A choke of outrage had initially come from the disembodied voice, but Stephen had since fallen silent, as if at a loss for words. That wouldn’t last.
Getting the proper leverage to flip the trunk back turned out to be more difficult. The trunk needed to be rocked back and forth several times before rolling back onto its bottom.
Stephen laughed meanly. You are too old for this.
“I’m fine,” I snapped.
A sensitive topic. I look forward to your heart attack.
I stayed silent. Stephen couldn’t affect the physical world but words had a power of their own.
My clothes looked as if I’d been in the operating room, catching Stephen’s dying blood between us. I washed up in the water closet, then changed into some evening clothes from the jumble on the bed. The fabric was of excellent quality, much better than what I’d been wearing.
Is there nothing of mine you will not violate?
“Why should this matter to a dead man?”
Well, it does.
A knock sounded on the door and I jerked in surprise.
Come in, Stephen yelled. Quick. Help!
“No one can hear you,” I said in a low voice, then louder. “Coming.”
Gathering my ruined clothes, I threw them into the chest, covering Stephen’s upturned face, then closed and latched the lid. On the way to the door, I inspected the cabin. All seemed in order.
Outside was a young man in ship’s uniform, smiling as the door opened.
“Good evening, sir,” the man said. “I will be your steward for the trip. My name is Thompkins.”
This man murdered me, Stephen screamed. Get the captain.
I greeted the steward, forcing a smile onto my face though Stephen’s shrillness hammered my brain.
“I knocked earlier,” Thompkins said, “but there was no answer.”
“Ah, yes. I took a nap. It has been a long journey.”
Damn it! This man is a lunatic.
“You need to see my ticket?” I asked.
“Oh, no sir. We’ll ask for those after leaving Ireland tomorrow.”
“Of course,” I nodded, trying to appear the experienced traveller. The last time I’d been on a ship was as a doctor in the army, travelling to India and back.
The thought of India reminded me of Singh. Damn, but I missed the man. So many years I’d relied on him.
“I wanted to introduce myself,” the steward continued, “and to see if you needed anything.”
“I suppose I’ve missed dinner?”
“Yes sir, I’m afraid so, though the a la carte restaurant will still be serving. Or, I could bring food to you.”
“Perhaps just some tea. I want to stroll around first though. Say in an hour?”
“Yes sir. I’ll leave it on your table if you aren’t back yet.”
“Thank you.”
The steward left, retreating down the corridor.
He couldn’t hear me.
“No, I told you as much. Only I can hear you.” I stepped into the corridor. “You will find you are confined to this room as well.”
A lie but, with luck, one Stephen wouldn’t test. I needed time to think and couldn’t have the dead man following me around the ship, moaning about his fate.
Damn you.
“I’ve been damned a long time.”
And now you’ve damned me too.
“You’re not damned, you’re dead.”
Stephen fell silent and I reached for the door’s handle.
Please don’t leave, he said.
I stopped. Stephen’s personality had an annoying inconsistency. Depressive. Hateful. Now pleading? Was it an inability to cope with being dead?
There is a voice … It whispered to me all day, telling me unspeakable things.
“A voice? That is the book you’re hearing.”
I knew the power of that whispering. I’d heard it, resisted it, for years, but with a tie to the physical world which this spirit did not have.
Yessss, Stephen sighed.
I felt unsure if he was responding to me or not.
“Stephen, where is it?”
Silence.
I waited, hoping for a response, until it grew obvious none was coming. Unfortunate.
“You are correct, I am not your friend,” I said to the empty cabin. “Let me give you some advice as if I am, though. Move on to the afterlife.”
With that I left, closing the door on the morose spirit.
First class occupied an incredible amount of the ship and, moving at my speed, it took some time to travel around it. Even after my tour I’d seen no more than half of the deck, though I did discover the name of the ship which meant little to me.
While moving about I’d become more certain of the book’s location being somewhere below my current deck, on one of the lower-class levels, but could not get an idea of how far away or whether it was closer to the front or back of the ship. I would need to get closer, but that was a different problem.
Passage to the lower decks was marked by waist-high locked gates, each of them attended by stewards, ensuring no one made the social faux pas of mixing with the wrong class.
I continued my investigation, hoping for another way below to present itself.
Around me a vague atmosphere of gloom and despair had descended on the ship like a fine mist. At this point, few would be aware of it, but that wouldn’t last. Below, it would be worse. In all likelihood the book would be in the lowest levels. It called to the uneducated and backward, the psychotic and disturbed, the easily swayed.
And which was I?
It had called to the Thuggees in 1878. The cult was a throwback to a more brutal time of Indian history, a final holdout against the purges. The cultists hadn’t been able to read the book, but from the illustrations inside, they concluded the book would bring about the Kali Yuga, a time when their brutal goddess would rule the world. What they presumed to be the many arms of Kali were the tentacles of a much more ancient, more terrible god.
