Ghouls of the Miskatonic (The Dark Waters Trilogy)

by Graham McNeill

  A moment of recognition surfaced as Oliver saw the ghoul’s ravaged face. Seeing its ruined eye socket, Oliver realized that this was the ghoul that had come to kill him. His letter opener had taken the missing eye, and knowing what he knew now, he saw the humanity submerged in its bestial features. He saw the face of a young man transformed by ancient rites, grotesque practices, and debased acts into a monster beyond imagining.

  Was this Latimer?

  The creature’s body was gangling and powerfully muscled, its physique fed by a horrific diet of human meat and God knew what else. Skin flaked from its limbs and running sores wept infected fluid as it tore the bars from the iron door keeping it imprisoned.

  The last bars were coming loose, and it would be moments before it was free.

  “Professor!” shouted Amanda, her eyes wide and pleading. “Hurry!”

  Oliver needed no further prompting and ran down the last steps. A pool of fetid water filled part of the cave, and his admiration for Rita soared as he realized the courage of her escape in taking so horrible a route to freedom.

  “I’m here,” said Oliver, rushing over to Amanda. He rested the axe against the wall as she threw herself into his arms, sobbing in fear and relief.

  “Thank God,” wept Amanda. “I can’t believe you found me.”

  “Rita led us here,” said Oliver, prying himself free of her desperate embrace.

  “She’s alive?”

  “Very much so,” confirmed Oliver. “But we’ll talk later. Let’s get you out of here, yes?”

  Amanda nodded, holding her hands up to Oliver. The manacles were tight, and Oliver handed his gun to Amanda as he fished out the ring of keys. He stood to one side to give himself better light, and tried those keys that looked small enough to match the manacles. His hands were trembling, and it took him two attempts to get the first key in the lock.

  It didn’t fit. He tried another, but it didn’t fit either.

  “Come on!” cried Amanda.

  “I’m trying,” muttered Oliver.

  Amanda screamed and pulled free of him. The keys dropped to the floor and Oliver spun as he heard the bestial roar of Latimer as he broke free of his cell. The ghoul sprang from the alcove, its wiry musculature propelling toward Amanda with a bounding leap. Oliver saw its jaws spread wide in slow motion. Its yellowed teeth had been sharpened to lethal points, and its claws were devolved to tear warm meat from the bones of living prey.

  A thunderous boom split the air and the back of Latimer’s head exploded.

  Though it was utterly impossible, Oliver felt sure he saw a flattened bullet emerge from the ghoul’s skull amid the mushrooming bloom of his pulverized brains. Latimer’s leap ended with him slamming into the wall beside Amanda, who stood with Oliver’s smoking pistol in a two-handed shooter’s grip. Latimer rolled onto his back, and Oliver saw a thin trace of smoke curl from where Amanda’s shot had punched clean through the creature’s remaining eye.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Oliver. “That was a hell of a shot.”

  Amanda didn’t answer, and aimed the weapon at the fallen ghoul. She pulled the trigger and sobbed each time the hammer slammed down on an empty chamber. The ghouls in their cells gibbered and yelped at the death of their pack leader, hurling themselves with greater ferocity at the bars of their cages.

  Oliver gently took the gun from Amanda and slipped it into his pocket as she slid down the wall. She spat on the dead creature and held her hands up to Oliver.

  He retrieved the keys from the floor, swiftly finding the right one and unlocking the manacles. Amanda’s wrists were bloody and raw, but just being free of them brought a smile to her cracked lips. With Oliver’s help, she got to her feet, and the determination on her face was astounding. This was a girl who was stronger than he could ever imagine. To have survived this long in such desperate straits was nothing short of miraculous.

  “Let’s get out of here, Amanda,” said Oliver, seeing that the frantic attempts of the ghouls to break free from their cells was bearing fruit.

