I was immediately buffeted by the wind. I would call it a gale, but it was too constant in its fierceness for that appellation. As I turned down the road, it seemed as though the direction of the storm shifted. It was now blowing in my face, every fleck of snow stinging like the sharp prick of so many needles. The road curved sharply right and after passing between two rows of wooden and brick houses, the pungent aroma of the ocean surrounded me. Even with the blinding snow and darkened skies, some unknown glow illuminated the oily sea as it roiled and undulated under the ever gathering barrage.
The tavern sat on a ledge at the ocean’s edge. The sign hung lower on one corner than the other, and its violent swinging on the metal chain holding it indicated it was not long for this world. I could barely make out the name etched into the ancient wood: The Kracken. I took a moment, despite the howling gale buffeting me, to smile.
I pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside, letting it slam behind me. The room was lit by oil lamps hung haphazardly from the ceiling. The gust of wind pursuing me had rocked them to and fro, and now their pale light cast grotesque shadows that seemed to gibber and dance on the tavern walls.
I looked around the room. It was built like the bow of a ship, the center portion lower than its sides. There were several denizens, regulars of this establishment I would have wagered, spread here and there about the place. But it was a particular table, the only one in the center depression that was occupied, that stood out to me the most.
At it sat four men, incongruous for their diversity of dress and the mien with which they held themselves. They sat quietly, each man seemingly more interested in his ale than those around him. One was an ancient man, dressed in a thick, but grizzled, fur coat and an unkempt beard obscuring his face. His warm dress was the most appropriate for the evening. Next to him was a man who had the look of a scholar or professional, as if perhaps he were the town magistrate. There was yet another man, who while attired in a similar manner to the previous fellow, I took immediately for a doctor of some sort. And finally, another bearded gentleman, though he was more thoughtfully trimmed and kept. He wore a dark blue coat and pants with black boots. And he was the only one staring directly at me. There was a light in his eye, not of welcome, but of knowledge and recognition.
I walked down the three steps into the central depression and past the table. The three men never looked up; the fourth never looked away. I stepped up three more steps and found myself at the bar. The man behind it, a heavyset older gentlemen who, in his day, would probably have been considered a ruffian, stared at me without word or welcome, and so I felt compelled to lead the conversation.
“Excuse me, good man. I wondered if you might have some food available.”
“Fish stew’s all we got,” he said with a deep New England accent. “But I reckon a fella’ from Boston-way would frown on that.”
“Why, certainly not,” I said, trying to save a first impression. “A bowl of soup and some bread, please. And a pint to wash it down.”
For a moment he only glared. But then eventually he turned and walked to a large pot sitting over a fire, raging hot and wild, in the hearth. As I waited uncomfortably for him to return, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
Chapter
4
Turning was only the work of a moment, but in that moment several thoughts ran through my head. I realized this could be an aggressive move by the unknown possessor of the hand now on my person, and a fight might prove imminent. I also knew I was in a place where such a fight could very well turn deadly. I considered the possibility I was already undone, that some stranger had recognized me as Thayerson’s emissary, in which case this journey might be all for naught. Before I could ponder the consequences of such a disaster, I was looking into the green eyes of the blue coated, bearded fellow I noticed only a few moments before.
“You sir,” he said, “have the look of a man who doesn’t belong.”
It was a phrase that, were it not for his general demeanor, could have been taken as a threat. But there was a smile on his face and, more importantly, in his eyes, and I was immediately aware he meant me no harm. I tried and failed to place his voice as he spoke. It lacked a defining accent, but deep within it rolled the salt sea.
“And by that,” he continued, “I mean you must be a visitor in these parts. I’ve always been a man to welcome those who wander, as I’ve done quite a bit of wandering myself.”
The barkeep had returned by this point, loudly dropping the bowl of soup, bread, and ale in front of me. “Ah, now that Tom has got you your food, please, join us at our table. We have much to say, but I fear the years have tired us of the listening. Perhaps a fresh set of ears would bring some of that old joy back.”
