The Adventures of Andrew Doran: Box Set

by Matthew Davenport

  Despite the bumpy roads and the lack of security in the back of the truck, I managed to fall asleep.

  When I woke up, it was to the sound of the truck doors slamming shut. I sat up and looked around. Night had fallen. I leaned over to check on William. He was still alive, but not really there.

  I climbed out using the tire well and joined my companions at the front of the truck. Before the truck was a large fence made from a mix of sheets of metal and planks of wood. It stood at least twice the height of the truck and was covered in signs that read:

  No Trespassing!

  Keep Out!

  and

  By Order of the Federal Bureau of Investigations

  This Area is Off Limits to All Unauthorized Personnel.

  Leo waved at the nearest of the signs and asked, “What the hell is all of this about?”

  I took a deep breath, noticed a pain in my ribs and wondered when that had happened. After my brief hesitation, I explained Innsmouth, Massachusetts.

  “At the turn of the century, Innsmouth was home to a very secluded cult. They closed their doors to outsiders and spent their nights in reverence of their deity, Dagon. Except Dagon wasn’t actually a deity so much as he was a water-dwelling creature of the void. He had found a home in the nearby Devil’s Reef and had provided gold and riches to his worshipers. Devil’s Reef is just off of the coast of Innsmouth. In exchange for those riches they had to...mate...with his children.”

  Leo grimaced but he didn’t interrupt me. Nancy’s face remained attentive but unreadable.

  “The interbreeding created a culture of half-fish/half-men that continued the process well into the 1920’s. In 1928, the FBI learned of the creatures that had become the dominant species in Innsmouth and raided the port city. They killed as many of the creatures as they could and drove the rest back to their home at Devil’s Reef. Once the FBI had pushed them all to the Reef, they bombed it, killing most of them.”

  “Most of them?” Nancy asked.

  “I ran into a few of them about a year back. They had a piece of the reef with them and were looking to start over in Barcelona. I stopped them.”

  “If they are dead, than why the fence?” Leo asked.

  “The FBI are never happy with just bombing something, they wanted to make sure no one would ever come back. That’s why I chose it. When I had discovered the fence, I began funneling Miskatonic resources here and mobilizing the locals.”

  “Locals?” Nancy asked. “I thought you said that the FBI forced everyone out.”

  “They tried,” I replied. “Some of them managed to hide.”

  Leo gulped. “More fishpeople?”

  “Kind of,” I said. “Not quite.”

  “More monsters.” Leo sounded annoyed. He unclipped the magazine from the rifle and held if up for me to examine. It was empty. “We’re in no position to fight.”

  I placed my hand on Leo’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes with my one good eye. “I am certain that we won’t have to.” I waved at the truck. “Get back into the truck, I’ll open the way.”

  There was no visible door in the fence and I was surprised at first that neither Nancy nor Leo asked what I meant by opening a way. My surprise vanished when I realized how tired I felt even after my light sleep in the pickup. They were having just as hard a day as I was.

  I approached the wall directly in front the truck and barked out some words from the Necronomicon. They had no meaning in the order that I had strung them together, but they worked to deactivate the magical locks I had put in place over the wall.

  There was a loud grating sound and the section of the fence I had spoken to shuddered before sliding back about a foot and then sliding out of the way and to the left. The road into Innsmouth was cleared.

  I waved the truck through and walked alongside it as Leo drove into the ruins of the town formerly known as Innsmouth.

  I had never seen Innsmouth before the federal raid of the city, but I had to hope that it had been better than what was greeting Leo and Nancy as they entered. The city had a grime to it that almost seemed alive. The walls that still stood were covered in a mix of moss and slime, as if the city itself had been buried at the bottom of a deep lagoon, only to resurface a few hours before we arrived.

  There were no windows in any of the surviving buildings. Not even broken pieces of glass had survived. The windows were all completely empty frames. It was as if we were looking at the corpses of a battle field. The buildings had died in an intense battle, and now their empty, dead eyes stared at us.

  The road had been an antique stone road and the years had been no nicer to it. Where the stones were still in the road, they were uneven and broken. I felt sorry for Nancy’s father in the back of the truck.

  Where the grease and slime met the decay and detritus of a city decades already dead, there was some life. In the corners and on small plots of earth that seemed out of place, grass and vines grew. It was a losing battle, but a battle that the earth still hadn’t given up on fighting.

  One of the collapsed buildings, specifically the tower from what looked like it had once been a church, had fallen into the road, forcing Leo to stop the truck.

  “We walk from here,” I said.

  Nancy and Leo climbed down from the truck and came over to me.

  “What about my father?” Nancy asked. “I am not leaving him here.” As she said it, she glanced around her. The decayed look of the city was giving her an odd feeling. She was fearing another intrusion on her mind. I didn’t know how to convince her that she was safe, so I didn’t even try.

  “My friends will take care of him.” I answered.

  Stress crossed Leo’s face as fear danced across Nancy’s. They knew that I had allies in this city, but they hadn’t yet settled on the idea that they could meet them. Meeting fishpeople had that effect on everyone.

  “Your friends?” Leo asked, casting his eyes about.

  I raised my voice. “You can come out now.”

