“Beetles of an Ur species unknown to our entomologists until 2006. Vicious bastards. Although they refer to themselves as preservationists.” Tallen smiled and his ordinary, bland face transfigured in the jittery blue glow. “Bad things are happening out there, Skylark. How would you like to help us make them worse?”
Would I!
The seduction progressed over the course of a couple of years and numerous clandestine rendezvouses. He quizzed me about Majestic 12, MKULTRA, and Project Tallhat. Had I ever met Toshi Ryoko or Howard Campbell? Amanda Bole? No, no, and no, I’d never even heard of any of these persons or things. That pleased Tallen, and seemed to relax him. He confided his secrets.
“It’s not important, kiddo. Ryoko and Campbell are flakes. I’d love to see them erased, zero-one, zero-one. They have powerful friends, unfortunately. Forget I mentioned them. Servants of our enemies. Ms. Bole is open to an introduction, assuming you and I reach an accord. We think you’re exactly the person to help us with a project.”
“You mean my money can help with your project.”
“Money, honey. You funnel the cash, we supply the technical know-how and the cannon fodder. You have a vision. We have a vision. It’s a can’t-miss proposition.”
Tallen was so smooth and charming. I crushed on him. That corn-fed blandness really grew on me, or the Satan-light dancing in his eyes grew on me, or the fact he believed in elaborate conspiracies excited me (he claimed insects were poised to overrun civilization and that the Apollo explorers found a cairn of bones on the Moon). At any rate, he broke out the maps, diagrams, and the slideshow prospectus. My jaw hit the floor.
His organization (I never did learn its name) had, sometime during the winter of 1975, allegedly established contact with an intelligence residing in a trench off the Atlantic shelf. As in an extraterrestrial intelligence that burrowed into the sediment around the time trilobites were the voting majority.
He laughed when I, unabashed Lovecraft enthusiast, blurted, “Dagon! Mother Hydra!” and told me not to be stupid, this verged on Clark Ashton Smith weirdness. His associate in the deep requested some Grand Guignol theater in return for certain considerations that only an immortal terror of unconscionable power can offer.
Tallen, having researched my various childish predilections, proposed that we build and staff a life-model replica of Lovecraft’s Innsmouth. Inscrutable alien intelligences enjoy ant farms and aquariums too. Some of them also quite enjoy our trashiest dead white pulp authors. He claimed that this sort of behind the scenes activity was nothing new. In fact, his superiors had been in frequent contact with my father regarding unrelated, yet similar, undertakings.
“Let me consider your proposition,” I said. “Who is Bole? Why do I dislike her already?”
His smile thinned. “Mandy is the devil we know. It’s tricky, you see. She came to us from across the street, on loan from her people. Her people are overseas, so she’s here for the duration.” Later, I learned that across the street was code for a foreigner who hailed from an extraordinarily far flung location. Off-planet, say, but within a few dozen light years. Overseas meant something else that I decided was best left unclear.
I did ask once if Bole bore some familial relationship with the “intelligence.” I was high on endorphins and bud.
So was Tallen. That didn’t keep him from slapping my mouth. “Are you trying to be funny? That’s asinine.” He relaxed and kissed away the bits of blood on my lip. “Let’s not do that again, eh?”
I smiled, wanting him to believe I liked it, no hard feelings while I privately reviewed all the ways to kill him slowly.
* * *
Surviving to majority as a Tooms heiress tempered my enthusiasm with a grain or two of skepticism. I hired world-class detectives—the best of the best. My bloodhounds tracked down scientists and sources within and without the government and from foreign countries. Results from this intelligence gathering dragnet convinced me of Tallen’s sincerity. Numerous reports indicated covert activity of unparalleled secrecy off the New England coast. The veracity of his most staggering claim would require personal investigation.
Meanwhile, my detectives, and the scores of unfortunate people they contacted, died in mysterious accidents or vanished. I did the math one day. Okay, Mantooth did it on the back of a napkin. Four hundred and sixty-three. That’s how many went poof because I asked the wrong questions. The number might be bigger; we were in the car on the way to a stockholder meeting.
“You gonna do it?” Only Andi would dare to ask.
