Arkham Nights
Tales of
Mythos Noir
Glynn Owen Barrass
and
Ron Shiflet
Celaeno Press
2017
Contents
Cthulhu's Big Sleep
A Man Called West
Big Boss
The Lady in Yellow
Redemption
The Kingsport Desk
The Glass Jaw
Skin Flick
The Authors
The Artist
Copyright information
Cthulhu's Big Sleep I suppose it can be said to have begun with Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe tale, “The King in Yellow.” My eyes widened when I caught sight of that title on the table of contents. What on earth?
Well, it turned out to be no more—but also no less—than a wink to the reader “in the know.” Marlowe saw the sprawled out corpse of trumpeter King Leopardi swathed in his lemon silk pajamas and quipped that it reminded him of a book he’d once read, and we know which one he meant. (Suppose he’d lived in a later decade and the corpse reminded him of a particular rock band. The story could have been titled, “Ded Leppard.”) Oh yes. What is it that began with Chandler? The hybridization of hardboiled detective fiction with the Cthulhu Mythos. I specify “hardboiled” (or Noir) detective fiction because Lovecraft himself had earlier utilized detective protagonists in “The Lurking Fear” and “The Horror at Red Hook” which I once unthinkingly recommended to an Italian friend as his introduction to HPL! Thomas Malone was indeed a hardened detective who had, he supposed, seen it all, but he hadn’t seen nuthin yet! And there was no tough-as-nails, world-weary, jaded interior monologue narration, the essential feature, as I view it, of hardboiled detective fiction.
The first Lovecraftian Noir fiction I remember reading was C.J. Henderson’s “You Can’t Take it with You,” which I believe premiered in Eldritch Tales. I reprinted it in my Chaosium collection, The Innsmouth Cycle. I found it very impressive and consider myself quite lucky to have belonged to the vanguard of Chris Henderson fandom. He was, as you know, a master of the genre. He wrote both horror fiction and detective stories (among others) and then combined them seamlessly. And of course there have been other equally adept practitioners. Joseph S. Pulver’s first novel, Nightmare’s Disciple, was a classic. And there are more—like Glynn Barrass and Ron Shiflet, whose work you are getting ready to read right now!
At first glance, the two genres combined in these stories may seem very different; so different, that to combine them would seem inevitably to produce parody, like Steve Allen sonorously reciting the lyrics to Donna Summers’s song Hot Stuff. But that expectation would be mistaken. How can they fit together so well? I think it is because the logic of the Lovecraftian tale is that of an intrepid investigator on the trail of a mystery. The difference is that the “detective” is a scholar researching a fascinating enigma, one which looks increasingly dangerous the closer he gets to solving it. And yet that does not deter our protagonist, for he is by that point a moth headed for the flame. It is downright Faustian! Knowledge loved better than life itself—or at least better than peace of mind.
And here is another difference: Lovecraft’s protagonists begin with a fairly rosy worldview, then become disillusioned to the point of nihilism or even planned suicide. The unlikely heroes in the hardboiled detective stories (especially Barrass’s and Shiflet’s), are well past that point going in! When they encounter the supernatural horror, it may be disgusting and daunting, but it is pretty much just a new take on an old type of crime. While nowhere near as extreme as the pulps’ blind, hemophiliac or otherwise cripple ‘Defective Detectives’, many Chandlerian protagonist-narrators have obstacles they must struggle against within as well as without. Towers and Barnes are both former prizefighters, neither a stranger to killing men, indulging in the occasional torture-interrogation. They even confess themselves surprised to discover they possess a rudimentary moral sense, and this only when compared to the incredibly vile bad guys they are fighting. Shocking revelations cause HPL’s characters to faint dead away, but these guys fight themselves to cope with booze and floozies.
As a result, these guys have hangovers, stupors, and crippling gunshot wounds to fight before they can even get to fighting the villains and crooks. The torments they have undergone serve to harden them, to reinforce their iron mettle.
However, the balance struck by Barrass and Shiflet between the hardboiled private eye and the three-lobed burning eye is not what one might expect: the detective genre conventions are not merely employed as a frame for Lovecraftian goings on. Rather, the Mythos elements have become strictly secondary, though still crucial. These are crime stories, more of the underworld than of the netherworld. In these stories, important Lovecraft characters like Herbert West and Wilbur Whateley take the roles of mob doctors and thuggish enforcers. Resurrected Zombies become hit men who keep on coming no matter how many times you kill them. Contraband stocks of bootleg whiskey are replaced by canisters of West’s reagent. And it all works!
So work up your courage and knock on the pebble glass window of the office of Shiflet & Barrass Detective Agency. If you don’t have an eldritch case on your hands when you walk in, believe me, you will when you walk back out!
Robert M. Price
April 18, 2016
A Man Called West
1A Chance Encounter
I had only been working for Dr. West a few days when it became apparent that he lived in great fear of being discovered by someone or something. Our first meeting had occurred one lonely night on the Falmouth beach as he was being set upon by a young gang of hoodlums. It had been a chance encounter and much to his advantage.