  Oliver lifted the axe and put his free arm around Amanda’s shoulders. The two of them made their way toward the stairs, climbing them at a rate much slower than Oliver would have preferred. Amanda’s strength was all but gone, and Oliver had to bear her weight for much of the climb. The descent had been mercifully short, but the ascent seemed to be taking forever, and Oliver was reminded of the climb through the jagged mountains in the other world. Was it his lot to be forever climbing to safety?

  Triumphant yells and barks sounded from below, and Oliver’s heart sank as he knew the ghouls had finally broken free of their cells. The top was close, but he was carrying too much weight. He reluctantly dropped the axe, knowing that he couldn’t fight the ghouls with it. He was no Finn Edwards to valiantly defend the stairs while Amanda escaped. In any case, it was doubtful she could go anywhere without his help.

  “We need to go faster,” he said, all but dragging Amanda up the stairs.

  A billowing orange light illuminated the head of the stairs, and Oliver heard the hungry bellows of the ghouls climbing the stairs behind him. With a burst of fear-induced strength, Oliver carried Amanda up the last of the steps and emerged into a corridor alive with flame.

  Fire had taken hold of the frat house and almost every surface seethed with white-hot flames. Oliver coughed as the smoke hit his lungs, and he was bent double by the fumes.

  The heat was intolerable and he could barely draw a breath. He let Amanda slip to the hardwood floor and turned back to the cellar door. Firelight danced on the rocky walls of the stairs, and Oliver saw the first of the monsters appear below him. He slammed the door shut and slid the padlock through the hasp.

  Before he could close the lock, a terrific impact struck the door, hurling Oliver backward. His head struck the wall hard, and he took a choking breath of smoky air. His sight blurred and he struggled for oxygen as the flames billowed and roared. Sparks and tiny dots of light spun in the air, darting to and fro like fireflies as they gleefully sought things to burn.

  The door shuddered in its frame, and the padlock wobbled, ready to fall to the floor.

  Before it could drop, a shape moved in the smoke, and snapped the lock shut. Oliver couldn’t see who it was, but recognized the voice as he felt strong arms lift him to his feet.

  “No time for lying down on the job, Oliver,” said Gabriel Stone.

  “Amanda…,” groaned Oliver.

  “I got her, too,” said Gabriel. “I got you both.”

  * * *

  Rex watched in horror as the firestorm consumed the frat house. Lashing tongues of molten light hammered down from the sky, incinerating its timbers, tiles, and floors with every impact. Smoke billowed from the blazing structure and the heat was so intense it drove them deeper into the construction site.

  “We have to do something!” he cried. “We need to help them!”

  Neither Alexander nor Minnie answered him, but what was there to say? The inferno was impossible to approach, and there was nothing they could do. Minnie had her camera set up behind a block of stacked bricks and was desperately trying to capture this terrible event on film. Alexander sheltered with her, his hands over his ears as the roaring from above threatened to blot out the crash of splitting timbers and falling masonry.

  Rex felt the awful heat from the sky and tried to understand what was happening. Though he too had heard the tale of Belleau Wood, he still found it almost inconceivable that he was looking at the flaming underbelly of a god. To believe someone when they told you of such a thing was one thing, but to bear witness to its horrific manifestation was quite another. The terrible magnificence of simply the essence of a creature older than time was awesome in its spectacle, the human mind and vocabulary insufficient to truly capture the sublime horror of its presence.

  He tried and failed to find a way to rationalize the world in light of the seething monstrosity that filled the sky with its lava-like body. Arkham was bathed in its diabolica
l radiance, and surely nothing would ever be the same after tonight. Rex dropped to his knees, unable to tear his gaze from the ocean of molten light above him. It burned his eyes, searing into the heart of his brain with its brilliance, and the sheer incandescence of the sight was beyond his ability to cope.

  Rex saw movement silhouetted in the roaring flames, and shielded his eyes.

  “Look!” he shouted. “Someone made it out!”

  The flame-limned outline of Gabriel Stone ran from the bellowing flames, dragging two shapes behind him. He came through the fence and fell to the baked ground of the construction site in a retching heap. Oliver and Amanda fell with him, coughing and hacking the smoke from their lungs.