On the surface the offer was a friendly one, and, in fact, I had judged the man to be sincere from the moment he began to speak to me. But there was something else there, an ulterior motive that lay beneath. It wasn’t that he was lying, or even that he was concealing. Just, there was something beyond that I couldn’t quite place. But in any event, I never considered rejecting his offer. This was an unexpected chance to ingratiate myself with some of the locals, and I had vague hopes this man might be just the sort of person who could direct me to the location of the book. And so, at his behest I gathered up my food and drink while he pulled a fifth chair to his table. I sat down, and my new host began to introduce me to his companions. He started with the heavily furred man to my left.
“This is Jack,” he said. “Jack, in his day, was a master trapper. Isn’t that right, Jack?”
The man smiled weakly at me and said, “I guess that’s so.”
“Daniel, here,” he said, already moving to the man I had pegged as a magistrate, “is a solicitor of some renown in these parts.”
“In better days,” the man said with more than a modicum of sadness and regret.
“William, here, is a doctor. Before he joined us in our little town, he spent his early years with those poor souls whose minds have been lost. The insane, the demented. The truly damned of this world.”
The doctor took a long drink of his beer. He did not speak. It struck me, then, as I looked at them, their worn faces, and their dark shrouded eyes. These were broken men. All except the one who spoke first and last.
“And I am but a simple fisherman.” I saw Daniel smile and cough out a laugh. “Spent damn near all of my life on the sea,” the man continued. “But now I’m retired,” he said, grinning. “Jonathan Gray,” he offered. “Captain Jonathan Gray.”
“It is a pleasure to make the acquaintance of you all,” I said. “My name is Carter Weston.”
“And what, if we may ask,” spoke the Captain, “is a fellow like yourself doing here, especially on such a night. Not that we would mind, of course. We consider ourselves a hospitable people,” he said, politely but inquiringly. “But the wind has blown up a storm tonight the likes of which we have seldom seen, even here.”
As if on cue, a particularly powerful gust shook the brittle panes of the tavern with such ferocity I feared they might shatter. But then the wind calmed, and the Captain turned his gaze to me again.
“Well,” I replied, somewhat withered beneath his eyes, “I am a student at Miskatonic.”
The captain’s countenance did not change, but I noted the man I now knew as William, the doctor, shuddered at that name. It was not a reaction I was altogether unfamiliar with. “I am a folklorist,” I continued. “I have been traveling about these parts collecting the stories of its people.”
“And what drives a man to do that?” Captain Gray asked.
“Well, to preserve them,” I answered. “And to better understand from whence they came. I, of course, did not know of the coming storm, not being a man versed in reading the weather, that is. But I’m here now, and here is where I suppose I will ride it out.”
“Ah,” the Captain offered. “So you say you want to understand where these stories come from. Do you ever suppose perhaps they are true?”
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I smiled back at the Captain, and a little bit of the old skeptic took hold.
“Why, of course not. Things such as I have heard exist only in the mind of the teller.”
Then, unexpectedly, the three men who sat around me chuckled. Captain Gray only smiled. But there was no joy in it, neither in the smile or the laughs.
“Ah, my dear boy,” Captain Gray said with a solemnity that betrayed the smile he wore, “there are, indeed, more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Let me ask you this,” he continued, “the people with whom you spoke, were they personal witnesses to the substance of the stories they told?”
“Why, no,” I replied. “First-hand stories are most welcome, but people in my profession rarely receive such a treat.”
I saw the Captain glance quickly to his companions. Then, there was a flicker of recognition in his eyes as if they had communicated something to him without words.
“Well, my friend. The night is young, and we are all very thirsty. So perhaps there is time to share with you some stories of our own. And then, upon the hearing of them, you can judge for yourself their worth to your studies.”
I smiled politely. An opportunity to relieve myself of the burden of the task I faced was welcome.
