Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois

by Pierre V. Comtois

  Then he found a newspaper article written on the day residents of the Swift River Valley received notice from the state that they would have to abandon their homes to make way for the new reservoir:

  GREENWICH – Residents of the Swift River Valley received notice this week that the long expected state takeover of their homes and towns will become a reality within a few short months.

  After two years of searching for the right location followed by debate and numerous public hearings and town meetings, state officials in the form of the Reservoir Search Committee announced three weeks ago of their decision to turn the valley of the Swift River with its towns, manicured farms and thousands of residents, into the future site of water storage for the thirsty eastern seaboard.

  As expected, reaction from local residents, who received official notice of the state’s intentions and offer to purchase their land at market rates, has not been wildly positive.

  “I don’t like it and never did,” said Joshua Berwitz, a farmer in Greenwich. They can pay me as much as they want for my land, but it’ll never be enough. A farm anywhere else might offer the same life that I’ve had here, but it can never replace the roots my family has set down here for over 200 years.”

  Joseph Menjou agreed.

  “My family hasn’t been here as long as others,” admitted Menjou, a resident of Enfield. “But I agree with a lot of other folks I’ve talked to that no amount of money can make up for the life we have in this valley.”

  “It’s all because of that snake religion the old Micmucs used to believe in and that some people around here have taken to following,” said David Schulter, a farmer in Greenwich.

  Over the long months of discussions between state officials and residents, one objection to siting the reservoir in the Swift Valley has been its importance as sacred ground for local Indians. Although members of the old Micmuc tribe were said to visit the area in observance of their ancient beliefs, no one has been able to prove that they even exist. Members of the committee dismissed claims by some non-Indian residents that they had adopted the religion and that the valley was holy ground to them as fabrications intended to keep plans for the reservoir from becoming reality…

  The first thing that had leapt out in the news account for Schulter was the quote from his grandfather and only after that the curious accusation that reasons behind locating the reservoir in the Swift Valley were rooted in some kind of Indian cult, a cult apparently, that some white people had taken to following. Well that wasn’t too surprising. There were lots of people today doing the same thing except it was called New Age this or that…an outgrowth of the conservation movement, misguided beliefs in Amerindian lifestyles and political correctness run amok.

  Still, Schulter found himself just too interested in the whole thing to let it go, whether it led to more information on his family tree or not.

  “You interested in the snake cult?”

  For the second time that day, Schulter almost started at the unexpected voice.

  “Well, I didn’t come here to find out about that, but now that I’ve read about it some, yes, I guess I’m curious now. Do you know anything about it?”

  “Not personally, except talk that’s always been around town; but that’s never added up to much,” said Mrs. Thomas. “But if you’re really interested, I’d suggest you visit the library up at Miskatonic University in Arkham. A fellow was here a few years ago doing research on the subject and he told me they had all kinds of information about the state’s settler days up there.”

  “Hm, I’m not sure I’m all that interested to make a special trip to Arkham, but I appreciate the information.”

  But despite his protestations of disinterest, Schulter found himself thinking about what his grandfather had said in the newspaper article and wondering about this “snake cult.” So by the time he’d reached the turnoff for Arkham on the way back to Boston, he’d already decided that a visit to the Miskatonic library wouldn’t do any harm.

  Known for its collection of exotic texts, scholarly writings, personal diaries and letters, and other literary ephemera from researchers and scholars the academic world generally dismissed as simple cranks, and a faculty preponderant in professors willing to at least consider the most outlandish theories that combined science, folklore and primitive religions, Miskatonic University held a dubious reputation in the world of learning. It was one of the reasons Schulter never really gave any serious thought to attending the school when he decided to go for his masters.

  Driving onto the campus, he found it to look no different than any other small town private college: gothic-style older buildings with a few bland modern structures such as the new Wingate Peaslee Auditorium and World Cultures Student Union. The ranked windows of some dormitory buildings could be seen behind the main campus that was generously interspersed with expansive green lawns dotted here and there with ancient oaks and maples.

  One of the ornate, older buildings proved to be the library. Schulter followed the signs around to the rear and parked in a graveled lot that was almost devoid of other cars, it being summertime and classes out for the season. Luckily, the library was open but on first entering, Schulter hadn’t seen anyone about. Shrugging, he began nosing around, admiring the polished woodwork, the recently remodeled reception and reference areas, some portraits of alumni, dour looking Puritan types, who over the years, had donated collections to the library.

  A few locked glass display cases in the reference section included some really ancient looking books and odd artifacts no doubt dug up at some archeological site in the Gobi Desert or the Peruvian jungles before nationalist movements put an end to private expeditions.

  Schulter had just begun scanning the reference shelves when movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. When he looked up, a skinny young man, obviously an undergraduate working at the library to help earn his way through college, was just opening his mouth to speak.

  “I’m looking for information about the early settlement of central Massachusetts,” said Schulter, cutting him off. “I was told that the library here had a good collection.”

