children, each a hideous mockery of the young life which once filled its
limbs." Here, Mendleson's voice dropped to a choked whisper, barely discernible above
the driving rain against the windshield of the cruiser. Had it been quiet enough so he
could not here the words at all, Ron would have been truly happy, but each whispered
syllable cracked the air around him like thunder.
"The body of each child was half swallowed in a putrid cocoon
of slime and ochre, seething and pulsing as we watched in horror. The decaying corpses
twitched and shuddered as the cocoons slowly inched up the corpses in a lazy course of
devouring the young. At the base of each cocoon something new and terrifying pulsed with
life, as if consuming the child's body and replacing it with festering evil."
What seemed an eternity passed before the professor spoke again.
When he did, the last shreds of hope of a sane answer to all that was happening
disappeared in the driving rain.
"The chief of police fell to his knees and cried out, pulling
out his pistol at the same time and firing into the base of the cocoon of the nearest
child. The cocoon exploded a vile, green slime that splattered the chief and burned him
like acid. Unknowing or uncaring of his wounds, the chief fired again and again until his
pistol was empty.
"What erupted from the base of the cocoon no one can describe
accurately, I honestly believe if any tried, their minds would have snapped in two like a
brittle twig. The thing slithered across the floor of the crypt like a maggot, free from
its shell, obviously intent on the chief. But our minds were not with the chief, they were
with what suddenly appeared behind this scene of horrific carnage.
"Did I say appear? That word isn't right, but it's the only
one I can find that can begin to describe what happened. A darkness, so deep, so profound,
so terrifying, seeped into the chamber, enveloping us in its icy clutch. A voice of hollow
iron rang out from this darkness, splitting our ears with its mockery of human speech.
"'How dare you!' it screamed. I remember its words as if it
were spoken just a second ago, its hatred still rattles me in my darkest nightmares.
'Behold, these are the children of Yog-Sothoth, these are the spawn promised a millennium
before the birth of your puny race. How dare you touch them, harm them! You shall die a
million deaths, yet each shall bring a horrible life that thrusts you deeper into the
darkness in which all the human race is destined to dwell.'
"The chamber began to shake as the voice chanted words hidden
in the darkest pages of the Necronomicon, words that have been committed to my
memory but I dare not speak, words that are best left rotting in the grave.
"Suddenly, the darkness shifted, a grayness replacing it as
if its power were waning. In fact, we all recollected later a sudden lightening of the
air, the evil being pushed back. In the distance, words soothing and somehow familiar
pierced the darkness. Those words I cannot remember, maybe if I could we could stop all
this before it gets to bad. But I do know that as the words were spoken the darkness
shuddered and wretched, convulsing and vomiting forth its hatred.
"The words continued and the darkness suddenly split,
bringing us back into the vile chamber of death. The ground began to rumble, the cocoon
convulsed and squirmed, spitting the half decayed corpses of the lost children to the
floor. We set the cocoons on fire, they burned surprisingly fast, and fled the dark
secrets of the crypt."
Everything was quiet in the car for the next five minutes, only
the sound of the rain on the window and the wipers steady swish breaking the silence. Ron
quickly forced himself to discount what the professor had said, how could he not. Living
darkness and slime cocoons do not exist in the real world. Professor Mendleson watched the
sheriff as they drove closer to Cambridge, knowing exactly what was going through his
head.
"I know you don't believe me, sheriff, I can't say that I
blame you. This world we live in relies on set standards. Things that go bump in the night
do not really exist, they're more likely to be the heater turning on or an old house
settling it's bones. Evil exists in the minds of men, and true horror comes in the guise
of Charles Manson or Ted Bundie. I know these things as you do, and I used to believe them
myself. But if this were the truth, if everything I just told you were but the misgivings
of an imaginative old man, then how can you explain this?
Professor Mendleson reached into his pocket and withdrew an aging
piece of paper, much like the vellum Ron found in the shanty near the rail yard. He
carefully unfolded it and held it out for Ron to see. For the shortest moment, Ron's mind
refused to recognize what it was. Then the recognition grabbed him, ripping his brain from
the base of reality, forcing bile to the back of his throat. His foot came down hard on
the brake, sending the car fishtailing down the rain slick road. It was all he could do to
keep from wrecking. When he finally stopped the car, he grabbed the paper from the
professor and studied it with shaking hands.
"Oh shit," he hissed, his eyes finding the professor's.
The vellum he held, the one the professor gave to him, the one found in Arkham in 1962,
was in every way the same as the one he found only a day before.