Chambers wasn’t about to let his guard down. “Go on.”
“What on earth were you doing on the floor when I came in?”
“Oh that? It was because when I went near the skull I—” He stopped. He had just been handling the bones with no ill effect at all. That made no sense, but then neither did much else that had happened this afternoon. The only thing he was sure of was that he must not let this reporter pick up on how disturbed he was feeling right now. “No good reason,” he said with a sheepish smile. “I just took a step back from the bench and missed my footing. Promise you won’t tell anyone?”
She offered him a sunny smile that had probably gotten her more than one good lead. “I promise. That particular secret of yours is safe with me.” She turned to the opened parchment. “Although how about in return you don’t say anything to Malcolm Turner about me opening this?”
“Okay,” he agreed. “But that’s probably a slightly bigger favor, don’t you think?”
“A hard negotiator. I like it.” She was putting her Dictaphone away. “Okay—I’m ever so slightly in your debt.” Now she’d taken out a tiny pocket camera. “Stand back, would you?”
Chambers was about to protest but by the time he’d opened his mouth the flash had gone off and an image of the parchment had been committed to film.
“Thought I’d better do it before you stopped me,” she said, tucking the camera out of reach. “Fancy finding out what it all means?”
Chambers had to admit he was interested. “But how are you going to—?”
“You said it could easily be several hundred years old, yes?” Chambers nodded. “Well, one of my teachers at Oxford was an expert in Medieval English. If he’s still there he might be willing to translate it for me. I can guarantee it’ll be a hell of a lot quicker than getting them to do it down here. And he’ll keep his mouth shut. For a price.”
Chambers didn’t want to know what the price might be.
“But you’re interested?”
He nodded. The C.I.D. team in Washington might like to get their hands on it first, but he couldn’t pass up the chance to let an Oxford University lecturer take a crack at it.
“Fine, in that case, we can do a swap. You tell me what other information you get from those old bones, and I’ll tell you what I can get out of my old tutor. We could discuss it over dinner next week sometime. Deal?”
It was only when she had gone that he realized he might just have been asked out on a date.
FOUR
Thursday, October 27, 1994. 6:30 A.M.
HE WAS DREAMING AGAIN.
The church was nearer this time, and the blood-red sky was darker. There was no rain but the hoary damp stink suggested a heavy storm would soon be battering the landscape.
He reached down to touch the ground. The dust was so fine it turned his fingertips white, and he immediately knew this was not dust but ash, from some cataclysmic catastrophe that had scoured this land and rendered everything barren.
He was surrounded by bodies.
He wondered if he was being witness to the site of a battle, but if that were so, whatever conflict had been fought here was long past. The bodies were rotten, desiccated, their outlines softened by the white dust in which they lay.
Then the bodies began to move.
Frozen to the spot by unseen forces, he was helpless to do little else but watch as the army of the undead rose to its feet. Scraps of withered muscles hung from bones that should not have been able to move without them, and yet they could. Crumbling hip and shoulder joints were in such a terrible state they should not have been able to bear even the weight of a feather, and yet they held firm as the creatures looked around them, regarding their surroundings through eyeless sockets.
He stood at the center of an ocean of the undead, newly risen and, as yet, unfocused and purposeless. He was expecting them to begin shambling awkwardly and haphazardly in random directions, but they didn’t.
Instead, they all turned and looked at him.
Even though he could only see the closest of those that surrounded him, he knew that all the others were regarding him, too, their skulls balanced on crumbling spinal columns, the gentle rocking movement either the tremor of anticipation, or merely the method by which they prevented themselves from falling to pieces completely.
He felt something brush his feet. Looking down he saw more of them, the ones who had no legs but were just as eager to make their presence felt, dragging themselves toward him with bony claws of fingers, or ragged stumps of broken bone where arms had been snapped off, or, he thought with a shudder, eaten.
He was about to cry out when, as one, the grisly army looked toward the church. There was more shuffling, and a hideous grinding noise that reminded him of intricate but badly oiled machinery as they moved.
As they parted to form a path.
That led to the church on the hill.
He stood at one end of an avenue of the undead. They waited, anticipant, filled with an unearthly hunger, with the desperate need to tear the living flesh from his bones. And yet they did not.
Instead they stood there, the gentle rocking motion seeming to urge him down the path, toward the building that lay at the end of it. Chambers stayed where he was, terrified and still rooted to the spot, knowing that whatever fate was intended for him, it would be worse than dying at the hands of these monsters.
Black lightning snaked across the sky, and then a crack of thunder louder than anything he had ever heard caused him to look up.
When he looked down again, he saw, in the distance, that the church doors had opened.
And something was waiting for him inside.
Bob Chambers glanced at the half-empty bottle of whisky on his night-stand and resisted the urge to pour himself another glass. Drinking scotch at seven in the morning might have been a sign of high spirits when he was a student, but at the age of thirty-five it was the sign of a problem, jet lag or not.
He put the bottle in the cupboard, hoping that out of sight would lead to out of mind as well. If only that would work for the nightmares.