  A final cascade of flame spilled from the clouds and the frat house collapsed as the last of its structure disintegrated. It fell inward, a riot of ashen timbers, and no sooner had its remains fallen to the ground than the seething firestorm in the heavens began to dim as the essence of the red star began to fold in on itself, and the sky began to darken.

  Rex wanted to go to Oliver and Amanda, to help them up, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from the dissolution of the fire god in the clouds. With crackling rapidity, the fire in the sky faded as the power that had destroyed the house withdrew to its celestial abode.

  The last spirals of darting embers swirled around it like devotees.

  Soon, they too were gone.

  EPILOGUE

  The fire at the frat house had, thankfully, been entirely specific to its plot of land, much to the relief of its neighbors. Not so much as a single ember or brand had gusted from the blazing structure to ignite nearby properties, and little remained to indicate that a building had stood there at all. The Arkham Advertiser did not report the fire, though a small piece in the Gazette reported that a faulty gas main had been responsible for the tragic fire that had consumed the AQA building.

  The Miskatonic Crier lamented the passing of so many fine young men, while subtly managing to insinuate that it had been the fault of those within the house that had seen it burned to the ground. Of the part its inhabitants had played in the disappearance of so many of Arkham’s brightest and most beautiful young woman, nothing was mentioned, and none save a few hardy souls were even aware there was a connection.

  No one would ever know how many had died in the fire, as the temperatures reached by the blaze had been so great that not a single body could be recovered from the ashes. By the time the fire department’s trucks arrived, much of the frat house had been swallowed whole by a vast sinkhole that had mysteriously opened up beneath its foundations. And if anyone thought it strange that the interior faces of the sinkhole were vitrified, turned to glass by heat more commonly found in the heart of a volcano, then those thoughts were never voiced.

  The mystery of the fire on Church Street would never be solved, but such was the way with mysteries in Arkham, and that suited the townsfolk just fine. They had glimpsed a measure of their home’s dark underside, and were quite content to allow the façade of everyday life to be re-established. Nothing good ever came of knowing too much, and ignorance was a collective state of mind favored by the majority of the good citizens of Arkham.

  Those who dared to voice dissenting opinions were quietly ridiculed, and by the time a week had passed, the matter of the blaze at the frat house was old news and no longer the subject of corner store gossips.

  As September moved into October, the panic that had taken hold of Arkham seemed to loosen its grip. In the absence of murder and mayhem on the streets of the town, some of the stores that had previously been closed once again opened for business. After all, the business of America was business. Slowly, though none could explain the reason for the shift in perception, Arkham began returning to normality.

  Or as near to normal as Arkham ever could be.

  * * *

  Amanda Sharpe returned to classes alongside Rita Young, both young girls bearing up surprisingly well after the horror of their captivity. When questioned by the police, neither was able to shed any light on the identity of their captors, though Detective Harden remained convinced that there was much the girls were not telling him.

  That was true, of course, but their lips were sealed.

  * * *

  Finn Edwards recovered from his injuries, though he too was tight-lipped on how he had come by such brutal wounds. His hospital bills were paid anonymously, though the Irishman seemed in no hurry to be discharged, as he was enjoying resting in a comfortable bed, with three meals a day brought to him by pretty nurses with whom he flirted mercilessly.

  At his own request, he received no visitors, and spent his convalescence flicking through directories of various American cities. Whenever the nurses would ask him what he was doing, Finn would smile and tell them that he fancied a change of scenery.

  Chicago was looking good, or maybe Los Angeles.

  Anywhere far, far away from Arkham.

  * * *

  Rex wrote up the entire fantastical story, sparing no details, but was persuaded by Alexander and Oliver not to publish it. Though they had no story they could give their boss, their first-hand account of the blaze on Church Street persuaded Harvey not to fire them, though Rex knew they were on thin ice.