At that time I was a doctor in the army, knowing little of cults and nothing of ancient, sleeping gods. My regiment assaulted the cult’s cave hideout, intent on wiping them out. The Thuggees threw themselves at us in a fanatical wave before being broken. These sacrifices played their part though, giving time for several of their number to escape out the back, leaving behind the too old and young.
One of the initiates left behind was a boy of ten taken from the streets of Bombay, already on his way to learning the art of assassination. I took on the job of rehabilitating him.
As I educated Singh, he educated me, telling me about the cult and what had happened within that cave, telling me of the profane book, an object of pure evil that only the highest in the cult were ever allowed to touch.
It was true. Inside those caves there had been a tangible malevolence that was more than simply the evil of men. The book was a danger, but the remaining cultists had fled with it and the army declared the Thuggees broken for all time.
The book was forgotten until our return to London.
Shaking off the memories of those more carefree times I headed for the a la carte restaurant the steward had recommended. The smell of cooked beef and melted butter set my stomach rumbling.
When was the last time I’d eaten?
I ordered the first item on the menu, something which would come quickly, then watched the people around me. The passengers acted as one would expect, chatting with friends and family, enjoying the novelty of being aboard such an incredible machine. Occasionally there were furtive glances on one of their faces, eyes darting as if expecting some unseen danger. They would then return to what they were doing, unaware of their brief unease.
These would be the more sensitive people. Artists and romantics.
The food arrived,
a hot beef sandwich, and my focus changed for the next fifteen minutes. It had been some time since I had enjoyed a meal so fully … enjoyed anything for that matter.
Sipping an after-dinner port, my thoughts returned to the book and thieves. Speed and mobility was their advantage but aboard a ship, even one this vast, that advantage became less relevant.
Only if I was smart about it though.
They couldn’t know I was aboard, but any search of the lower decks now would draw attention. All they would need to do, if they became suspicious, was keep ahead of me and disembark tomorrow in Queenstown. Without Singh I couldn’t give chase.
I wandered the deck, thinking, planning.
Tomorrow, after the last port of call, I would find a way past the steward and into the lower decks. There would be some way, and if not, I would create one. For now I would wait, and I was skilled at that, having done little else for the past twenty-four years, guarding the book while waiting for death to come.
Standing at the rail, watching miles of water pass without truly seeing it, I found myself starting to doze and was surprised to see the time close to midnight. The decks around me had cleared off in April’s chilly night air.
How long had I been standing here?
Sighing, I headed toward my cabin. “Better to sleep in bed.”
With luck Stephen would be gone.
Five steps toward the cabin, a wave of overwhelming fear and horror slammed into me like a train. It gripped my heart and squeezed. Staggering against the rail I stopped myself from falling to the deck.
I knew this sensation.
“No! Oh, God damn it, no.”
One of the thieves was reading from the book.
Then it was gone, as quickly as it had come. The reader had been interrupted after only a word or two.
I waited for more but none came.
Behind me the door closed with a soft click. Inside the cabin, the chest had been returned to its place at the foot of the bed, and a silver serving tray with teapot and cup had been delivered. I’d forgotten about that. Not much hope of it still being hot.
Ooooohhhhhhh, the mournful groan came, filling the cabin.
Damn. I should have known better than to hope Stephen would have moved on. Mary-Jane Kelly had haunted me a full year before going wherever the dead go.
What have you done to me? Stephen said, his voice pure misery.
We both knew the answer to that question, but I wasn’t sure he was even talking to me. No, something had changed in Stephen in the past few hours.
The moaning increased, coming from every corner. A disembodied wailing.
The darkness. The evil. IT PULLS ME.
Of course! The thieves had read from the book, awoken its power. Stephen, being all spirit, took the brunt of that influence, greater than the most sensitive artist would experience. Earlier it had been whispering to him, but now it was screaming.
Oh, God! It’s driving me mad. I am damned!
Something hit me across the back, staggering me forward. The pillows from the bed were on the floor behind me.
It’s pulling me apart!
The teapot lifted from the table and hurtled across the cabin, crashing against the entry door. Next, the clock soared past, missing me by a foot and colliding with one wood-panelled wall. I dropped to the floor, my leg screaming at the sudden rough treatment as the cabin came alive with every object not secured. The two chairs from the table. The silver serving tray. Cream and sugar containers. The soap flew from the water closet, shattering against the table and showering me with soap splinters. I too felt myself being pulled upward and crawled under the bolted down table, grabbing it as an anchor.
The damned book had awakened an ability in Stephen, turning him from ghost to poltergeist.
Chairs, clock, teapot, soap splinters, and more, all flew in a swirling maelstrom around the cabin, accumulating objects. Across the room the trunk flipped onto one side and stayed there.
Stephen’s screaming increased to the point where I needed to choose between holding onto the table or covering my tortured ears. If anyone could have heard those wails they would have been breaking down the cabin door.