Pointless question. She knew my capabilities. She knew I had to do it, because beneath the caviar slurping, bubblegum popping, jet setting façade throbbed a black hole that didn’t want to eat the light; it needed to.
* * *
This town had a different name when Protestant fisherman Jedidiah Marshal founded it in 1809. Always off the beaten path, always cloistered and clannish, even by New England standards, afflicted by economic vagaries and the consolidation of the fishing industry into mega corporations, this town proved easy to divide and conquer. I retain an army of lackeys to orchestrate these sorts of stunts. Corporate raiders, lawyers, feds on the take, blackmail specialists and assassins.
First, we drove out the monied and the learned. The peasants were reeducated, or, as Tallen preferred, made to vanish. Gradually more actors were introduced and the infrastructure perfected. Necessary elements within the US government made the paperwork right. All it required was a nudge here and a bribe there from Tallen’s operatives. The town was wiped from road signs, maps, from the very record. With the groundwork laid, Innsmouth, my own private economy-sized diorama, raised its curtain.
Assuming you’re a casual observer, it’s a humdrum routine on the surface.
Children ride the bus to school. Housewives tidy and cook while soap operas numb the pain. Husbands toil in the factories or seek their fortune aboard fishing boats. Come dusk, men in suits, or coveralls or raincoats and galoshes, trudge into the taverns and lounges and slap down a goodly portion of the day’s wages on booze. At the lone strip club on the waterfront on the north edge of town, bored college girls and older women from trailer parks dance sluggishly. The House of the Revived Lord sees brisk trade Wednesday, Black Mass Friday, and by the numbers kiddie-friendly Sunday. I cherish the reactions of the occasional lost soul who accidentally detours through town: Some bluff day trader or officer worker tooling along Main Street with his uptight wife riding shotgun, her face scrunched in annoyance as she comes to grips with the lies the pocket map has fed her; and two point five kids in the back, overheated and embroiled in child warfare.
Annoyance gives way to confusion, which yields to revulsion at the decrepitude of the architecture and physiognomy of the locals, and ultimately, if the visitors prove sufficiently unwise as to partake of the diner, or gods help them, layover at one of Innsmouth’s fine hotels, horror will engulf the remainder of their brief existence.
Even I, maestro and chief benefactor, can see but the tip of this iceberg. Scientists and men in black lurk behind the grimy façades of Victorian row houses—the scientists’ purpose is to experiment upon the civilian populace as they might lab rats. Green lights flash through the murky windows, screams drift with the wind off the Atlantic. Ships and submarines come and go in the foggy dark. Andromeda and Mantooth worry about what they can’t detect. I don’t bother to order them to relax. Worrying is in their job description.
I acquired an estate in the hills. Fifteen minutes leisurely drive from town square. The gates are electrified, the house is locked tight, and guys with automatic weapons pace the grounds.
My first encounter with Miss Bole came when she wandered into my rec room unannounced. I sprawled across a giant beanbag while the news anchor recited his nightly soporific. I knew Bole to the core at first sight—kind of tall, black hair in a bob from the ‘50s, narrow shoulders, wide hips and thunder thighs. Pale and sickly, yet morbidly robust. Eyebrows too heavy, face too basic, too plas
tic, yet grotesquely alluring like a Celt fertility goddess cast from lumpen clay. She wore a green smock, yoga pants, and sandals. Sweat dripped from her, although she seemed relaxed.
“Hey there, Skylark Tooms. The Gray Eminence loves your style. I’m Amanda Bole. Call me Mandy.” Her voice was androgynous. She gripped my small hand in her large, damp hand and brushed my cheek with cool, overripe lips.
“Gray Eminence. Is that what you call…him?” Pleasure and terror made my heart skip, skip, skip. Sorry, Agent Tallen, but I think I’m in love.
“It, Skylark. It. I usually call it G.E. Confuses anybody at the NSA we haven’t bought.” Her wide smile revealed white, formidable teeth.
I’m usually an ice bitch during introductions. Feels good to keep the opposition on the defensive. Her? I looked into her sparkling frigid eyes and couldn’t stop. Nothing in those shiny pebbles but my dopey face in stereoscope. “When will I meet it?”
“Assuming your luck holds? Never, my girl. G.E. has big plans for you.”
