“I wound up both machines and waited.
“The whispering that signalled the start of the manifestation started almost immediately after I’d lit up a pipe. I set the wax discs recording, clamped my teeth on the stem of the pipe, and prepared to endure whatever was coming.
“I must tell you chaps, I never again wish to be exposed to such sheer terror as that which engulfed me. It lasted mere minutes, but felt like I had been tossed in a shrieking, howling maelstrom for hours. Sweat poured from every pore, and I believe that had my pipe not been made of stern stuff, I might well have bitten it in two. The noise swelled and rang through the huge empty space, filling every nook and cranny with fear and panic.
“Then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.
“It took me long seconds to realize that silence had fallen. My every muscle trembled, as if I’d undertaken many hours of strenuous activity, and my heart pounded so loud in my ears, that I was afraid I might burst with the tension. It was noticing that the cylinders were still recording that got me moving.
“I switched both off and started one replaying, realizing, too late, that I had forgotten to wind up the machine. That proved to be a blessing in disguise. The playback started at a very slow speed, and that’s when I realized that what I had been listening to all along were voices, human voices raised in terror, but speeded up to an unnatural degree.
“I have the cylinder in a drawer in my library, and someday I may play it for you chaps, but trust me, you never want to hear it as I did, in that empty liner, in the midst of the dark empty ballroom. People screamed, and footsteps rang on the hardwood, as if fleeing from some unseen terror.
“I tasted salt in my mouth again, and I realized that the manifestation was returning, but this time it came as images. No—more than that—almost solid figures. The people who made the sounds appeared in front of me, as if in a stage play, running and screaming with no hint that my presence had in any way been noted.
“Even when I stepped outside my defences, they ignored me. But their terror was real enough. I watched as the initially full ballroom emptied, people climbing over each other in their frenzy to escape, grown men leaving weeping woman and children in their wake, in their rush.
“I followed the throng out into the corridor where the fleeing crowd was joined by vast numbers of guests in their nightclothes and panicked crew members, all trying to reach the outside. The taste of salt grew stronger, and the boat lurched underfoot.
“Suddenly, I knew I had to find out what might have caused such a manifestation, which was surely a message of some kind from the Outer Regions. I waited until the corridor had cleared and made my way slowly toward the bridge.
“There was a curious overlap in my vision, with the current ship which I inhabited overlaid on the one where the terror was being played out. I considered that I might be seeing a previous emergency on the boat, but I had not read of such a thing occurring in the vessel’s relatively short history, and surely an event of such a magnitude would have been reported.
“My puzzlement did not last long. I arrived at the bridge to see a worried Captain dictate a telegraph. His voice came to me as if from a great distance, but the words are stuck in my memory.
“‘Mayday! RMS Lusitania struck by German torpedo thirty miles west of Cape Clear Island. Taking on water and listing badly. Estimate ten minutes until capsize. Many dead. Mayday!’”
“There is more, but I want to stop here, and consider something.”
* * *
Carnacki paused and puffed at his pipe.
“German torpedoes,” he said softly. “We all know such a thing, although possible, has not happened. But hearing the rest of the telegraph got me thinking—about free will, and destiny. I have never been a believer in fate, cleaving to the principle that I always have a choice in the direction of my future.
“But what I heard next gave me pause, for you see there was a date spoken, a date I could scarcely believe.
“‘Dictated by Captain Turner…Fourteen-twenty hours…May Eleventh…Nineteen hundred and fifteen.”
There was a moment’s uproar in Carnacki’s parlour as we came to understand the import.
Carnacki gave us a second, then waved us into silence.
“Now you see what has caused me to anguish over this telling,” he said. “I always believed that time was an arrow, that the past was gone and the future still to come. But what if everything in the Macrocosm exists simultaneously? Are we all mere pawns, forever destined to walk pre-ordained paths? I admit that thought depresses me mightily. What I have seen makes me wonder at the purpose of my very existence.
