Shortly thereafter, the doorbell rang. Standing on my doorstep was a tall, close-cropped, plain-clothes police officer who flashed me a walleted badge on which was embossed his division: HOMICIDE.
“Detective Toby Hamilton, sir,” he said, shaking my hand firmly. “I don’t know if you remember me, Dr. Engel, but I was a patient of yours about eight years ago.”
Ushering him inside, I said, “Actually, in this respect, my memory is quite good, although I tend to remember tattoos better than faces. Let me think a few seconds here…” Almost immediately a crescent-shaped growth appeared in my mind. “Wait. Not a tattoo, but a skin tumor. Squamous cell carcinoma, on your eyelid. Which we micro-ablated with no loss of vision.”
“Wow,” said the detective, sounding genuinely impressed. “Good guess. Let’s hope the same attention to details prevails throughout this investigation.” Pulling out a notebook: “But before I once again thank you forty times over for saving my sight, maybe we should tackle the night’s nasty business first. Professor Scuyler hasn’t called you back, I take it?”
“No,” I said, watching him flip back and forth through the notebook. “No, he hasn’t. Nor has he answered any of my attempts to reach him. May I assume, however, given what I heard, something unpleasant has happened to the woman who called?”
“You do understand I’m limited in what I can tell you, right? But yes, we do have a victim, and we are looking for Professor Scuyler, both for next-of-kin notification and other purposes. You told nine-one-one he was a little bit panicky when he called?”
“He was concerned about the post-operative effects of a treatment he received this afternoon, yes.”
“And in the course of the time you spent with him today, did he happen to mention he was in the process of getting a divorce or that a restraining order had been filed by him against his estranged wife?”
“Quite the opposite, in fact,” I said, feeling myself frown. In as succinct a fashion as possible then, I repeated the story I had first heard only this afternoon, telling the detective about how the removal procedure was actually supposed to make Scuyler’s relationship with his “fiancée” stronger. “Rather a puzzling set of lies,” he said, tapping his pencil against his lips. “But you see that often with these odder belief systems. Apparently, the professor and his wife are charter members of a neo-gnostic cult out of Berkeley called the Ogdoad. Kind of a weird group, you ask me. Its principle tenet, as nearly as we’ve been able to determine, involves the veneration of a bizarre octopus-like deity whose name I can neither pronounce nor spell. Unfortunately, though, as will happen in groups of this nature, there’s been quite a lot of infighting, with each faction claiming the other is attempting to intimidate or poach away influential members. Ordinarily, of course, in a turf war like this, we wouldn’t get involved, at least as long as no laws were broken. But Professor Scuyler also had this huge research grant from the Navy to develop a new kind of optical system that would work in murky water and the Pentagon wanted to make sure his work wasn’t being affected or compromised.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Husband and wife were on opposite sides?”
The detective nodded. “Cataclysmically so, I’m afraid. Although some of Professor Scuyler’s colleagues seemed to believe he was on the verge of leaving the cult altogether.”
“That at least might explain why he wanted the tattoo removed,” I ventured.
“Or was doing his best to piss off the wife,” the detective counter-suggested. “Dunno. But hopefully we’ll find out. Anything else you can think of that might be relevant?”
But before I could tell him no, overhead, what was either a police or news helicopter had now began to thrash the air, and I soon saw outside the window a searchlight sweep over the grounds, seeking either to eradicate or entice I-knew-not-what.
It was the on-line version of the San Jose Mercury News the next morning that first reported the murder of a local Palo Alto woman. Details at the time were still being withheld, but according to anonymous sources, the victim, an unnamed Asian woman in her forties, had been found strangled in her apartment, although she also had two superficial gunshot wounds. A person of interest was being sought, the article went on to state, and authorities were stressing that this did not appear to be a random killing and that the public should not be overly concerned.