Mandy pulled me to my feet. We had tea on the front deck by the swimming pool. The deck has a view of the ocean, hazy and smudged in the twilight distance. Lights of town came on in twinkling clusters.
“I think I’ve seen enough,” she said, setting aside her cup.
She stripped and dove into the water. Reflections are funny—she kicked into the deeper end, her odd form elongating as it submerged. Ripples distorted my perspective and made her the length and width of a great white shark, gliding downward and gone as the tiles of the pool dilated to reveal a sinkhole.
Tallen called later. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
“Any reason I wouldn’t be?”
“Ms. Bole told me that she’d decided to terminate your involvement. That would involve being shaken from a fish food can over the Atlantic. It seems she changed her mind.”
“Uh, good, then?”
“Convenient! Now we can begin.”
* * *
Some of what comes next, you already know. The cold death mask of rage, the pistol in your hand, what comes next is why you’ve returned and looked me up. Here’s some context, some behind-the scenes magic:
“Who gets to escape?” Mandy and I were revolving in the sex swing in the rumpus room. Mantooth hadn’t seemed completely comfortable installing the equipment. I love that repressed New England prudishness about him.
“The narrator.” Mandy’s obsidian eyes reflected the light over my shoulder, or trapped it. Her eyes glazed, or shuttered (happened so fast), and reflected nothing from a patina of broken black vessels, a thousand scratches from infinitesimal webbed claws. “Our girl works for an amateur filmmaker. The source material is a trifle staid. Tallen made sure the filmmaker brought a camera crew, per G.E’s request. Bubbly blonde, sensible, tough as nails brunette, strapping cinematographer, a weasel tech guy. That way there’s a bit of sex and murder to spice up the proceedings. Our heroine, the sensible brunette, will escape by the skin of her teeth. Over the next couple of years, we’ll shadow her, dangle the clues, and, ultimately, lure her back in for the explosive finale. Should be fun.”
Hard to tell whether Mandy actually relished the impending climax. She remained disinterested regardless the circumstances. I relished it for the two of us.
Earlier, she’d given me a tour of a factory that covered for a subterranean medical complex. Her scientists were busily splicing human and amphibian DNA with genetic material from the Gray Eminence and subjecting that simmering, somatically nucleated mess to electromagnetic waves generated by some kind of Tesla-inspired machine. They’d been at it since the ‘70s, moving the operation from South Sea lagoons to secret bunkers such as this one. According to the chief researcher, Dr. Shrike, the resultant test tube offspring teemed in the frigid waters along the coast. Allegedly, G.E. found them pleasing. It absorbed more and more fry every spawning cycle. That had to be a positive sign.
A few days later, I received an email. Man, I watched the footage of the pursuit and slaughter of that film crew (all but one) like a jillion times. The only downer, little miss tough as nails brunette stabbed the clerk at the wine shop through the eyeball. Too bad; he was sort of cute, and my god, what exquisite taste.
Point of fact, our heroine stabbed three guys, blew two major buildings to shit (with a few of our drone mercs inside), and steamrolled the Constable as she roared out of town in a wrecker. According to the goon in charge of the affair, at the end his minions weren’t even pulling their punches, they were trying to get the hell out of the chick’s way.
I was tempted to tell Mandy, sorry, babe, I’ve got the hots for another woman. Two reasons I kept my mouth shut—one, Mandy scared me oodles and oodles, and two, I suspected she didn’t give a damn, which scared me worse.
* * *
How do we arrive at this junction? The explosions, the chatter of machine guns, screams, and death? Innsmouth crashing into the sea in a ball of fire? All according to the master plan, the Punch and Judy show demanded by the torpid overlord in the deep. This is what happened in the infamous story that HP wrote. I often wonder if he had help, a muse from the hadal zone, maybe.
Who can say where art ends and reality asserts primacy? Mandy’s script, our script, called for you, our dark-haired girl, to return at the van of a fleet of black government SUVs. I hired a mercenary company to dress in federal suits and Army camo and swoop in here and blow the town and the reef to smithereens. Much as you did your first time through, except big enough to warm the heart of a Hollywood exec.
And here we are, you and I.
