Don't Go Alone

by Christopher Golden

  The Burleson was a working man’s ship. It was old and sturdy, sturdy enough to survive a storm that would have completely scuttled a smaller vessel. The Ashleigh Michaels was a yacht that had no sane reason for being in the Arctic waters.

  The captain was not a sailor. He was a tall, lean, and scholarly man with a receding hairline and the hands of an intellectual. He introduced himself as David Ivers, but Jacoby was less interested in his name than in the frantic glint in his dark eyes, a shimmer of desperation so evident that even his thick glasses could not hide it.

  Most of the crew came onto the deck to see the newcomers. Aside from the captain, there was a small crew on the yacht. They remained on the other boat, not a man among them showing the least interest in having anything to do with the Burleson.

  Harrington and Captain Wilson introduced themselves to Ivers, the latter shaking the man’s hand with almost tearful gratitude. Ivers studied him and then the rest of the crew.

  “Gentlemen, I’ve read your messages,” Ivers said. “I need only see what you’ve found.”

  Harrington frowned. “What are you talking about? We called for help—“

  “And here I am,” Ivers replied.

  “To help us or to poach our discoveries?” Jacoby snapped, surprising himself with the ferocity of his accusation.

  He’d been contemplating the rapid deterioration of his employer. Harrington had been a strong man, but the voyage—the long days since their discovery in particular—had taken a terrible toll on him. He muttered almost constantly beneath his breath and had developed a nervous tick under his left eye, which grew markedly worse at the announcement of Ivers’ demand. In that moment, though, Jacoby understood that he himself was in no better condition than Harrington. He felt that old nausea roiling in his gut, as familiar now as the blur of his failing vision. Spectacles could correct the latter, but the former had come to stay.

  “It’s a simple request,” Ivers said. “On the radio, you’d said you’d brought something up from the wreck of the Eleanor Lockley. I merely want to see it. Feed my curiosity, sir. It’s a small price to pay for whatever help we may offer.”

  Muttering, clearly reluctant, Harrington nevertheless complied. He led the way into the ship’s hold with Jacoby, Trumbull, and several others in tow, and showed the not-ivory chest to the man who had come to their aid.

  Harrington was reaching to open his prize when Ivers spoke to him.

  “Step back from the chest, please, sir. It can only cause you more harm.”

  “What do you mean?” Harrington’s angry voice held a tremor that had not been there even a day earlier.

  “It might already be too late, but you have to abandon this ship and come aboard mine, and do it quickly. All of you. And you’ve got to leave anything you pulled up from that wreck behind.”

  “What are you talking about, man?” Jacoby demanded. “We can’t just leave. The ship can be repaired. As for the chest—”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Ivers said. “I can see it in you. The sheen of your skin, the widening of your eyes. You can feel the way those stone figures call out and your fragile flesh cannot endure it much longer. Even if you could survive more of that exposure, it wouldn’t matter. They’ll have heard the call. They’ll be coming!”

  “Who?” Harrington demanded. “Who are they?”

  But he did not ask that question like a man who thought Ivers might be raving. He asked like a man who already knew something was coming. As Jacoby did. As Jacoby imagined they all did.

  Ivers glanced in revulsion at the figures inside the carved chest. “The Mi-Go are coming for what you’ve found and they’re likely already on their way.”

  Mi-Go. The word was like a slap across Jacoby’s face and he staggered back at its utterance. He had dreamed them, of course, and had been dreaming of them since the trunk holding the chest and the rare prizes inside had been brought on board the Burleson. But to hear another speaking of them was deeply unsettling.

  “Which of you is Professor Jacoby?” Ivers glanced around, nodding in greeting when Jacoby stepped forward. “I’m here because of you, professor. You sent a query regarding the history of the Eleanor Lockley to my office at Miskatonic University. Somehow it went astray, misplaced. By the time it reached my hands and I attempted to contact you by telephone, you had already departed on this voyage. I began to retrace your steps, to recreate your research, and when I realized that you might actually find the damned ship, I knew my only choice was to pursue you, and hope that I could reach you before you managed to drag anything to the surface that rightly belongs on the ocean floor. When I received the distress call from Mr. Harrington, I knew I was too late.”