“But to return for a moment to the tale. The figures around me began to fade as they reached the end of a cycle. The bridge emptied and, although the boat on which I stood was firm enough, the one in the vision lurched alarmingly and once again I felt as if I had got a soaking. I was buffeted as if by a strong current, and I swallowed the taste of salt water.
“But I had an idea…one born back in the barrow in Larkhall.
“I returned to the ballroom and began experimenting with different speeds of playing the cylinders I had recorded. I knew that different sounds, being as they are at source mere vibrations, can interact with other sounds. In extreme circumstances, one set of noises can act as a dampener for another, in effect cancelling themselves out to produce silence. It was this, which I was attempting to do now.
“I had to force myself to endure three full cycles of the howling and screaming, spending the best part of the night watching over again as frantic passengers crushed themselves into too small an exit. I was an emotional and physical ruin by the end, but finally I had it. I cranked up both phonographs and replayed them back, one at full speed and one two seconds ahead on starting, but timed to finish at the same instant. The resulting noise was an unholy cacophony. But it did the job asked of it. While the phonograms were playing, the howling manifestation faded and died until the phantom images stopped moving, and not even a whisper of a scream could be heard. When the phonograms stopped there was only a deep silence in the Ballroom, which already seemed warmer and more inviting.
“I stayed there for two more days, but there was no recurrence of anything untoward. McAllister was sober now, and most thankful for what I had done. But as I left, I saw the same fear in his eyes as I feel in my own heart. I did not tell him of the date I overheard the doomed Captain dictate, but I think he knows that one day, perhaps soon, there will be a major problem with the Lusitania. McAllister is a stout fellow. I do believe he means to stay with the boat, and endeavor to mitigate the severity of what may come.
“I wish him well.
“As for me, I have been to the Admiralty, trying to impress on them the danger that is, or will be caused by German U Boats. But you chaps can see their problem, can’t you? They cannot in all faith accuse the Germans of something that hasn’t happened yet, and they cannot ask Cunard to keep the Lusitania in dock in Liverpool, for it would bankrupt that great company.
“No, life shall go on…or rather, life always goes on. I have seen a new manifestation of the Outer Realms during this case, one that I wish I had not. I find at the moment that I cannot look ahead to the future with any great confidence, not for my own part in my own destiny, or for this country’s part in what I fear must come to pass in little more than five years.”
* * *
It was a somber Carnacki who looked up as his tale finished.
“Well, chaps, have I dented your view of what is right and proper in the world?”
None of us spoke. We had sat and listened to many of Carnacki’s tales, reveling vicariously in his adventures. I believe we all now realized that with the adventure comes a realization that we were privy to things we might not be meant to know, or even understand.
“Those dashed Huns,” Arkwright said. “Someone should make them pay for what they’ve done.”
Carnacki smiled wanly.
“Will do,” my dear
Arkwright. “Will do. And I have no doubt that what I saw will come to pass, no matter what we here might do to try to prevent it. All I can say is that I, for one, do not intend to ever take a sea cruise. And I suggest all here refrain, for many years to come.”
We were all still quiet as Carnacki herded us onto the porch with a soft “Out you go…”
Jessop accompanied me along the Embankment for a time. We were lost in our own thoughts, neither of us in the mood for conversation. It was only as we parted at the bridge that he spoke.
“I say old chap,” he said, taking a newspaper from his coat pocket. “I did not want to bring this up in front of the others, but I cannot keep it to myself. I think it is pertinent."
Indeed it was, and it has haunted my dreams for many a night since.
The newspaper was the Daily Mail, and the headline seemed to leap out of the page at me: GERMANY PREPARING FOR WAR ON THE BRITISH EMPIRE
FLOODLAND
Cameron Pierce
Doug Marsh, proprietor of Hawthorne Bait and Tackle, was updating the catch report bulletin when a stranger entered the shop. Doug ground the chalk between his calloused fingers. “We don’t open till six,” he said to the young man, whose eyes were bloodshot, his clothes soaked.