  Across what had once been the central square of Innsmouth, around thirty people climbed from the rubble or from behind dilapidated vehicles. Their ages ranged from Nancy’s early years to old age, with no children in the mix.

  Thirty very normal looking people.

  “But...” Nancy started and then stopped for a moment before continuing. “They look normal. I thought that they were fishpeople.”

  I nodded. “In the eyes of Dagon and his children, they are mutations and birth defects. To us, they’re just people. They are outcasts among the monsters and monsters among civilization. Ostracized by both.” I smiled at Nancy and didn’t care how much pain it sent through my face. “They’re like us.”

  “Allies,” the French rebel added. I agreed with him.

  “Why do they live here?” Nancy asked.

  I looked at our approaching welcome party as I answered. “When the FBI took to bombing the Reef and planting explosives in the town, any survivors who couldn’t be pushed into the sea were gathered and taken to government facilities. Concentration camps with laboratories for studying the anomalies of these people.” I sighed. “The Innsmouth people who could complete their change into fishpeople and flee to the sea did, leaving behind those who couldn’t. The fishpeople who couldn’t change quite so quickly became a priority to the FBI and they scrambled to get them first.” I waved at the group still approaching. “That gave our friends here some time to hide. Fear from being found out stops them from ever leaving. Until I found them, they were barely surviving. A percentage of the supplies that I ferret away goes toward helping the survivors of Innsmouth. In exchange, they keep my secret.”

  “He’s modest,” barked an older and grizzly looking gentleman who was approaching. “Andrew Doran saved our lives.”

  The man had a white beard and no hair on his head. His clothes consisted of dark pants and a white shirt, all covered by a navy blue coat. He hugged Nancy and then pumped Leo’s hand with both of his. “Friends of Andrew are family to us.�
�

  He stepped back from his greeting and his people gathered to a halt behind him. “My name is Sebastian Eliot. I am the Pastor and leader for the survivors. Welcome to Innsmouth.”

  “We have a man who needs care in the back of the truck.” I said.

  Sebastian responded by directing some of his people toward the truck. He then began guiding us with him toward one of the collapsed buildings. We stepped through a door frame that long ago fell apart. It had become more of a door...hole. It was dark, but Sebastian guided us gently, keeping us from tripping as we moved further toward the back of the destroyed architecture.

  “We were able to survive the attack from the FBI because Innsmouth is riddled with tunnels. Our more aquatic kin aren’t fans of the daylight, and the town’s benefactor, Obed Marsh, had the tunnels built to connect every building in Innsmouth.” We came to a fireplace that I could only barely make out in the non-existent lighting. He kicked something to the left of it and the fireplace slid away. “We have lived down here since.”

  “There were other survivors though, weren’t there? Andrew said that he ran into a few on a trip to Barcelona.” Nancy was genuinely curious as she followed us down the steps that had opened up behind the fireplace.

  “Well,” Sebastian started, “Innsmouth was hardly the last bastion of Dagon’s will, but it sounds to me as though Andrew’s Barcelona fishpeople were one of the four tribes.”

  A flash of confusion and then anger came over me. “What do you mean ‘four tribes?’

  The stairwell opened to a well-lit tunnel made of brick. The lighting was spaced overhead about ten feet with every light. Somehow, my allies in Innsmouth had managed to tap into the electrical grid since the last time I had been by.

  Sebastian glanced at me over his shoulder as he continued to lead us through the tunnel.

  “We weren’t the only survivors, but you already know that. When the bombs destroyed the Devil’s Reef, there were cousins of mine who wanted to rebuild. They gathered the largest pieces, of which there were four.”

  The revelation of there being more pieces of the Reef that had survived sent an almost physical pang up my spine.

  Sebastian continued. “Our surviving cousins divided into four different groups and went in search of new homes across the globe. America was no longer safe for them, but that didn’t mean that other countries wouldn’t be more...hospitable.”

  Annoyance filled my soul as I begged, “Where? Where did they all go?”

  Sebastian stopped walking and turned to face me, sympathy in his eyes. “They betrayed us and cast us out because we were less than what they wanted us to be. We were too human. You came here and you saved us from a meaningless existence.” He gave me a sad smile. “I would tell you if I knew, but until you mentioned Barcelona, I had no idea. They didn’t trust us and were afraid we would tell the FBI if they ever captured one of us.” He clasped my shoulder. “If anyone can find them, it will be you, old friend.”

  I smiled to hide how annoyed I still felt. It wasn’t Sebastian’s fault that these creatures were out in the world spreading their corrupting influence. It wasn’t Sebastian’s fault that man is a greedy beast who will do anything in his power for another gold trinket from the sea.

  Leo tapped my arm, drawing my attention. “It looks as though we have more work ahead of us.” The French soldier was smiling. I nodded, but let the matter drop.

  Sebastian resumed the march through the well-lit tunnels for another minute or two before the hall opened into a large underground room. It was a warehouse without windows that was at least a hundred yards long and half of that as wide. Aside from the underground aspect, the entire warehouse seemed like every other that I had ever been in, except that all of the crates and boxes were labeled with the stamp of “Property of Miskatonic University.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you,” asked Nancy, “stealing from your place of employment?”