The long scream became a word.
Cthuuuuuuuuuulhuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
“Oh God!”
I opted for covering my ears and was immediately pulled out from under the table.
“No!”
The scream ended, cut off mid-syllable, and I returned to the ground with a bounce, fighting to catch my breath.
“St … Stephen?”
No response.
Another full minute on the floor, recovering, watching the objects around me.
“Stephen?” I repeated.
Still nothing.
With the help of the table’s edge I was able to get upright again.
The room was still.
Stephen was gone.
Absently, I moved around, cleaning the damage while thinking about what had happened.
Cthulhu.
That word chilled my soul to the core, more thoroughly than a winter’s night would freeze my body. I knew the name, remembered it from the words I had read.
I shuddered.
Stephen had connected with the force of madness and power that was the book, and his soul had been destroyed because of it.
“No,” I whispered, making my way to the sitting chair.
I collapsed into it, my thoughts resting on grim subjects. Killing innocents was a horrible but necessary task at times, and as I’d told Stephen, I would kill a hundred like him if need be.
Being responsible for the destruction of an immortal soul was too cruel a weight to bear.
I closed my eyes, slipping into a meditative state and calming my mind, focussing past the constant whispering.
In time, sleep did come again.
Dreams of sleeping gods lying in their sunken kingdoms.
Deeper and deeper I descended into the stygian blackness, past pale loathsome things swimming. Things which had never been seen on the surface.
A pyramid of dense obsidian, ancient when the Valley of the Kings was young , came into view, each brick etched with a language as dead as the god it held.
No. Not dead. Sleeping.
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
Through an opening massive enough for a ship to sail, along ink-black corridors where I could see nonetheless, until I came to face the pyramid’s sole inhabitant.
Eyes opened, glaring at me, shrivelling my soul like a raisin.
“COME!”
APRIL 11
Standing at the rail of the ship, I watched those disembarking, wondering how many had planned such a short voyage and how many had horrendous nightmares they’d taken as premonitions. The artists among them would have for certain.
Nightmares. If theirs had been half of mine, they were wise to leave. The morphine in my bag would have provided a dreamless rest, but I’d allowed myself to sleep without it. I knew better. Singh had been able to push the book’s influence from his mind through meditation, but the best I could manage that way was to subdue the voices.
I stifled a yawn.
Tenders shuttled people back and forth, the docks at Queenstown being unable to accommodate the ship. This gave only one avenue of departure.
None of those milling about, preparing to depart, were the thieves I chased, not that I expected them to leave without some sort of push. There was more to this than the cultists reclaiming their evil tome. They had an agenda, some reason to cross the ocean. Were they headed for one of those cursed New England towns heard only in whispers? Innsmouth? Dunwich?
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?”
I turned toward the source of the voice to see Captain Smith also looking at the tenders. He stood with the excellent pos
ture and bearing of the career sailor, one hand on the rail, the other by his side. The man had an air of authority and power which came as much from personality as from station.
“It is indeed,” I agreed, though unsure whether the man spoke of the ship or the sea itself.
The captain breathed deep of the salty air, serenity clear on his face. “So much comes together to make a successful voyage. Ship and crew, the course laid, even those tenders below. If all works to plan, then most of it is not noticed by the passengers.”
It all seemed to be running like a German train.
“I apologize, Doctor,” Captain Smith said. “Get a sailor talking about the sea, and he drifts away.”
If the pun was intentional, the man gave no sign. I was more focussed on the fact that he remembered I was a doctor.
“How is Mrs. Hooper?” the captain asked.
“Mrs. Hooper?”
“The lady you boarded with. I had assumed you were attending her.”
“No.” I shook my head, forcing a smile. “Just two slow-moving people coming up the ramp together.”
“Ah, I see.” The captain nodded, watching the proceedings below. “Please excuse me, Doctor, I have tasks to attend to before we sail.”
“Of course, Captain, you must be quite busy.”
I felt happy to see him go. Though he was an amiable sort, having the attention of the most powerful man aboard ship made me uncomfortable.
A few steps and the captain turned back. “Doctor, would you join my table for dinner tonight?”
Damn it. More attention, and not the sort that could be rejected.
“Thank you, Captain, I would be honoured.”
After departure from Queenstown, I headed back toward my cabin, frustrated.
The gates between decks remained closed with stewards always at hand. I had tried the direct approach, simply asking for entry and when the steward explained this was impossible, I demanded. The man offered to call the captain and I’d relented.
Thoughts of killing the steward and forcing my way through itched at my brain, but too many people milled about. Even if I wasn’t apprehended immediately and could retrieve the book, then what? It wouldn’t be destroyed. I’d tried enough times over the years to know the damned thing didn’t burn or tear, and submerging it in water didn’t even smudge the ink.
L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 35 Page 10