Having been released from prison only days earlier, my first instinct was to mind my own business. Trouble was the last thing I needed but my blood began to boil as I watched the would-be toughs kick and pummel the smaller figure.
“Well, Riley,” I said, “here’s where you put your foot right in it.”
With a sigh of regret, I clenched my fists and went charging down the sandy embankment, into the center of the melee. Instead of yelling or crying out a warning, I came down on them in a storm of fists and well-placed kicks. Two of the surprised punks went down bleeding before they realized what was happening. A quick glance at the victim revealed a stunned look of amazement and gratitude.
“Look out!” he yelled, as one of the attackers swung a large piece of driftwood at my head. West’s warning saved me a headache as the weapon glanced off my shoulder.
I buried a right fist up to the wrist in the careless fool’s belly and grinned as the breath was knocked out of his lungs with a loud “whoosh!” He fell to his knees and a kick to the face finished the job. Three of the attackers were now out of commission and the remaining two backed away warily with their hands in the air.
“We’re leaving, Mister!” cried one as he turned to run.
I laughed heartily as the battered youths struggled to their feet and staggered off into the night. Turning to their harried, tow-headed victim, I said, “Looks like they bit off more than they could chew.”
The smaller man smiled, wiped sand from his glasses and said, “My name is Dr. West and I’m immensely grateful for your timely intervention.”
“A saw-bones huh?” I asked, extending my hand.
“I’ve been called worse than that,” he replied. “I hope you haven’t suffered any injuries on my account.”
“Nothing that a stiff drink won’t fix.”
West looked me over appraisingly and chuckled. “You’re a large fellow. In what line of work are you employed?”
I wanted to lie, b
ut there was something about West that caused me to blurt out the truth. “I’m without a job. I just got out of prison.”
He seemed completely unfazed by my admission.
“I suppose at one time or another that we’ve all done things not sanctioned by society.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Let he who is without sin...”
“Don’t worry Mr.... uh?”
“Barnes,” I supplied. “Riley Barnes.”
“Well, Barnes, Herbert West is not one to cast stones.”
“Glad to hear it, Dr. West,” I said. “Did you get hurt in the ruckus?”
“I’ll live,” he replied. “Now what say you we get that stiff drink you mentioned?”
“Lead the way,” I happily replied.
If only I had known then what I know now.
West led me to a summer house, vacated for the season by its rightful owner. It was just one of the many things I didn’t know about Herbert West back then.
He fixed me that drink—several actually—and before the night was over had offered me a job. It didn’t pay too well but it wasn’t as if I had any other offers lined up at the time. Most people just aren’t too eager to hire a jailbird.
“Barnes,” West said, pouring another drink. “You’ve been honest with me and I think it only fair that I respond in kind.”
I nodded and let him continue.
“I’m currently working on medical research that will be a boon to all mankind. However, there are certain members of the medical community who are insanely jealous of my early successes and desire to eliminate me at all costs.”
“Eliminate as in, rub you out?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes, I know how unbelievable that sounds,” West replied. “Then again, success breeds bitter enemies and there are just as many unscrupulous crooks in my field as in yours.... which was what again?”
“Dock-worker, boxer, leg breaker, take your pick,” I laughed.
“Well, maybe almost as many in my field,” he chuckled. “Still, you’re just the type of man I can use. You’re strong, not a stranger to violence, and can obviously take care of yourself judging from what I observed back there on the beach.”
“They were just kids,” I said modestly.
“Five very large kids,” West answered. “So, I’ll get to the point: I need someone to act as bodyguard and run occasional errands for me since it’s imperative that I keep a low profile. In return, I can offer you room and board and a small check each month. Your contributions will allow me to work unfettered on the important research I mentioned earlier. So what do you say, Mr. Barnes?”
“I’ll take it!” I answered.
My first week in West’s employ was a piece of cake. I didn’t do a hell of a lot and spent the majority of my time listening to the radio or reading the pulps. West insisted that I take periodic walks around the windswept dunes and be on the lookout for any suspicious characters. I often got a laugh out of this last request since we were the shadiest pair in the place.
These outside jaunts gave me the chance to escape the noxious fumes that frequently drifted downstairs from West’s upstairs laboratory. He hadn’t given me a tour of that part of the house and had rebuffed my hints to have a look at it.
“It’s really pretty mundane,” he told me. “But once things progress, I’ll be glad to show you.”
I couldn’t say if things were progressing or not but loud thuds and bumping sounds often emanated from the lab. When I’d ask about the racket, he’d just say “lab animals” and leave it at that. Maybe so, but I wondered what type of lab animals would cause my employer to cry out in alarm and fire off three rounds from a .38 revolver. I always meant to ask him, but I decided to drop it. It was his ugly business and not mine.
2Stalking West
All said and done, the human face can really take a lot of damage, and what you see in the movies about some guy knocking a bozo out with one punch is pretty much bullshit. But when you see some poor drunken bum in the street with his face smashed up from a bar fight but still conscious and wandering round? That’s the truth of it, really.