  I laughed and a shot of pain went through my face and my shut eye. “Let me tell you about my place of employment,” I said. “Miskatonic University disavowed any knowledge of my existence for almost a decade. Then, after I had finally decided that they were the enemy, the forced me into helping them pull their asses from the fire.” I took a deep breath, not realizing how much of this had really bothered me until Nancy’s snide comment. “Once I thought myself free of their plots and evil-doings, the Board of Directors voted that I be in charge of the damned place, completely forgetting our shared years of mutual loathing.”

  Nancy frowned. “Why did you accept the job?”

  I gave her a very stern look with my one good eye. “I would rather be the gatekeeper of Hell than one of the people it steps on.” I gave a small laugh, “Besides, how could I have stolen all of this without their help?”

  I caught Nancy roll her eyes before she asked, “And what about the ship? We’re not going to build it from the crates, are we?”

  Sebastian hopped up onto one of the crates, swinging his legs as he sat. It was surprisingly limber for how aged the man appeared. “The FBI has become a steady presence in our lives. They do regular checkups on the fence and sometimes we see a patrol in the water. Fortunately, they’ve become very predictable as well.” He waved his hand in the air, indicating outside. “The boat stays in the harbor until the week that we predict the FBI to show up. Then we take it for a small voyage.” He looked from Nancy to me. “It will return by tomorrow morning.”

  I clapped my hands together loudly. “Great! That gives us just enough time to get some sleep and get our supplies to the dock.” I turned to Nancy. “Except for you. Once you’re well-rested, I need you working on translating that journal.”

  She nodded and then asked, “What about my father?”

  Sebastian hopped down from the crate he was sitting on. “I will be attempting to bring him back to us. I promise you that I will do my best.”

  This seemed to placate Nancy. We allowed one of Sebastian’s people lead us to our temporary rooms. Sleep was much needed.

  When I awoke, I was impressed by how sore my body was. It was as if I had been beaten during my sleep as well as during the previous day. My eye was still swollen, but Sebastian had given me some salve he had made to rub on it. The swelling had gone down and I could see out of it. The pain countered the pleasure of having my vision back. I contemplated even getting up, but the world wasn’t about to save itself. I sat up.

  After the initial struggle from the cot, I realized that, aside from the pain coursing through my body, I felt very well-rested.

  My sleep had been uninterrupted by dreams or anything else. It was an incredibly peaceful sleep and I was suspicious.

  When I had excised Olivia from my mind, what had I cut out with her? Was my ability to dream tied into Olivia? Did I lose some of my touch to the magic of the void? Would I even be able to recognize what had gone with her?

  Either way, if giving Olivia away meant that I would sleep peacefully for the rest of my days, then I was only upset that I hadn’t done it sooner.

  I stood slowly and flexed and stretched, loosening up my tight muscles. Once I was capable of walking without grunting loudly, I made my way to the room that Sebastian was using to work on William.

  Sebastian had collapsed and was draped over William’s body. My first thought was that he had been attacked. I ran over, ignoring the scream from my body, and jerked him up.

  When I looked into his eyes, I noticed how vacant they were. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t exactly in his own body either. I snapped my fingers, calling his name gently as I did. Within moments, his eyes were fluttering open and he had rejoined me.

  “I am sorry for worrying you,” Sebastian said after I had explained why I was gripping his arm so tightly. “I had cast myself into Dr. Dyer’s mind, searching for a piece of him that I could latch onto. It left me absent of my own body.”

  I understood what he meant once he explained himself. As incredible as the world of magic was, it couldn’t necessari
ly put one person in two places. If Sebastian was going to locate William Dyer, he was going to have to leave his body to do so. The previous day’s events had lead me to conclusions. I said as much to Sebastian and he smiled, understanding.

  “Have you had any luck with Dyer?” I asked.

  Sebastian shrugged. “That depends completely on what you already knew.” He waved at William’s body on the cot. “Your friend isn’t ill, he simply is not there. Dr. Dyer has vacated his body and fled to some other locale.”

  I nodded. “That’s the same conclusion that I came to. I could feel his anchor to his body, but that was it.”

  “The anchor is the only reason that I think that he could still come back, but it could be decades from now,” Sebastian said.

  I shook my head. “No, I think it will be soon. He came back to us once, but he was from another time. I think so, anyway. He said I would find him.”

  Sebastian raised an eyebrow at me. “You travel in odd circles, Andrew.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I replied.

  “Either way,” Sebastian continued, “he left of his own free will. I’m certain of that, and I’m almost equally certain that he can’t return any other way than how he left. He has to want to come back from wherever he is.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m running out of patience.”

  Sebastian’s look took on a more thoughtful nature. “What do you expect to find on this expedition of yours?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I answered almost too quickly. “Whatever it is that we find needs to be destroyed. I can’t let the Nazis...I can’t let anyone find the things that might be there.” I sighed. “Aside from what they could do with the technology, what about the other side of that equation? Dyer wrote about creatures still alive there.” I paused to let that sink in. “What if that city that he found is the next beachhead for an invasion? The world can’t handle a war of that scale.”