The bloody nightmares.
He still found it hard to believe it was only four days since he’d been at the British Museum laboratories and had sparked off whatever it was that was now haunting his dreams, gnawing away at his sleep like a rat that wouldn’t let go. It was always the same and, for a dream, was surprisingly logical—if an army of the undead trying to force him into a church that looked as if it was on another planet could be considered logical.
He pulled on the jacket of his blue serge suit. At least this afternoon he should be able to finish up the work on Malcolm’s bones. He resolved to stay at the British Museum labs until his report was finished, even if it took all night. Perhaps then the dreams would go away, and even if they didn’t, at least if he was up working he’d be spared the misery of sleep.
He checked his pocket for his hotel room key, and something scraped his hand as he did so. It was the business card that girl had given him. He took it out and stared at it. He was convinced the nightmares were important, and Washington had agreed. His new instructions were to find out as much as he could about the manuscript. All major resources were being directed toward a rising of Deep Ones off the Baja Peninsula, so the League didn’t have anyone spare to send over. He was on his own. He didn’t mind that, and as he seemed to be personally involved in this (or at least, his subconscious was), he was eager to find out what the scrolls said. Perhaps, he thought as he left the hotel and made his way to the London Underground station, they spoke of a curse that would befall the first person to touch those bones or smash that pot.
And if that was the case, hopefully they could tell him how to rid himself of it as well.
It wasn’t until later that night that Chambers remembered he had to call Karen. Sitting in a cramped office at the back of the British Museum, with the final write-up on the bones in front of him, he knew he needed to speak to her before passing his report to Malcolm in the m
orning. More than that, he needed to know more about what it was those two boys had found, and the only place he was going to find answers was in the manuscript.
“Karen?”
“Yes.”
He had expected the voice on the other end to sound sleepy but it was anything but.
“I’m sorry to disturb you so late. It’s Bob Chambers here. You remember? Malcolm Turner’s colleague.” He was still doing his best to keep his background details secret. “The one he asked to look at the bones.” Silence. “You came in after I’d knocked that pot on the floor at the British Museum.”
“Oh shit, yes, I remember you.” She gave a nervous laugh. “How are you doing?”
“You’re sure I’m not bothering you?”
“God no, I’m a night owl, and a day owl, and an every-hour-God-sends owl when I’m working on a story.” She certainly didn’t sound annoyed, which was a relief. “What can I do for you?”
Chambers took a deep breath. He was shocked at how difficult it suddenly was for him to come out with his next question.
“Have you managed to meet with that tutor of yours yet? The one who was going to take a look at that manuscript for you?”
The line was quiet for a moment before Karen spoke again. This time her voice was quieter, less sure of itself. “No. Why?”
“It’s just that . . .” God, why was this so difficult? Was it because it all sounded so ridiculous, or because it seemed to be affecting him personally? “. . . I’ve got the results on the analyses performed by the team here, on the skull and . . . the other parts.”
“Great.” It didn’t sound as if Karen actually thought it was great at all. “Why are you calling me about this now?”
Chambers picked up the document, still written in his own spidery hand. He had thought it best not to dictate it in case speaking any of this aloud aroused the attention of forces he had no wish to come into contact with. Not until he knew more about them, anyway. He read the summary paragraph at the bottom of the fifth page for the umpteenth time before speaking again.
“Karen, according to the mass spectrometry, radio-carbon dating, chromatographic analyses, and electron microscopy, the bones found on that building site could be up to six hundred years old.”
“You’re kidding.”
In some ways, he wished he was. “No. Six hundred years. Of course you have to bear in mind the error factor with these sorts of things, but that doesn’t change what I’ve said.”
There was a pause during which he imagined he could hear her scribbling down what he’d just said. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re calling me about it now.”
“Those scrolls we found, the rolled-up parchment. There’s a chance they could be just as old, and if they are, I’d like to know what they say.”
“What makes you interested in medieval manuscripts all of a sudden?”
It was a fair question, and one which he didn’t feel at all comfortable answering over the phone.
“When are you meeting your teacher?”
Again he sensed a creeping uncertainty. “He’s not there anymore. The head of the department sounded very nice and was actually very helpful, though. I read a few words out from what I’d photographed, and she said we could meet up tomorrow.” Her hesitant speech finally ground to a halt.
“Karen,” Chambers could sense her uneasiness, “what’s the matter?”
“Promise you won’t laugh?”
In this office, at this moment, he couldn’t think of anything that would even raise a smile. “Absolutely.”
“To be honest I was thinking about canceling it and chucking in the story. Since we met the other day I’ve been having these . . . horrible dreams. Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Oh, he could. “Try me,” he said. “I promise I won’t laugh, and I promise I won’t make fun of you. You may find this hard to believe, but I’ve been having some dreams of my own. They’re part of the reason I called you.”
That got her attention. “What dreams?”
He shook his head. “You first.”
And so, hesitatingly, haltingly, Karen began. The story she told was horribly familiar. The blood-red sky, the church, the army of the dead.