Certainly I believed my privilege would shield me, that I could gleefully observe the immolation of Innsmouth from the comfort of my mansion’s control room. I figured when the smoke cleared and the cry was over, I’d pack my designer bags and flit off to the Caribbean for a change of scenery. Fun as it has been, nine months of cold salt air a year has murdered my complexion and my mood.
Guess you could say I was surprised when my guards were shot to pieces and an armor-piercing rocket blasted the front door. That’s what Mantooth said they hit us with before you waltzed in here and capped him. Through the eyeball, no less. Don’t you get it? All this destruction, Mandy and Tallen’s betrayal, you glowering down at me, poised to ram a dagger through my black little heart? A mix of prep and improve. Somewhere a dark god is laughing in delight, rapping his knuckles on the aquarium glass to get the fishies spinning.
The question is, do you want to live to see a curtain call. You’re the heroine and if we’re following the original plot, you have an unpleasant reckoning in your near future. I don’t think this version of the tale will see you transforming into a fish-woman and paddling into the sunset. No, this is major league awful. G.E. awaits your pleasure. I doubt even God knows what’s going to happen in the monster’s lair. Got to be boring, lying there and emoting telepathically eon after eon. You’ll make a pretty dolly, for a while.
Or, you could play it smart. My jet is fueled and idling at a strip just down the road. With my money, we can go damned near anywhere. Take your time and think it over. I’ll give you until I finish this cigarette.
From a gun—BANG! A body thuds on the floor off-screen.
GODDAMNIT, Andi! Why the fuck did you do that to the broad? It was under control. I had her in the palm of my hand. Shit. What do we do now? Mandy is gonna go nuclear. G.E. surely won’t be amused. Where do we find a metaphorical virgin sacrifice at this hour? Andi..? Andi!
You bitch. You almost had me going. No, I’m not sure if anywhere is beyond the reach of our friends. But let’s hit the friendly skies and see, huh? Shut that down. I want to watch it later.
Click.
CARNACKI: THE LUSITANIA
William Meikle
I arrived in Cheyne Walk that winter evening in response to an unexpected card from Carnacki. It had been several weeks since our last supper together, and I thought him off on his travels. It was a foul night outside, with a snell wind howling up the Thames,
sending rain lashing in my face as I scuttled along the Embankment. But Carnacki had a hot toddy waiting for me as he took my coat, and I was soon as warm as toast, both inside and out.
The others had arrived before me, and Carnacki wasted no time in showing us through to the dining room where we had a hearty meal of a thick lamb stew and roasted potatoes—and plenty of it. By the time we retired to the parlour, our bellies were as tight as drums, and I was looking forward to sitting by the fire and listening to a tale to aid my digestion.
Carnacki waited until we had charged our glasses. We were settled in our seats and lit our smokes before he started.
* * *
“It began with a telegram,” he said. “It came two weeks ago yesterday from the Second Officer on the RMS. Lusitania, and was short and to the point.”
“‘Something is screaming on the Lusitania. We shall be docked in Liverpool until it can be stopped. Please help.’”
“Now you chaps can see how this immediately caught my attention. Two things in particular persuaded me to book the first train available to the Northwest. One was the fact that I was most eager to see the inside of such a fine cruise-liner, and the other was in the wording of the note itself.
“It said something…not someone.
“That same day I was on my way, with my defences accompanying me in a crate in the baggage car. I had a very good steak and some fine claret for lunch before disembarking at Liverpool, ready and eager for action.
“A short carriage journey took myself and my luggage to Albert Dock, where I was left on the quayside to marvel at the magnificence of the liner which loomed above me. It exuded an air of solidity and modernity that seemed to brook no argument as to its status. As I stood there, I was at a loss as to what could possibly be wrong with such a fine piece of Twentieth Century engineering and craftsmanship.
“The Second Officer, a very proper Scottish gentleman by the name of McAllister, led a small group of men off the boat and met me at the bottom of the gangplank. He ordered the men to work, ensuring that my luggage, and my defences, would be stowed in the cabin allocated to me. Once he was sure his orders would be followed, he led me up onto the great ship.
Fearful Fathoms: Collected Tales of Aquatic Terror (Vol. I - Seas & Oceans) Page 7