By noon, however, when I checked for an update, a name and picture had been attached to the victim: she was Sayano Scuyler, age 42, a Japanese national married to Stanford faculty member Professor Nathan Scuyler, whose whereabouts were still being sought. Authorities were also remaining tightlipped about a possible suicide note found on his computer.
But by far the most startling feature of the update was the picture of Sayano Scuyler, who looked instantly familiar, though I was almost certain we had never met.
Only later, when I was in mid-removal of a tramp stamp from the lower back of a pretty young thing, did it occur to me that, despite modern flourishes, Sayano Scuyler could have easily been the real-life model for the woman depicted in Hokusai’s 1814 wood-block print, The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.
Over the coming month Wednesdays remained my busiest day. I’d received a ton of referrals from the ex-NBA star and now knew better than to use the 694 wavelength setting of the Q-source. I was also close to being double booked for sessions, wanting to take off an extra several days for the forthcoming Easter weekend. Thus, running late for choir practice, I fairly flew through the shower once I got home. Then after finishing inspecting myself in the mirror (blemish-free as always), I went into the living room, where, as I continued to towel off, I turned on KPLH for a bit of the evening news.
Backdropped by the blue waters of the Pacific coast, the female half of the anchor team was saying, “Like the swallows of Capistrano, the Humboldt Squid, more commonly known as the red devil squid because of its aggressiveness and rusty color, are once again invading local waters, heading north from Mexico during their annual migratory period. Take a look at his amazing underwater video, folks. Scientists estimate the total number of squid shoaling here at well over a thousand. Can you imagine yourself going for a swim and winding up in the middle of that, Franklin? Talk about your ick factor.”
“No, Mitsy,” said her bronzed co-anchor. “On the other hand, it does help explain why I have a sudden hankering for calamari, haha.”
But as the inane chatter of the talking heads continued, now discussing El Niño weather patterns with the meteorologist, I was caught by the brief image of something in the Gordian-like mass of red squid. Tentacles, fins, and crimson mantles swirled in the fray, but by using the backtrack, freeze frame, and zoom features of my remote I was able to zero in on the footage I wanted to re-examine.
It was still overly cluttered, of course — not for nothing is the Humboldt variety called the jumbo squid — and I was never able to clearly isolate anything but two of the suckered limbs in that galaxy of forms.
Nevertheless, I would have recognized those tattoos anywhere.
Robert Borski grew up in Wisconsin, not far from Sauk City, home to Arkham House and its founder, August Derleth. Though he has not written much HPL-inspired fiction, he was a contributor to the early Weird Tales fanzine, Etchings & Odysseys. These days he mostly writes poetry, a collection of which, BLOOD WALLAH, is now available from Dark Regions Press.
Story illustration by Stjepan Lukac.
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The Visitor From Outside
by A.J. French
How is it that although I have reached the end of my existence, I do not pass from this loathsome planet, but continue to live out my days, forced to bear witness to that mocking parade of civilians with their petty hopes and dreams, their unconscious delirium, who go stalking past my front door? And for the love of all that is holy, how do they not notice ME—a ghost, visible I tell you, staring out the battered frames of this ruinous old house—and that’s another thing: do they not notice that there i
s a two-story crumbling Gothic castle, replete with hammerbeam roofs, slender towers, and the largest hall, lined with curving trusses, to ever grace this side of suburbia? Does no one find it strange that I am here, haunting as I do my halls and dusty rooms?
No, indeed they pay me little attention and I think they do not even consider me. They pass by, whilst I gaze out from my filth-splatted foggy glass, hand pressed to the pane, and I wish they would look at me—OH GOD WON’T YOU LOOK!
Then when they do look, it is merely to check the weathervane swinging from the darkest, uppermost gable of my castle, as though they were interested in the direction of the wind. I wonder how they feel about my assemblage of old stone gargoyles?