  Jacoby stared at him, that old sickness roiling in his gut. “Too late? What are you saying?”

  Harrington sneered. “He’s saying he hoped to beat us to the Eleanor Lockley, to claim her treasures for himself!”

  Ivers—Professor Ivers, Jacoby now remembered—shook his head, throwing up his hands. “I’m too late to stop you doing the foolish thing you’ve done, but it may not be too late to save your lives. Scuttle this ship, gentlemen. Send her to the bottom with all that you’ve dredged up. Come across to my own boat and I’ll see you home as safely as fate will allow.”

  “What kind of fools do you take us for?” Harrington demanded. “Scuttle the ship? Do you have any idea what that would cost me?”

  “No matter how high the cost might be, it’s still cheaper than paying the price of staying behind,” Ivers replied. “You’re in great danger, Harrington. Every minute onboard this ship risks your health, your sanity and your very lives.”

  Sensing the rising hostility in both men, Jacoby intervened, suggesting they all move to the mess hall, the only place on the boat where everyone could settle together with relative ease, though settle was hardly the right word. The men gathered, and did their best to remain calm, though after nearly two weeks of feeling ill and dealing with the crisis onboard, few of them seemed capable of anything but agitation.

  “All right,” Harrington said, reluctantly. He glanced at Wilson. “Though the captain argued against it, Professor Jacoby has prevailed upon me to let you say your piece. Were I feeling any better, I’d have ignored him, but given the sweat on my brow and the bile I keep fighting down—and the fact that most of these boys don’t look as if they feel much better—I’ll listen. But be quick about it. Whatever we’re going to do, I’d have it done as soon as possible.”

  Ivers gazed about the mess hall and then focused again on Harrington and Jacoby. He spoke clearly and calmly, but his words sounded like madness.

  “Gentlemen, you have found something that should not exist. You have found the remains of a legend, artifacts that will doubtless prove deadly if you continue to remain in their presence.”

  A muttering went about the crew, but Ivers forged ahead.

  “In eighteen hundred and seventy-three the Eleanor Lockley set out from Norway with a cargo that contained the fruit of an archaeological excavation involving two professors from Miskatonic University, where I am currently employed. Walter Emerson, the man in charge of the expedition, wrote that he believed they had uncovered real evidence of intelligent life on other planets.

  “The rumors about the place had been growing for decades. Old journals, tales passed down from the Vikings, whispers of visions experienced by those who wandered the mountains as if drawn there by forces they could not understand. There were variations, but all spoke of strange, insectoid creatures --called the Mi-Go by locals and Yuggothians by others. According to the markings found on the stones discovered during that archaeological dig, the creatures were believed to fly between worlds, without the use of ships, soaring the cosmos without fear of the eternal cold and without the need to breathe anything we would think of as air.”

  “Pure fantasy,” the first mate murmured, and others clearly agreed.

  Ivers went on, undaunted. “The lore transcribed from the figures discovered in No
rway—the figures I can only imagine rest in your ship’s hold at this very moment—described the Mi-Go as capable of feats of science unimaginable in the era when those stones were carved. Hell, they’re unimaginable now. They were said to be able to transfer the full intellect of a man long dead from one place to another. Even across the stars.”

  “Rubbish!” Harrington pounded his fist into the table where he sat, but winced afterward, his muscles and flesh made tender by the current situation.

  “Let me finish, please. The translation of the stones was made easier, according to the men from Miskatonic, by the assistance of a man whose mind was held inside a metallic cylinder. One I can only assume you found alongside those carved figures, inside that chest.”