  “It does, sir,” confirmed the young man. “Any particular town you have in mind?”

  “Well, I’d say Greenwich, but the whole area around the Quabbin Reservoir would probably work,” replied Schulter.

  “Okay, let’s see what we can find; I’ll be right back,” said the librarian and disappeared into a room behind the main desk. A few minutes later, he returned pushing a cart loaded down with old books sporting hand written filing labels on their spines, fat folders filled with yellowing papers and ledgers of the kind births and deaths were recorded in. “This should keep you busy for a while.”

  The young man was right. It was almost evening when Schulter finally noticed the clock. Around him was scattered the debris of his reading from which he hadn’t learned much more than he’d already known.

  Then, like the plot of a bad movie, he picked up an unmarked folder and discovered that it contained correspondence, minutes and other records relating to the establishment of the Quabbin Reservoir. Most exciting for him however, was a brief period of correspondence between his grandfather, David Schulter, and a professor then teaching at Miskatonic. Of the handful of letters, most concentrated on the same subject, his grandfather’s conviction that the decision to locate the reservoir at the Swift Valley had more to do with a “snake cult” there than the area’s geographical features:

  Dear Professor Armitage,

  You understand me rightly about the snake cult here. It is not something new or something that I am making up in order to defame the committee. The cult has been present in this valley for many years, since at least the time of the early settlers who reported it practiced by a queer band of Indians they found living here when they first arrived. From stories handed down from those days, it seems that the beliefs and practices of this tribe, the Micmucs, were so repugnant that even other Indians in the area hated and avoided t
hem, even killing them on sight. I don’t know if any of that is true, but I do know that many upstanding and otherwise normal seeming people around these parts have taken up with this old cult. You can tell who they are by what folks around here call “the sign of the snake,” a circle with a snake down the center. Members of the cult use it after their names or place it on their barns or mailboxes. Whether the cult is as old as the stories say or just trumped up recently, I can’t say. What I can say is that worship in this cult by some folks around here is real. I’ve seen the stone house they go to in the woods and it looks old enough to have been built in the days before white men came to the valley. Be that as it may, no matter what we may think of them, the cultists are serious. They really believe that there’s a snake god living in that stone house in the woods. They say he’s older than the human race and has lived there for untold ages. Personally, I think it’s all hogwash, but they believe it, which is the real reason I think this reservoir is going through. I’ve tried to tell the newspaper reporters about it, but they’ve ignored me, cutting what I say out of their articles and making me sound like a lunatic. That’s why I decided to write to you on account of you’re having been involved with that business in Dunwich. Professor Armitage, you must believe me when I tell you that it’s common knowledge around these parts that Jonathan Firth is one of these cultists and that it’s no coincidence that he’s a member of the committee. They want to flood this valley not to supply water for Boston, but to help their snake god! They want to help him escape from the valley and reach the open sea through that 100 mile tunnel they plan on building and they don’t care what happens to the rest of us living here! Whether or not anyone else believes in their snake god, their cult is real and what they have planned for our community is real and something needs to be done about it before we all lose our homes!

  Respectfully,

  David Schulter

  Could such things as his grandfather claimed be true? Had there been a cult of snake worshippers in the Swift Valley before it was flooded? Was Jonathan Firth, easily the most important man in the area with powerful connections to the political establishment of the time, a member? And if the cult really had existed, what had become of them?

  Just then there was a sound behind him and when he turned, Schulter discovered the young librarian.

  “Couldn’t help noticing some of the stuff you were looking through, sir,” he said a bit apologetically. “So I wondered if you’d be interested in looking at a book we have that concentrates on, well, weird cults?”

  “Sure, if you think it’ll help,” Schulter replied, intrigued.

  “It’s in special collections so I can’t bring it out here,” said the young man, his body language indicating that Schulter should follow him.

  He did.

  The special collection was located in a separate room off the reference section that the librarian had to unlock with a key. Inside, the walls were lined by glass-enclosed bookshelves with the exception of a large, old fashioned safe-door punctuated with a combination lock mechanism. The young man spun the dial back and forth while glancing at a piece of paper that obviously held the combination. When he finally pulled the door open, a definite scent of old paper met Schulter’s nostrils. A moment later, the young man emerged with a large, hardcover volume that he placed carefully on an oaken table situated in the center of the room.

  “This is a book called Nameless Cults, it’s an English edition of a German original that was printed in 1909,” the librarian explained. “The German title is unpronounceable…”

  “The Unaussprechlichen Kulten,” pronounced Schulter haltingly.

  “That’s it.”

  “No index I see.”

  “Well, these old books you know…”

  Schulter turned the cover carefully. “Written by Friedrich Wilhelm von Juntz.”

  The young man shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll just leave you here. The library closes in about an hour.”

  “That should be enough time for me.”

