The Midnight Games

by Lee, David Neil;

  “She has tentacles.”

  “What’s that?” asked Lovecraft.

  I told them about being ambushed on the walkway by the Proprietor and his friends, and how the Interlocutor had come to my rescue.

  “Are you saying she’s not a human being?” Meghan asked.

  “Hmm. If an Interlocutor has been assigned,” said Lovecraft, “if its support group has devised a powerful enough continuum threshold to bring an Interlocutor to Earth, then things are much more advanced than I thought ...”

  “Sounds gross,” said Meghan.

  “Aside from the tentacles,” I said, “and the weird way she looks and smells ... and moves ... and talks ... she was really okay. Those people wanted to hurt me, and she stopped them. So, gross, yes, but I’m sure glad she came along.”

  “If you say so,” Meghan said. She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I’d want to have lunch with her.”

  “Her tentacles are really powerful,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind having a set myself.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” said Lovecraft. “All this really shows is that we’re in a crisis that’s intensifying.” He offered a shaky smile. “You sound as if you’re quite resourceful, but as far as a muffin goes, I’m sorry, Nathan, you just haven’t earned...”

  So I told them how I’d decided to crash at Dana’s current crib ... how I’d scoped it out in the Prince of Wales school, condemned and abandoned ... and as I described what had happened there, I found myself getting choked up. I paused while I tried to get my voice back.

  “Are you okay, Nate?” Meghan asked.

  “Sure.” I cleared my throat. “It’s just that ... we were friends.” I coughed and got some of my voice back. “Anyway, I got into the classroom, and the plywood swung shut behind me. It was pitch black, but I’d brought a flashlight. Ahead of me in the darkness I could hear ... sounds of some kind, and I smelled a stink that at first I thought was gas.”

  “No,” I heard Lovecraft whisper.

  “And there was this haze of blue smoke, and sounds coming out of the dark ... chittering sounds, like big bugs, but at the same time, it didn’t sound like an animal, like something that was really alive ... not the way we think of what a living thing is.”

  I told them how it all had faded, the sounds and the smell and the smoke, and then how I’d gone through the door of the gymnasium, and found Dana bloody and headless.

  I was so glad to have finished. I took a deep breath. My voice was harsh as I said, “So, if that doesn’t earn me a muffin –” I tried to smile. “– I don’t know what will.”

  Talk about mixed emotions. Lovecraft making a dare out of storytelling had cheered me up a bit. Telling this story was a challenge, and facing it made me feel better about my prospects. Meghan looked horrified, which I regretted – although at the same time I felt a faintly wicked sense of power.

  Lovecraft, however, was simply staring straight ahead and not saying anything. He sat that way for about half a minute. It was starting to seem rude.

  “Well, I’ll just grab myself a muffin and another hot...” I plucked the American five off the table and looked Lovecraft in the eye to make sure he knew I was kidding around.

  His face was pale as a page of the Necronomicon. His mouth fluttered open and he made a far-off, leaky wail, like the sound the old radiators in PoW made when the pressure changed. His hands gripped the edge of the wooden table, his knuckles white. Meghan leaped up and started pounding him on the back.

  “Breathe,” she said crisply. “Howard, breathe.” She looked at me. “Nate, loosen his tie.”

  Another thin wail came from Lovecraft’s mouth. “Why is he crying?” I asked as I tugged at the knot of his blue paisley tie. Finally I was able to pull out a loop.

  “He’s not crying. He’s trying to breathe. He’s having a panic attack.”

  I managed to pull off his tie and loosen the collar of his buttoned shirt. Everyone was staring at us. Lovecraft gasped and started to cough. Then he took a deep rattling breath and leaned back from the table.

  “Air,” he said. “Some fresh air ...”

  We helped him up and moved out to a table on the patio, huddling against the cold wind that came at us down King William. The grey-haired woman was gone. The man who served us from the bar came out with a glass of water, which Lovecraft took gratefully, thanking him in a thin, exhausted voice.

  “Should we call 911?” the bartender said.