None of the other houses on the block are like mine. The families who inhabit these banal abodes, the ones who refuse to look upon my castle and see it for what it really is (a cry for help) are just as innocuous and commonplace as their homes. If it weren’t for the unspeakable loneliness which keeps me bound to a place such as this, I would hate them forever and wish never to dwell amongst them. Yet I am dead, a ghost, and therefore cursed to haunt these halls, to peer from these dirty panes, whilst those around me go ahead with their silly existence.
And wouldn’t you know it? The universe humorously decided to answer my cries. The first time I saw that answer he was standing in the middle of the street, framed by American suburbia, like a black spot stuck where it had no business sticking. I thought I’d imagined it, for no one else acknowledged its presence, simply walked on by, the children ding-dinging past on their bicycles and the adults coasting along in their automobiles, arm halfway out the window. I stared at it a bit longer, doubting my ocular faculties because I wanted to be sure that, yes, a black figure stood in the street with a ropey appendage hanging down like a malformed tongue; and yes, that no one in the neighborhood had deigned to acknowledge its presence.
Strangely I felt a sudden camaraderie with the figure, an empathetic longing. The only time I ever experienced love during my life was with Sally Walker in the ninth grade until she broke my heart under the bleachers and said she never wanted to see me again. Alone after that, yet I never forgot the way I felt with Sally, and when I looked on the strange figure I felt an echo of that same emotion.
He did nothing but stand there staring at me—for days actually. I’d peer through the greasy outline of my windows and see him there, gazing toward the castle; and other times he’d be gone and the street would be empty. Not once did he approach the stone pathway leading to my front door. As time went on, I developed a sick fascination with him.
I began keeping a record of the times of the day he was most likely to appear, that way I’d have a better chance of glimpsing him. This became a frantic activity that consumed a great many hours. Being a ghost, I had little to do anyway. So this cycle continued, with me gazing through the glass at the proper time, and the figure glaring back, his protracted tentacled face dangling in those occasional summer winds.
Once, upon hearing the tinkling music of an ice-cream truck, I came to the window and found him standing in line with a group of children, waiting to make a purchase. These children seemed not to notice him, and yet they gave him space, stood several feet away, as if they sensed something sinister in the air.
My mysterious black-robed friend waited until he reached the vendor and then purchased an ice-cream cone with two vanilla scoops brimming over the cone edge. He paid for the treat by reaching into his robe with the tentacle and suctioned a bill fold, which he passed along elephant-like to the vendor, taking the ice-cream cone in the same fashion.
I watched, horrified and utterly disturbed, as he returned to his usual position in the middle of the street and stood staring toward my crumbling castle eating his ice-cream, bringing it via the proboscis to whatever horrible mouth lurked beneath his wilted cowl.
Days passed. At least, what I thought were days. We followed the same ritual. He’d arrive in the street at the according times, and I, then, would be drawn to my windows, peering out with longing (or was it dread?).
Then finally he began a gradual progression toward my front door. Each time he appeared now it would be a foot or two closer to the castle. I grew sick with anticipation. It’d been so long since anyone had even paid attention, let alone noticed me, and now someone was actually in the process of trying to reach me.
True, that someone was a slimy, enigmatic creature from some aquatic nether abyss, but at this point I’d take whatever I could get.
My excitement grew. I found myself drooling at times, like a ravenous fiend, my face all pressed against the glass. I still could not make out much of his features, even as he got closer, and I was left to delirious conjecture, hands sweating as I considered the myriad possibilities for what lay under that robe.
I was burned by my own twisted imagination, by the unwholesome fantasies of a lovesick child; although I had passed on to a spectral existence, I felt guilty and disturbed by these fantasies, thinking myself unhinged in some way—which, no matter how I reasoned, I could not disprove.
Eventually, as the figure made his slow ascent up the stone pathway leading to my castle, he passed out of sight of the windows. I then pined nervously and erratically for the moment when his knock would grace the door, when I would permit him entrée and finally after how many years I would cease to be alone here.
I waited.