“I think I would enjoy that,” I said.
“Then, I will begin,” said the man I had come to know as Jack. I turned to him, and behind his grizzled beard and beneath his thick, fur-lined hat, his eyes burned with a new intensity that had been absent from them only a few minutes before.
“It’s been now on 50 years ago,” he began, growing wistful. “And yet when I see it in my dreams, it’s as if he were upon me again.”
“It was,” he said in a deep, sonorous bass not uncommon to the western woods of Massachusetts, “as these things always are, I suppose, long ago. So long ago now.”
He looked down at his glass, and for a long moment I wondered if he had the strength to continue. A life, no doubt, flashed before his eyes. But then he spoke again, and I felt myself carried back to those days so long past.
Part II
Chapter
5
Jack:
I was, if you don’t mind me sayin’, not much older than you, I guess. Maybe even younger, by the look of you. I was a fur man by trade, as my father was before me, and as his father before him, all the way back to when my ancestors came from the old country. They were Huguenots, they were. Fled from one persecution to the next. I guess it was only fitting they should find a home in the woods and the wilds.
I had learned the trade from my father, but this was to be my first time on my own, as much as I ever would be. You may not know this, but a fur man never travels alone. We work in teams, you see. Trackers and trappers, a man who is handy with a pot and some pans and, if he is worth anything, a hammer and saw. Even a doctor if, per chance, we could find one.
I was in Monterey in those days, a wild bit of country in the Birkshires. There were to be five of us on that trip. The leader was Tom, a big man who looked like he was cut from marble. Tom was a friend of my father’s from back in their wilder days, and he had agreed to take me on that trip as his apprentice.
Then, there was Dr. Stanley. We never knew if he was a real doc or not, but he had a reputation in the hill country as a man who could be counted on and knew how to treat a fever or a sickness. And, he could fix a wagon. We hauled one behind us as we went. We’d skin the animals as we caught them and, then, line that thing with as many pelts as we could carry. Once the supplies ran out and the wagon was full, we’d make our way back to the outposts along the rivers. But that was always the worst part of the trip. Wheel would break, wagon would get stuck. Without a man who knew his way around some carpentry, we would be lost. I had some of that knowledge, but the doc was the best with a knife, whether he was cutting on a man or a pine board.
Andrew was another trapper, a skinny fellow, that one. He struck me as a bit skittish straightaway, and I marked him as a man you couldn’t trust. Joe was our scout. He was a bit of a mystery. He was a tracker by trade, though he could probably trap better than the rest of us, too. They said he was part Indian; I never learned the truth of that. He died too soon. And he was quiet. Spoke barely a word.
And then there was Travis. Travis was an experienced hand. He knew the woods, knew the secret paths, the dark places where the best fur would hide. There was something about that man, something missing from his eyes. I know that sounds strange. But that's what I felt. Like he was empty somehow. But Tom wanted him. Between Tom and Andrew, Travis, and me, we had a pretty good team goin'. There were no doubts we would make good coin on that trip. And so I guess we got a little wild, as men like us were wont to do. On the night before we were supposed to leave, the wine, the whiskey, and the rum flowed hard and fast.
Tom had a rule on the trail — no liquor, no exceptions. It bein' the last night in town, I guess we drank a little more than we should. There was a girl who worked the bar that evening, an Indian girl. Travis watched her all night long. She was shy and a tiny bit of nothin'. Dark haired and dark skinned. Young, no more than 16, I’d wager. Every time she’d walk by, Travis would grab her, pull her to him, tell her she was “a pretty little thing.”
It boils my blood to even think about it. There was a sickness in his voice then, a nasty, godless quality. Depraved, he was. Just depraved.
Anyway, she obliged him at first, as any good girl in that trade would. But then it was too much even for someone who made her money off men like Travis. She began to struggle, to try and get away. Andy told him — that’s what we called Andrew — Andy told him to leave her alone. Travis just glared at him. He scared me, then, with that look. I wanted no part of that.