  “Thanks,” Meghan said, “but he’s feeling better. He’s come a long way and he’s tired.”

  “I was worried he might have a heart problem. I’m glad the fresh air did him some good.” The bartender shivered. “Today’s the last day we’ll have the chairs out here.” He looked into the rising wind. “You can come back in if you want.”

  “Please, get yourself inside, it’s chilly.” Lovecraft handed him the empty glass. “I’m really feeling much better.”

  He didn’t look much better. He looked haunted and aghast, and when we were alone again he said, “I had no idea that the situation in Hamilton was so far along. It might even be the case that the next of these mass rituals – the midnight games, you call them – will be the last.”

  “You mean they’ll finally give up?”

  “A few minutes ago, that’s what I thought. Because most of the cults never develop the organization, the cohesion, the weight of massed intelligences that they need to make a successful continuum threshold. But if they’ve been able to do that here ...” He shook his head. “It’s very possible that next time they’ll succeed. And life on earth, as we know it, will change beyond all comprehension.”

  “How do you know this?” asked Meghan.

  “Because from what Nate tells me, they’ve gained a power that is granted only to very few – only to those who have spent many years in the services of the Great Old Ones; only those who have learned much about their arcane sciences – not only to follow their blasphemous protocols, but to master their essence. Nate, to the best of your knowledge, did your friend Dana receive anything out of the ordinary in the days before his death – did he mention being given anything ...”

  “Now that you mention it ...” I told them about the paper passed to Dana by the Proprietor, that translucent slip with its strange characters or symbols, and the message “allowed forty-two hours.”

  “Exactly,” Lovecraft sighed. “My worst suspicions are confirmed. From what you have told me, Nate, they are able –” He had to catch his breath. “– they are able to summon the Hounds.”

  CHAPTER 15

  SNATCHED

  Meghan looked at her phone and said, “I don’t have much time.”

  We all stood up, Lovecraft a bit unsteadily. I grabbed the wrapped book I’d brought in a FreshCo shopping bag and eyed him carefully, not wanting to bring on another panic attack. “So what about my muff ...?” I started to ask, but they were already out on the sidewalk. I shut up and followed them.

  Meghan was the only one of us who was one hundred per cent sure where to go next. Lovecraft, still dazed, looked at his wristwatch and spoke vaguely about “making some calls.” We milled about for a bit, then followed Meghan toward Jackson Square. I scanned the street, still empty on this Sunday morning. Behind us, a police car whizzed down Hughson. Up ahead, a white delivery vehicle idled at the corner of James, its hazard lights blinking.

  “I’ve got to get back to my hotel room,” Lovecraft was saying.

  “What can I do?” I asked.

  “Young man, you’ve done quite enough,” he said.

  “I don’t think so. I think there’s more.” The Interlocutor had told me this, though she hadn’t been specific. But she had told the creeps from the Church that I was under her protection. She had put her hand on me. I couldn’t step back. Whatever happened now, I had to see it through to the end.

  “We’ll take over now. The Lovecraft Underground.”

  “LUG,” Meghan said. “As in, ya big lug?”

&nb
sp; A gust of cold wind blew into our faces.

  “Can we hurry into the square, please?” She started to pull ahead of us.

  As we passed the van, Clare stepped out of the entrance to the Lister Block and stood in our way. The side door of the van slid open and the Proprietor leaned out, took Meghan by the shoulders and pulled her backward. I grabbed his arm and he elbowed me in the face; it hurt so much that I let go, then suddenly someone else was shoving me into the van. Meghan drew in her breath to let out a tremendous scream, but the Proprietor punched her hard in the stomach.

  “Shut up,” he hissed. “You’ll all get hurt and it’ll be nobody’s fault but your own.” Lovecraft hurtled past me into the van, thrown by Jimmy with what seemed to be great relish.

  Jimmy slammed the side door and got into the driver’s seat. The van turned south onto James, with the three of us as stunned prisoners.

  “When are you guys going to give it up?” I asked.

  Meghan moaned and took a breath.

  Lovecraft struggled to sit upright and look angrily at our kidnappers. “This is not what I had heard about Canadian hospitality.”