  Schulter began turning the pages of the book, which was illustrated here and there by garish color paintings. He wasn’t familiar with anything inside, it was all pretty outlandish stuff until he found a reference to a serpent cult. Stopping, he started reading what sounded to him like pure fantasy: once upon a time, tens of thousands of years ago, when the continents of earth were in radically different positions, a race of serpent men had once ruled the world. For thousands of years, men were their slaves until they rose up and conquered their reptilian masters. The serpent men were slaughtered and the few remaining retreated into swamps and jungles trying from to time to time to regain their lost power. But all their attempts failed and in the process, they became even fewer until even the memory of their existence faded from the mind of men.

  These few serpent men, being long lived creatures, dwelled alone in their stone houses for many years and some there were who continued to be served by their former slaves, humans weak of mind as well as of will. Through the long centuries, driven by strange passions and a desperate loneliness only the members of a dying race can know, the serpent men impressed upon their human worshippers the need to yield up their daughters in order to perpetuate the source of their faith. Jealous of their secret knowledge of the reptilian race, the serpent cult sought to hide its masters from other humans and removed the serpents farther and farther from the ever-advancing kingdoms of men until a day came when there were no more serpent men in the lands that became Europe. They had all been taken to lands across the seas; first to the land Eire from whence they were driven out by a man whose God was more powerful, and thence to what would soon become known as the New World. Even there, however, the primitive inhabitants of the land, repulsed by the reptile-like eyes, slickness of the skin and the odor of the snake worshippers, slaughtered them and drove the remainder to hide in remote fastnesses far from the watery strongholds that had once given strength to the race of serpent men.

  Schulter leaned back in his chair, his mind reluctantly putting together the disparate, and unbelievable, pieces to the puzzle. Was there something to his grandfather’s assertion that, under the guise of supplying water to the eastern cities, the reservoir had been located on the Swift River by strategically placed members of a cult of snake worshippers with the specific intention of building a tunnel so that their “god” could finally escape his imprisonment far from the sea? The whole notion seemed patently preposterous until Schulter remembered something: the librarian in Firthford had said that Jonathan Firth, the man accused by his grandfather of being a member of the snake cult, suffered from an ailment whose symptoms included excessive perspiration and an unpleasant odor!

  And what of the “sign of the snake?” His grandfather had said that those belonging to the cult used it when signing their names…and it was an undeniable fact that Firth used such a symbol wherever his signature appeared, he’d seen that himself!

  Like his grandfather had said, whether or not there had been anything to the snake god business, the cult members believed there was and that would have been all that mattered. The fact remained: in the end, the reservoir and its 100 mile-long tunnel were built and the valley flooded.

  By the time Schulter had left the Miskatonic library, he had realized that nothing had ever come of his grandfather’s accusations. Armitage had apparently done nothing (or at least there hadn’t been any record of his doing anything), the residents were removed from their homes, the dam built and the valley flooded. That seemed to put an end to his researches too until a few months later, when the whole fantastic story was suddenly brought back in all its force by the news only a few days before that because of the ongoing drought, the Quabbin Reservoir was at its lowest ebb since it had been filled in the 1940s.

  Driven by inexplicable sympathy for his long-dead grandfather and a conviction that the snake cult he railed against had really existed, Schulter called Quabbin officials to find out if any of the old homesteads had been exposed as a result of t
he water level’s going down and was delighted to learn the area of the old Schulter farmstead was one of them.

  Schulter had packed up some camping gear and driven down to the Reservoir that day. He hadn’t been sure if the Reservoir Authority would permit anyone to explore on the exposed floor of the Quabbin, but he intended to do just that.

  Bringing a hand up to shade his eyes against the glare of the setting sun, Schulter looked up the valley to where the dam blocked the narrows. He had no idea what he had expected to find here, but he felt he needed to come if the strange story he’d learned was ever going to have closure for him.

  He remembered how shocked he’d been when he arrived at his campsite that afternoon. Where he had expected to find a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside, the steep, pine covered hills as they sloped down into blue water for instance, he instead found a body of water that had indeed receded alarmingly as a result of the drought. So much so that great swaths of mud lay revealed and drying in the sun. Here and there, he even saw the foundations of old buildings bulldozed when the land was cleared for the reservoir.

  Standing at the edge of the forest where once the waters of the Quabbin had lapped, he could see the valley slope away into the distance where here and there, small ponds of water gleamed in the light of the setting sun. Around them, for great stretches, what had once been the bottom of the reservoir was now a plain of dried and hardened mud punctuated by the carcasses of fallen trees and the detritus of decades of standing water. Around the steep edges of the reservoir’s high-water mark, scattered branches and trees now covered in a layer of dun colored dirt, had over the years, fallen from the shore into the area that had been submerged, but farther inward, there was surprisingly little in the way of obstruction. In the gathering gloom, Schulter could just make out the dim forms of the buildings that made up the little town of Greenwich, still mostly submerged in standing water with the upper half of a church steeple still clearly visible. In the morning, he’d use the town’s location as a map reference to begin looking for his grandfather’s farm.