I’d been working the guy over for quite a while, concentrating all my punches on his skinny, ugly face. The problem with pounding a guy though, is that, after you’ve turned his nose to mush, plugged one eye (making sure you keep the other in working order) and busted his teeth into the wet, groaning mess of his mouth, all you’re eventually doing is bruising the knuckles beneath your leather gloves and whacking numbed muscle and weeping flesh. The guy had even peed his pants around halfway through my interrogation, which I took as a sign that he was ready to talk, but nothing but the stink of urine was coming from that gibbering little mess I’d been working over.
Beating up on a guy till his face is a pulpy lump will only get you so far. If you want to get the right answers off of him that is.
That’s why I’d brought along the pruning shears.
Anyway, before I get too ahead of myself I’d maybe better explain why I was in that tiny room in that roach-pit hotel almost torturing to death a guy I’d met less than an hour earlier.
My name is Trevor Towers, I’m an ex-marine with too many medals to mention and an ex-wife I don’t like to talk about. Since I left the army I’ve been making my bread by hiring myself out as a bodyguard, man hunter and general heavy-handed thug for people that can afford me.
The man I’d been hired to track down had been leading me on a merry chase for just over three months, ever since he disappeared without a trace from a little town called Arkham near the Massachusetts coast. But, like all scumbags with closets full of skeletons, this fella didn’t stay hidden for long. A month after he went missing he resurfaced in Boston, and after picking up his trail I managed to track his wanderings all through the coastal cities of New England till I finally got a-hold of his assistant in a sunny little town called Falmouth on the edge of Nantucket Sound. Not the best of leads, but a lot better than the ghosts I’d been chasing for so long.
And try not to get too mushy over the guy I just told you I beat into a pulp. Trust me, if you knew even half of the awful things he’d done with his boss you’d be egging me on to get a bit rougher with the dope.
As it was, I was a bit pissed at him anyway, mainly due to the fact that after I’d snuck into his hotel room, one of those cheap two room affairs with a bed and a kitchen in one room and a shower in the other, he’d jumped me from behind and tried wrapping his high-grade silk paisley tie around my neck. Why the idiot thought I’d just let him strangle me instead of shoving my elbow halfway into his gut I have no idea. He went down with his face all red and surprised, and I turned round to snarl at the silly little twerp. After I’d closed the door behind me, we got down to a little quiet conversation.
My would-be assassin gave up struggling soon after I booted him in the chest a couple of times. Getting the wretch up into an armchair and tied up using his pretty silk tie was accomplished quicker than I can say it.
Anyway, the reason I was whaling on this guy was because he had information my employer was desperate to find out. I was going to use any means necessary to get that information from him.
Which brings us right back to the pruning shears.
I’d already stuffed his sock in his mouth, not only to curb his screams but also to make sure he didn’t bite through his tongue from the pain I was about to inflict. I indicated, mind you, mimed if you will, what I was going to do to him before I did it. I’m not a totally heartless torturer and I wanted to give him the chance of getting out of there in one piece. But when my chopping motions didn’t seem to get through his thick skull I got right down to business.
Trouble and torture are my business.
Holding his left hand down against the chair arm I proceeded to dig into his pinky finger with the cheap hedge clippers I’d purchased from a hardware store. He squirmed like hell as I cut through to the bone, and me being a bit out of practice with that type of coercion I made the mistake of slowin
g down as I finished getting through the flesh. I succeeded in snapping through the metacarpal bone, just above the knuckle. Because I hadn’t made a clean cut, the bone splintered, inflicting far more pain than I’d intended. The guy passed out on me and good God do I hate the stink of raw bone marrow.
Now nothing hinders an interrogation more than your victim blacking out on you, an unconscious man being about as much use as a dead one. With this problem in mind I wiped the blood off of my gloves and onto his jacket, and after stuffing a tissue onto his hand to stifle the blood flow I walked over to the dirty little kitchenette to get a mug of water to splash in his face.
Pissed at being unable to find a clean cup, I grabbed a dirty one from the dishes piled up in the sink, filling it to the brim before heading back to my prisoner with the intention of chucking it over his blood-soaked head.
All that accomplished was to wash away the blood dribbling from his cheeks and chin. I was about to go boil up a pan of water to see if that would work better when the guy finally awoke.
Soon after, his one good eye blinked open and as I set to work removing his ring finger the fella started spluttering behind his gag, finally looking like he wanted to talk to me. Shears still in hand, I pulled the rag down from his mouth to let him spit out the bloody white sock stuffed up there. It slipped down his shirt accompanied by a couple of shards of cracked yellow teeth. They looked a lot like almond slivers.
While he slavered and panted I pulled his head up by his greasy hair, waving the clippers threateningly before his one unswollen eye. Before he had chance to whine or beg for mercy I again asked him the question I’d been torturing him about for the last hour:
“Where the hell is Herbert West?”
3Rude Awakening
On my first supply run into Falmouth, I saw Trevor Towers, an appleknocker I had once fought to a bloody fifteen-round draw in the prize ring. While hiding behind a shelf of canned goods, I heard him question the clerk.
“Do you know of a Herbert West who might be living around Falmouth?”
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