“I think you’ll want to see this,” the man said.
Doug pocketed the chalk and took up his mug of steaming coffee, then followed the man—a teenager, really—out to the parking lot. He grumbled to himself about forgetting to lock the door again. Anglers, eager to hit the river, were always trying the door as early as four in the morning, even though the posted hours said Hawthorne Bait and Tackle opened at six sharp. Sometimes Doug found sleep troublesome. Nightmares awoke him, or else, the dread of experiencing such nightmares resulted in him working through the night, repairing tackle, tying flies, molding lead weights, reading, sweeping, drinking coffee, drinking bourbon, shuffling up and down the musty aisles of the shop, gazing through his thick-framed glasses at the trophy fish mounted on the walls. With increasing frequency, owing either to his sleeplessness or age, Doug forgot to lock the shop door after smoking a cigarette out front. That was how the Eager Earls, as he referred to these non-store-hour-abiding folks, got in. But sometimes he let them buy what they needed anyhow. After all, he was awake, and if he turned them away, they would just wait out in the parking lot until opening hour.
Never in his thirty-seven years running the bait shop had anyone ever barged in before six with a fresh catch to show him. At that hour, the night fishermen were heading home, too exhausted to pay Doug a visit, although they’d later bring in photos of any notable catches to tack on the bait shop walls. Most other diehard fishermen had either launched their boats by six or else they were swinging by Doug’s to pick up some essential item before hitting the water. This young man, with his claims of an extraordinary catch, had piqued Doug’s interest. He was probably some out-of-towner who’d caught a big sturgeon.
Doug sipped his coffee and approached the Dodge truck where the man stood, waving him over with frantic gestures.
“Well, what’ve you got?” Doug said.
The kid lifted the lid on a big red ice chest, and Doug peered inside. The cigarette fell from his mouth when he saw what was in there. A blue-eyed fish with human-like arms and legs, a mouth full of jagged teeth like a shark’s, and a crimson dorsal fin that looked as if it were meant to cut through steel.
“Thought you’d want a look,” the kid said.
“Where in hell did you catch this?”
“The Harbor. Between Burnside and Steel Bridge. That hole where the water drops to ninety feet. I was fishing for sturgeon off the floating walkway there, the Esplanade.”
Night fishing for sturgeon was prohibited but never mind that. This was one weird-ass fish.
“So what do you think,” the man said.
Doug lit another cigarette and studied the young man, seeking any sign of a ruse, but the kid appeared to be telling the truth. He’d caught a weird-ass fish, and he’d taken it to Doug. That was the beginning and the end of his story.
“So…”
“Odds are, this thing is one of a kind. Just another superfund mutation. Then again, maybe not. Maybe there’s more of them. So we’re gonna go inside and call ODFW. They won’t open for another couple hours, and it likely won’t be a couple hours after that before an officer swings by. In the meantime, you’re gonna take me out and show me exactly how you caught this thing.”
The kid looked like a deer in the headlights. “I ain’t going out there again. I told you where I caught it. I’ll give you the rest of my bait if you want. I was just fishing a whole squid off the bottom, the way I always do for sturgeon. Nothing different.” He shook his head insistently. “I’m done fishing that goddamn river.” He pointed to the creature in the ice chest. “When I pulled it up—it spoke.”
“What do you mean it spoke?”
“Before I bonked it, the damned thing spoke to me.”
Doug scoffed, lit another cigarette.
And then, as if on cue, the creature raised its head from the bed of ice and spoke in perfect English.
Doug felt a hand on his elbow, and he knew it belonged to the fish.
The fish with hands.
“Excuse me, sir?” So, it was a polite fish. “Sir, are you all right?”
The young man was talking. The fish remained lifeless in the ice chest. Doug slammed the lid down and flipped the latch, sick of looking at the hideous thing.
“Are you okay?” the kid said.