But patience is not a virtue to which I lay claim. So I worked myself into a frenzy about the visitor. My thoughts ran amuck. I drifted about the halls and up the stairwells of my castle, waiting, wondering, anticipating, making myself sick. I was going down, deeper and deeper, to where only the most depraved of souls go, to the dark jigsawed crags of a nether-abyss.
When the knock finally came I was huddled under one of the stairwells. I raced to the door, something like a heartbeat hammering in my chest. I threw it open at once, admitting the blazing sunlight of the outside world.
There he stood, everything I had imagined, that terrible robed figure who had wreaked so much havoc on my thoughts. I looked upon him with utter fascination. The black cloth robe that enclosed the figure, I now saw, bulged and swelled with lumpish queer angles, as if containing something vastly larger than human form. The frayed rope hung loosely about his midriff. I got the impression it was more like a drawstring on a sack than a clamp to keep the robe wrapped tightly.
My eyes moved feverishly upward, to the loathsome and mesmerizing proboscis, which dangled before me like a hypnotist’s pendulum. It was green and covered with a light coating of sea-slime, with crater-like suction cups blooming along its exterior. It was rubbery and seemed to move of its own accord, like a cat’s tail. I followed it up to the patch of darkness hanging beneath his cowl, that lumpish monstrosity passing for a head, but still I could not penetrate into the black depths, could not make out his face.
“Have you come for me?” I said. It had been so long since I’d used my voice that I feared I might’ve spit at him.
But the figure kept silent. Behind him the world seemed to pass in fluid motion, in a blur of automobiles, grass lawns, picket fences, and stuccoed houses. I felt my grip on reality (or whatever reality I had called mine) slipping away completely. I began to feel very lightheaded and nauseous.
Then it all came crashing down, everything about my loathsome existence and the world of self-aggrandizing fools from which I had departed—and suddenly my hand slipped away from the door handle and I bent over at the waist to vomit.
I expected at least a minimal reaction from the figure, but there was nothing. Only the cold, swinging gaze of his proboscis. I imagined him as another boy on the schoolyard, wiggling fingers at the sides of his head, sticking his tongue out at me, trying to provoke my anger.
I battled against this emotion.
“Do you want to come inside?” I said.
This time he replied with a shake of his head.
“What do you want?”
Then he spoke. Guttural an
d terrible, yes, but also something childlike and high-pitched about it—which gave me the absurd image of a talking chipmunk.
“I want to show you something,” he said.
I straightened, interest piqued, and moved away from my little bit of vomit.
“Out with it,” I said, trying to conceal my excitement. But my arms and legs were tingling, and a strange electro-sensation was wiggling its way up my spine. I’d not been shown something in years.
“But are you ready?” he said.
“Yes of course I’m ready, don’t be stupid. I’ve been stuck in this reality, looking at all the same things, never getting a taste of anything new. I’m dying for it, I tell you!”
“It shall be done,” he said, slowly reaching up to remove the cowl.
His weird gloved hands pushed back the hood, which settled into a pile around his neck. I was confused by what I saw, for my eyes were not met with the head of a man, nor even the head of a man sporting a tentacled proboscis, but something wholly other. Alien to me was this abject vista to which I had become privy. I stood there for some time, my mouth slowly opening into an oval of wonder.
What sprouted from the neck of that robe was not male, or even female, but fish. A set of glassy, unblinking eyes, positioned on either side of a flat scaly head that ended in a lipless snout. From this mouth protruded the foul greenish proboscis. I realized then it was the creature’s tongue, too big to fit inside the narrow cavity of its fish head, forced to hang out, like an elephant’s trunk.
I took a step back in horror, but the creature followed me, untying the frayed cord around his waist.
“No…keep away,” I said. “You’re not human!”
“Neither are you,” it replied, speaking in that high-pitched fish’s voice.
Lovecraft eZine Megapack - 2012 - Issues 10 through 20 Page 44