  Professor Jacoby held his breath. How could Ivers know about the cylinder…unless he was telling the truth? He once again had to fight for calm in the room but eventually the crew settled enough for Ivers to continue his tale.

  “The men spoke with that mind through the use of technologies beyond their reckoning. According to that disembodied soul, the site they’d found was a waystation of sorts. The Mi-Go used the locale to convene in preparation for their journeys between worlds.

  “There were other elements to the tale, of course. Several of the laborers the dig employed grew ill and wasted away. The notes grew less rational over time, but there was talk of spectral shapes that appeared at night, coming closer to the camp with each passing day. Some of the workers quit, but the men from Miskatonic doubled their pay and the others stayed, despite their growing terror. What they never considered was that the Mi-Go might return.

  “There are no notes from what happened then, only a claim from one of the locals that the Mi-Go had come and attacked the archaeologists at their camp. The good news was that the creatures were not prepared for resistance. At least one of those celestial nightmares was shot and killed, and Dr. Emerson was able to escape. He returned in the morning, gathered what he could of his findings, and departed on the earliest ship that would give him passage—the Eleanor Lockley. Emerson sent one final message at the time of his departure, a single sheet of paper noting that he was setting sail with the artifacts recovered from the dig…including the corpse of one of the Mi-Go, which he called ‘a celestial devil.’ You can imagine the excitement at the university.”

  And Jacoby could imagine it. God help him, he could.

  “As all of you know, the ship was lost at sea. Until now. I believe the Mi-Go themselves were responsible for the sinking of that ship, if only to keep the treasures you’ve discovered a secret from the world. In your hold is the detailed history of the Mi-Go’s existence on our world. And if they destroyed one ship to bury those secrets, they will surely destroy another.”

  Ivers stood up, looking around at the crew of the Burleson. “Please gentlemen, for your own sake, abandon this ship and come with me before it is too late.”

  That was when the arguments began.

  Tell a man that he is sick and should seek help and if he feels ill he will likely agree. Tell that same man that in order to save himself he must abandon his dreams of fame and fortune, and he will stand firm in his need to defend those dreams.

  Ivers was adamant. They needed to abandon the ship.

  The very thought made Jacoby feel sicker than ever.

  “You’re asking us to give up a fortune.” Harrington summed up the thoughts of a lot of the men.

  “I’m asking you to save yourselves. I can take you with me. I cannot take those cursed items.”

  “You’re a man of science, Ivers. You can’t possibly believe in curses.”

  “I’m a man of science, indeed, Mr. Harrington. That means I keep an open mind. We are well aware that there are elements in this world which can kill us but are invisible to the naked eye. Radiation from a nuclear blast can kill well after the explosion itself.”

  He gestured with his soft, scholarly hands. “Look at yourselves. Your hair is thinning, your skin is sallow, and you have little or no appetite. That’s because of the very ‘treasures’ you brought up from the depths. Leave them, and you should recover. Stay with them and you’ll continue to deteriorate until your only hope is that you die before the Mi-Go come for you. My crew has remained on the yacht because they refuse to be tainted by the presence of those stone figures, or whatever else was with them. I myself am uncomfortable with the idea of being here as long as I have.”

  Captain Wilson took a step forward. “What if we threw them overboard? Surely there’s no need to scuttle the ship?”

  “I think it’s too late for that. The human body can mend, but I think the ship itself has been tainted as well.” Ivers paused. “This boat is sick.”

  Ivers looked at his watch.

  “Two hours, gentlemen. I need your decision then. I’m going back to the Ashleigh Michaels. Be on the deck in two hours if you wish to leave with us.” The man looked around and then squinted through the porthole at the sky outside. “The sun will set in no more than four hours and I intend to be well away from here before that happens.”

  

  “You’re not seriously considering staying here?” Harrington asked.

  Jacoby flinched at the question. The whites of Harrington’s eyes had taken on a faint yellowish tint. He’d lost weight and, yes, his hair seemed thinner. It was a revelation. Until Ivers had mention of it, Jacoby had barely noticed the change in the crew, or perhaps he had simply chosen not to see.