I left the bar and found Tom outside, smoking his tobacco. There was the hint of coming snow that day, but it wasn’t cold.
“You ready for tomorrow?” he asked between puffs. I wasn’t really sure. I had only gone with my father before, never with anyone I didn’t know.
“Sure, I am,” I said, mustering as much confidence in my voice as I could manage.
“Good, I’m going to need you,” he said. He didn't say how or why. I simply nodded. I had learned not to question men like Tom too often, and then to ask only the questions that really needed answerin'. But I'd be lyin' if I didn't say there was something about that night that scared me. I don't know how I knew it then, but the trip already felt foul, as if it was marked from the beginning.
I stumbled through the darkness, the haze of the whiskey thick on my brain. I don't know how long passed before I found my way to my bunk, but I do know my head had barely hit the pillow when I was asleep.
I had strange dreams that night, nightmares filled with flashes of light and thunder. I was in the forest, but I was alone. I still remember, even as I was dreaming, that I was struck by my own loneliness. “Never trap alone.” That was my father’s cardinal rule. But there I was, without another soul in sight. It was a familiar forest, and I felt I knew it, but in that familiarity there was also great fear, as if something wasn't quite right. The forest was like Travis’s eyes. It was missing something, something basic and good. It was quiet, too. A stillness as unnatural as it was complete. Nothing moved there. Nothing.
And then it was night. I can’t explain it, but just as suddenly as you could strike a match, the sun vanished from the sky. Darkness and silence. Isolation, loneliness. Those were the things that overwhelmed me. But there was a voice in my head, too.
“Steady on Jack, steady on. You have a job to do. If you don’t finish it, no one will.”
And so I began to move. But then came the thunder. Then came the light. It roared and flashed throughout the wood, and it was all the more horrible because of the silence it shattered. Then a single roar over all others — the screeching of a bird, a great and terrible beast unlike any flying thing you ever saw. A great black shadow covered me so thick even the flashes of lightning couldn’t lift it.
&
nbsp; I woke, then, drenched in sweat, screaming. I sat bolt upright in my bed. Joe was sitting across from me, just a-starin’, his black Indian eyes as impenetrable as the meaning of my dream.
“What did you see?” he asked. If he had spoken a word to me before that moment, it’s not one I remember.
“Nothin’. Just a dream,” I said.
“No dream. What did you see?” he asked again, this time more forcefully. He scared me, but I wasn’t going to relive that, no matter what he did.
So I just said, “I told you, nothin’.”
I’m old enough now to know something I didn’t know then — an angry man, or a scared man, he’s liable to turn in a moment. To snap, as they say. And Joe snapped then. He leapt from his bunk clear across the room to mine and grabbed me around the throat. His mouth made sounds, but if they were words I could understand, I sure as Hell didn't then. I think he would have killed me. Well, I damn sure know he would have killed me, but then I felt him fly away from me. I looked up and through my near-on blacked out eyes I saw Tom sling Joe across the room like he was a bag of dirty laundry.
“Enough!” I remember he thundered like Zeus himself. “You two get your gear. We’ve already overstayed our welcome here.” There was anger in his face, but I knew despite my youth that it wasn’t directed at us. He stood there for a moment longer and, then, turned to go, saying, “Be at the wagon in five minutes.”
Three minutes later I emerged into the morning sun. Tom was at the wagon with Dr. Stanley loading the last bit of supplies. Travis was there, too, sitting on the buckboard smoking a rolled cigar. He was smirking, and like everything else Travis did, there was no joy there. Just a cruel, cold sneer. Joe and I walked over together, but I kept my distance. Whatever had come over him earlier, now he was as implacable as the grave. That same flat, stone-faced look I guess he always wore. I could see Tom and Travis were talking, and I could tell it wasn’t a pleasant conversation.
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