  “If the Underground is going to send help,” I told him, “now would be a good time.”

  We braced ourselves as the van lurched to the left. I’d been pushed onto the engine cover behind Jimmy; where I sat I could feel the engine rev and subside, rev and subside as Jimmy negotiated the lights along Main Street. Meghan was beside me on the floor, with Clare between us, and Lovecraft was guarded, as he sat against the side door, by the Proprietor himself.

  “Who the hell is this guy?” the Proprietor indicated Lovecraft. He pulled a roll of duct tape from his jacket pocket. “Let’s bind ’em up.” He looked at me, then at Lovecraft.

  “If it’s the book you want, take it,” I said, reaching inside my coat and holding out the plastic shopping bag. The Proprietor grabbed it from me and pulled the book out of the bag. He scanned the name I’d written on the newsprint wrapper.

  “You can’t even spell. It’s NecroNOMicon!”

  “Try the other side. You can let us go now. You’ve got what you want.”

  “Perhaps,” the Proprietor said. “Meanwhile, here’s your bag back.” He folded the brown plastic bag into a little square. “Reuse and recycle, right?” He didn’t seem like a recycling type of guy to me, but without thinking I took the square of plastic from him and I put it in my pocket.

  “Kid, you can go,” he said, “but I think we’ll hang onto your friends here.”

  “That’s not the deal.”

  “I agree,” said Meghan, still panting with the pain of the Proprietor’s punch. “I’ve had enough of you people. I’m going home.” She pushed herself off the floor and Clare reached for her. I grabbed at Clare to pull her away, then my head exploded and I saw stars. The Proprietor had backhanded me. I struck out at him, landing a glancing blow on the side of his chin, but he shook it off and punched me expertly in the head, and then in the stomach. I fell back onto the motor cover. Meghan had also been forced back onto the floor.

  I coughed and felt tears leaking from my eyes. My head and my stomach ached.

  “Lesson to you, young man,” the Proprietor said. “You can struggle all you want when you reach your final destination. You don’t want to spoil the fun by getting beaten to death in the van ...”

  “You’re disgusting,” Meghan hissed.

  The Proprietor ignored her. “... because we’ve got a new addition to the Church. A beautiful creature – it comes from deep underground. We want to keep it happy. And to stay happy, it has to feed.”

  “You go everywhere with your personal thugs – I’m disgusted that one of them’s a woman – so you can insult and bully whoever you want whenever you want. Especially kids and women.” Meghan’s voice trembled and she fidgeted nervously, uncoiling her scarf from around her neck.

  “Meghan ...” I blinked tears from my eyes.

  “I’ve known losers like you all my life. The first thing you think of in the morning, and the last thing at night, is ways to hurt and degrade women.”

  The Proprietor sighed loudly. I was worried that if Meghan didn’t shut up, she was just going to make them madder.

  “Nate,” Meghan said. “Howard. Why don’t you grab the nearest door, and open it?”

  “What?” we both said. I glanced at the door, and, as the Proprietor smirked, Meghan removed her scarf, leaned forward and hooked it over Jimmy’s head. In two quick moves she knotted it once, binding Jimmy’s neck back onto the headrest. The van careened to one side. Jimmy braked, but, restrained as he was, he couldn’t steer properly as Meghan knotted the scarf again, before Clare and the Proprietor yanked her away. Something hammered against the side of the van. Behind us a horn honked long and loud. I heard the screeching of brakes. The Proprietor tried to put Meghan in a headlock as the van slowed, but then someone else ploughed into us, and he lost his hold. Meghan stood up and kicked Clare off of her.

  Lovecraft meanwhile, rising to the occasion, had started to slide open the side door. The Proprietor swore, then we crashed into something else and he fell backward. The van stopped, and as cars and trucks around us honked, the three of us burst out onto Main Street. Lovecraft slid the door shut behind us, and we threaded our way through two lanes of fuming traffic. Running down a narrow street, where curious eyes stared at us from every other porch, we got to the next corner and stopped to catch our breath.