  Reluctantly, he filed the incredible story in a safe deposit box at the First Bank of Arkham, alongside Minnie’s incredible pictures of the night the frat house had burned. Though taken under extreme pressure, her pictures displayed unimaginable scenes of a sky alight from horizon to horizon, and would surely have won Minnie numerous awards had anyone been allowed to see them.

  One photograph was all that remained outside of the box, and Rex hid that one in a secret place.

  Not even Minnie knew he had kept the photograph, but he needed it close to him, and would take it out every now and then to study it intently.

  He would stare at the captured image of the conflagration raging in the heavens—a glimmer of its fire reflected in the black of his pupils.

  * * *

  In the newly restored laboratory of the Tyner Annex, Kate Winthrop took samples of the curious rock she had brought back from her incredible voyage to another world. As she had hoped, it had proven to be key in her research, and while Dr. Dyer and Professor Pabodie attempted to rebuild the new technologies they had developed for the now-delayed Antarctic expedition, she confined her studies to perfecting her flux stabilizer.

  The work was going well, but even as Kate drew closer to a solution, she failed to take into account that most basic principle of the universe.

  Like attracts like.

  * * *

  Charles Warren stood at the window of his office as the DCV Matilda Rose sailed from New York Harbor. The missing piece of the device had been delivered by one of the Travelers six nights previously, and fitted aboard by the island folk with the burnished bronze skin. He’d fired every other worker the day before, and with the silver sphere installed, those same island folk climbed aboard to crew the vessel.

  He watched as the Matilda Rose sailed past the Statue of Liberty, the ridiculous gift from the French that promised freedom and liberty to all. He pictured her submerged beneath dark waters, only the tip of her upraised torch visible above the surface.

  Warren smiled and turned away as the vessel disappeared over the horizon.

  He made his way from his office, pausing only to dip his finger in a sticky pool of congealing blood smeared across the desk of his erstwhile secretary. Warren put his finger in his mouth, and the taste of the blood sent a delicious thrill through his body. The coppery flavor took him back to Europe when he had first eaten the flesh of dead men in the devastation of what had once been beautiful woodland.

  “Good times,” said Charles Warren.

  * * *

  Oliver Grayson and Alexander Templeton returned to their teaching duties at Miskatonic, though there were stern questions to be answered after many of their students had repeatedly arrived to class to find neither man there to teach. Unexplained
absences were unacceptable, and only after lengthy debate and a week’s suspension were both men allowed to return to work.

  Alexander and Oliver met with Gabriel, Rex, and Minnie at Aunt Lucy’s one last time to discuss Arkham’s recent events in full, with Oliver and Stone recounting all they could remember from the frat house. With one arm still in a sling from his machete wound, Stone told of how he had shot down a great many of the corrupted members of the AQA fraternity, while Oliver explained how he had found Amanda in the basement.

  Though there was a great deal left unresolved, it seemed this current horror had been ended, though no one could say for sure if all the killers had died in the destruction unleashed by the unnatural firestorm.

  Believing that Henry Cartwright may have unwittingly been behind that aspect of the night, Oliver paid a visit to Arkham Asylum, only to be told that Henry had lapsed into a catatonic state from which no external stimuli would rouse him.

  Whatever answers Henry might have been able to provide were locked inside him forever.

  With his daughter’s murderers brought to justice, Gabriel Stone departed Arkham in his battered Crossley. He offered no heartfelt offers of friendship, but told his fellow survivors that he stood ready to help if trouble reared its ugly head in Arkham again.

  Though he added that he hoped never to hear from them.

  * * *

  Ten days after the destruction of the AQA frat house, Oliver opened the pages of Around the World in Eighty Days and began to read. It had been too long since he had delved into the world of fiction. Life had taken too serious a turn of late, and it would be refreshing to lose himself in the humorous exploits of Phileas Fogg and Passepartout as they attempted to circumnavigate the globe. Oliver had barely finished the first page when the telephone at the edge of his desk began ringing.

  Without knowing how, Oliver knew this was a call that would prevent him from escaping into the worlds of his beloved Verne.