“I’m fine,” Doug said, forcing a distant grin. The pain splintered his left arm like lightning, spreading up into his neck. His heart felt like it lay outside his chest, heavy as if ready to give birth, and the air surrounding it was made of pins and needles. His knees went wobbly. “Better call an ambulance,” he said.
As he plummeted to the cold gravel, he felt certain he caught a glimpse of the creature popping out of the ice chest like a jack in the box.
It’s not so bad, he thought. Whether he referred to death, or the fish, or the pain within, he did not know.
After the pain broke, Doug found himself as someone else. He was driving on a strange road in an unfamiliar town. The truck was a Chevy with a good engine. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw leathery skin, wavy gray hair, and piercing blue eyes that scared even him. He did not look at himself again.
He turned on the radio to see what kind of music he listened to.
Old blues.
Hellhounds and shit.
Beside him on the bench seat, a cellphone rang. The screen said ‘Wife,’ and he felt an involuntary flutter in his heart, though he could not definitively trace the sensation back to himself, Doug, who might be excited to see ‘Wife’ calling because he had never been married, only fantasized about the married life, or maybe this other person, whoever he had become, felt deep and abiding feelings for this ‘Wife.’ Whatever the source, he realized that he missed her.
He picked up the phone and said, “Hey, honey. I’m on my way home.”
As if this were normal.
As if he knew where home was.
The wife asked him to pick up something for dinner on the way home. She didn’t feel like cooking. He told her that he would stop at Los Hermanos.
They said ‘I love you,’ and they said ‘goodbye,’ but in the clipped, fast-forward way of people who are used to saying such things.
Loveyoubye.
When he stepped out of the truck outside the Mexican food restaurant, the heat took him by surprise. A tumbleweed rolled into traffic. On the other side of the four-lane street, a kit fox stared at him from a field that had recently been razed to make way for a new housing development. The air was the color of Earl Grey tea. It smelled like cow shit and exhaust fumes. He went inside the restaurant and tried not to think about where he was, let alone why. He ordered some of his favorite dishes. He ordered some of his wife’s favorite dishes. He instinctively went to order some of his son�
�s favorites but stopped himself, found an absence in his chest that resided where his son used to be. My son is gone, he told himself, knowing how foolish it was, knowing he had never had a son. He ordered enough food so that he and his wife could take the leftovers to work tomorrow.
The drive home was uneventful except that he got stuck in traffic. He sat there wondering what a man like himself did in the evenings after work. Did he watch television with his wife? Did he go fishing, like he did in his real life? Did he go out to bars and drink beer and play pool with friends? With limited time and money, there were only so many ways a man could occupy his evening hours. He had never conceived of an evening that did not involve fishing. He recalled the pain he’d felt just before ending up here, and it was almost enough to bring it all back.
I’m a different man now, he thought. Just go with it.
Eventually, he pulled into the driveway of a ranch-style home in a suburban housing community named Pheasant Creek or Eagle Springs, or some shit like that.
He brought the brown bag holding the Mexican food inside. In the living room, his wife sat on the couch with a laptop on her lap. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. She appeared to be playing Spider Solitaire, but he thought he’d detected the sudden closure of a browser window as he kissed her. He mined his emotional and experiential database and decided that he trusted her. She had never given him any reason not to.
“Come eat,” he said.
On the walls of the living room were photos of a young boy who shared the steely blue eyes he’d seen when he looked at himself in the rearview mirror.
My son is gone.
Certain street and business signs had looked blurry to him as he drove home. At first, he thought something must be wrong with his vision. Sunspots, maybe. After all, he was not used to such a bright place. Then he realized what it was. The name of the town. Whatever brought him here was obscuring from him the name of the town. Wherever it appeared, he saw a blur. He imagined that if he heard someone speak the name, he would hear a blur as well.
Fearful Fathoms: Collected Tales of Aquatic Terror (Vol. I - Seas & Oceans) Page 9