  “Where are we?” Meghan asked. She was keying a number into her cellphone.

  “Fairholt Road,” I gasped. “Just east of Sherman. Are you guys okay?”

  “As well as can be expected...” said Lovecraft. He shook his head. “I wonder what that was all about.”

  “Meghan just about got us all killed,” I said. Meghan was on her phone, giving the nearest house number to a taxi service. She looked at me.

  “We were in heavy traffic. We weren’t going that fast. Those guys were scaring me.”

  “Me too,” said Lovecraft. “I just wonder what in the world ...”

  “They are such jerks,” said Meghan. “That was my favourite scarf.”

  CHAPTER 16

  INVASIVE SPECIES

  We waited for Meghan’s cab, glancing nervously back toward Main Street in case the proprietor and his creeps from the van came after us. But we only heard car horns and shouting: the chaos of the accident was no doubt sucking up every bit of their attention. After a few minutes the waiting seemed endless. Meghan suggested we walk up to the corner of Main and flag the cab when it arrived.

  “No way,” I said. “Go back to Main Street? I’m not getting an inch closer to that van. Let’s head up to King.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “We thoroughly screwed them. With luck, they will all get arrested.” A cab rounded the corner and came toward us.

  When we got in, Meghan asked the driver to go to the library, York Boulevard entrance.

  I protested. “We should go to my place!”

  “I’ve got to go to work.” She looked at her watch. “We’re short-staffed on Sundays; I can’t not show up.”

  “Can’t you just phone in and tell them you’ve just strangled somebody with your scarf and caused a major traffic accident, so now you’re on the run from a monster-worshipping religious cult?” I looked up and caught the cab driver watching us in his rear-view mirror. He looked away as soon as we made eye contact.

  “I hate making excuses,” Meghan said.

  We negotiated that, since we were so close to my house, I would get dropped off, and she and Lovecraft would head back downtown.

  “You certainly caused a mess,” said Lovecraft. “We could have been hurt or killed.”

  “You’re welcome,” Meghan said. “Let’s vote on what would have happened to us if we’d stayed with the Proprietor and his friends.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” sighed Lovecraft. “From Nate’s description of the ceremony the other night, and from what the Proprietor said, the Ch
urch has corralled an exanimator or, to use the name from its home world, a dritch.”

  “Where would something like that come from?” I asked.

  “It’s another sign that the plans of the Resurrection Church are getting dangerously close to fruition. They’ve not been able to sustain a continuum threshold large enough to admit Yog-Sothoth, but their repeated efforts have enabled lesser creatures to slip through. The dritch is especially attracted to the field of a threshold, so the dritch is the most often-reported creature of any threshold-related invasive species.”

  “I find all of this slightly hard to believe,” Meghan said.

  “I don’t,” I replied, thinking not only of my own experiences, but of Dana’s fears about the industrial north end, and what he had heard and seen from the abandoned freighter. “By any chance, are dritches amphibious?”

  “Very much so,” said Lovecraft. “And nocturnal, and they can burrow considerable distances underground. In favourable terrestrial environments, the dritch can achieve great size.”

  The cab driver muttered, “You people are crazy.”

  “Dritch. I’ll believe it when I see it,” Meghan said.

  “When that day comes, don’t get too close,” Lovecraft cautioned. “We call them exanimators because they are so deadly, that on their home planet they are bred as instruments of war. They secrete a poison, which they inject to soften the flesh of their prey, the better to tear off chunks with their serrated mandibles.”

  Meghan said, “Maybe the Church won’t be so eager to come after us now that they have the copy of the Necronomicon.”

  “Actually, they don’t,” I announced. “I didn’t put the Necronomicon inside that package I handed over. The book inside that package was perfectly suited for followers of the Great Old Ones: Quilting for Seniors.”

  THEY DROPPED me off and headed downtown, Meghan to work and Lovecraft to his hotel. Halfway up our front steps, and there are only six of them, I stopped to rest. It had been one hell of a weekend: was it going to keep up this way, or was I going to catch a break, have a minute to think about all this and maybe get a chance to chill out?