  “I have to stay here, Samuel,” Jacoby said. “I have to know. I have to see if there really are creatures from another world like the ones I’ve seen in my dreams.”

  Harrington flinched at that. “Our dreams. I’ve seen them too. They’re hideous.”

  Jacoby felt a terrible yearning. “I think they’re magnificent.”

  Harrington stared at the table between them. “It’s almost time. Is there anything I can do to convince you to leave? If Ivers is right—“

  “I’ll die, yes.” Jacoby took a deep breath. “But if he’s wrong we’re losing what is perhaps the most important discovery in human history.” He knew exactly what to say to bring home his point. “And this way, if nothing happens, you can send someone back to tow the ship in.”

  Harrington pondered for a moment, drew a deep breath, and then departed. Jacoby never saw him again.

  

  For two nights, there was nothing. With the rest of the crew gone, Jacoby spent his time studying the stone figures and looking over his notes. He lamented the loss of all the translations that the archaeologists from Miskatonic had documented and the lack of whatever knowledge or equipment must be required to open or communicate with whatever consciousness might reside within the cylinder.

  One by one he lugged them up to the deck, wanting to breathe in the open. Wanting the signal to be clear.

  When the Northern Lights shone, he found a new and wondrous gift. The cylinder was of a metal he could not identify and when he touched it, his senses seemed sharper than before. Contact with that odd metal made his fingers tingle, but it also altered his perceptions. Colors were different. He could see an energy that moved through the ship, stirred by breezes he could not feel, but painting every surface in the boat itself. This, he suspected, was the “taint” of which Ivers had spoken. He could even see it within his own flesh, moving, seeping deeper and deeper into his very essence.

  The chest, the stones, even the cylinder itself all looked different when the lights above and the metal he touched worked their influences together. The stone figures were so much larger than they first appeared. He studied them the longest, caressing their surfaces, tracing the carved lines first while holding the cylinder in his free hand and then without it. When seen with his special sight they were several times larger and they vibrated, humming and moving, much of their substance hidden from the world by a differing frequency. Colors that could not be seen by the naked eye or felt by the unsuspecting flesh were there to explore and they were dazzling in their compl
exities.

  When his hands left the cylinder, the world was once more a bleak and dismal place. Whatever the metal of the cylinder, he found its influence dazzling. Looking at the stars while touching it let him see the same magnificent spectrum of forms he knew in his dreams, though they were made faint and weakened by distance. The presence of the cylinder warmed him, so that the Arctic wind could not harm him. He felt the cold, but his body felt heated from within.

  When he slept, which was quite often, he dreamed of the creatures he’d seen before, their iridescent shells gleaming and their magnificent wings unfurling, spanning impossible space.

  In one of his dreams a voice whispered softly, “Not all can fly between the stars. Those who are here seek out other ways to bring their brethren to them. There are places where tunnels have been carved through the fabric of the universe itself.”

  On that occasion, he awoke to find that he had rested his head against the cylinder in his fitful sleep.

  At the end of the third day, as the sun was setting, the storms came in and shook the Burleson the way a dog shakes a favored toy. Jacoby lay across the cylinder and the stones to make certain they would not be swept overboard. He held onto the base of a funnel and prayed he would not get sick again. What little he’d consumed, mostly broth and canned fruit, had stayed inside him for a change and he didn’t know that he would survive another bout of nausea.

  And he had to survive. He had to be here when they arrived.

  As a young man, he had been dedicated to his faith in Christ, and in the Christian god. The war had ended that for him, but now, oddly, he began to have a new hope, a new belief. Was it possible that men had misinterpreted what they had seen in the past? Was it possible that the angels he had heard so much about as a child might be something different? The creatures in his dreams did not look like the angels his parents and pastor had spoken of, but they came from the heavens and took a few fortunate souls with them from time to time.