The thing waiting just inside the door.
“It’s actually the real reason I’m still up,” she said. “Please don’t tell anyone, but it’s getting so I’m afraid to go to sleep. I’m trying to bury myself in work, in anything but this bloody story, but I just can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Well now it’s my turn to sound crazy.” Karen’s outburst had rendered him far more willing to talk. In fact it was a relief to speak his thoughts aloud. “I’ve been having the same nightmares you’ve just described. Exactly. Right down to the doors opening and that thing waiting inside.” It was safe to tell her that much. In fact there was the chance it might save her life if the visions got worse. He didn’t want to reveal too much about himself, though. Not just yet. He still wasn’t entirely sure he could trust her. “This may sound weird to you right now but you don’t know how good it’s been to hear you tell me all of that. It means I might not be going nuts after all.”
“Me too.” Karen’s voice sounded a little brighter now, and a little more relaxed.
“We need to get those manuscripts translated. Whether it’s some sort of curse or demonic possession, or we just got a big dose of some weird hallucinogenic drug that no one’s discovered before, our best chance of finding an answer is in those scrolls.”
“Scroll—singular,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. “I only took a picture of the one, remember?”
That was right. “Do you think your tutor would mind if I brought pictures of the other two along?”
“Can you?”
Of course he could. “I’ll do my best,” he said. “I take it you aren’t going to mind me coming along with you tomorrow?”
“No.” She sounded relieved, or at least a little part of him hoped so. “No, not at all.”
“Great. And you can take me out for that dinner you offered me last time we met.”
“That would be nice. And you can tell me everything about the tests you did on the bones.”
He grinned. Having someone to share all this with was doing his mood no end of good. “I will, which makes me guess you’ve decided not to chuck the story yet?”
“Not just yet,” came the reply. “Not now that I’ve just uncovered a very promising new lead.”
How promising it would turn out to be, of course, remained to be seen.
FIVE
Friday, October 28, 1994. 2:09 P.M.
THE WEATHER IN OXFORD was terrible.
In Pelham College, the conifer trees that lined the quad were being buffeted by an angry wind, their normal uniformity blown out of tune like a discordant choir in which every member was slightly out of step with his neighbor. Chambers was permitted one more glimpse of the outside world through the beveled windowpane before a dark red curtain of heavy fabric was drawn rudely across, blocking out the gray daylight.
He heard the click of a switch, and the screen that had been set up was illuminated by the sterile light from the slide projector behind them.
“And you say no one else has seen these?”
The words came from behind them as well. Rosalie Cruttenden was Pelham’s Reader in Medieval Studies and looked as if she had spent the majority of her fifty-plus years in the cloistered world of academia. Her tweed suit was a little too tight, as was the wiry gray hair that had been uncooperatively pulled into something resembling less a bun and more a cottage loaf. Her eyes remained bright and enthusiastic, however, and her voice was cultured, no doubt as a result of her background. It was also deep and rasping from far too many cigarettes. There was one in her hand right now, the smoke particles swirling in the projector’s beam before drifting to become embedded with millions of their fellows in the books, woodwork, and plaster of the study’s smoke-stained walls.
“No one
who would be able to understand them.” Chambers coughed. “Would you mind if we opened the window?”
“Oh, is it this?” She indicated her cigarette, and Karen joined him in nodding. “Sorry—I forget myself sometimes.” She dropped it into the half-empty cup of coffee she had been drinking, where it extinguished itself with a hiss. Chambers hoped she didn’t forget and drink from it later.
“Let’s look at the first one, shall we?”
Dr. Cruttenden pressed a button and words filled the screen. Chambers had to give her credit—upon their arrival they had been taken straight to a state-of-the-art photographic department where the images had been transferred onto high-resolution glass slides. “That should allow us to get a really good look,” Dr. Cruttenden had said as she’d taken them back to her study.
“How can you tell it’s the first?”
It was obvious, really, but Karen was probably asking to be polite and—as is always most important when dealing with anyone in academia—to show interest in their subject.
“The document begins with this especially ornate drop capital.” Dr. Cruttenden unsheathed a telescopic pointer and indicated the immense letter “T” that filled the top right-hand corner of the screen. “It was not unusual for texts of great worth and intended permanence to be decorated in this manner. A bit like royalty for language, if you like.”
“So what does the title actually say?”
Despite their size, Dr. Cruttenden still had to peer at the letters. “A rough translation would be ‘The Soothsayer’s Tale.’”
“Soothsayer.” Karen had her notebook out. “You mean like a fortune teller?”
From the way Dr. Cruttenden was shaking her head she obviously didn’t. “Fortune tellers were the staple of traveling fairs, offering comfort, solace, and outright lies for the outlay of a few coins. The tradition of the soothsayer goes back to ancient Rome and quite possibly beyond that. An individual blessed—although many would say cursed—with the ability to foresee future events, good or ill. According to certain texts, these unfortunate individuals would often be haunted by the events they had predicted until those events took place.”
The Lovecraft Squad Page 4