It moved in as slowly as an ice floe, an invisible cloud of rage that pushed the sweat down my brow and spine. I’ve been good and scared and helpless before, but this one took the cake.
Barnes must have been going through much of the same. His breathing was coming in bursts, matching the bebop of pure terror that beat in my chest.
I felt my heart was about to fly right out of my ribcage, and I knew that was just the beginning.
The ‘worst’ came riding on its loud hayburner. It made the Buick rattle as it went by, shooting a cloud of exhaust fumes through the half-open window.
I couldn’t see too well on account of my frozen viewpoint, until the big six took a sharp turn and halted in front of the warehouse.
It was an old issue army Studebaker with its white star logo long since peeled away. The cloth covering the cargo bed looked like it had seen better days.
I’d ridden in one of those myself, back during my tour; they had been stuffy and cramped and too slow for their own good, but none of them had ever felt so truly, palpably evil.
Sweat trickled down my brow and my heart pounded like a jackhammer. Barnes was still paralyzed. The bug looked just as helpless as we did.
We were caught in a web of invisible, cloying strands waiting for the emperor of spiders to waltz in and sink his teeth in us.
I fought back the fever pitch of my own rising horror.
The truck’s side door opened; its passenger, a man in long yellow robes, climbed down from the cab and made his way to the rear, pulling up his yellow hood. I couldn’t see the driver but I assumed he looked about the same.
Before long, the driver joined him and they both began undoing the clasps at the truck’s rear.
If I could have screamed, I would have done it until I’d gone hoarse.
Even more figures climbed down from the truck, all covered in dull yellow robes from head to toe. Going by their height and the cut of their shoulders, I’d have to guess they were probably all male.
They dragged their tired, sobbing birds behind them. There were half a dozen of them, framed by a dozen weirdos, but that wasn’t all.
A swarm of... things, looking only halfway real, danced all around them like a cloud of locusts.
They were twisting, dancing devils, sprouting and retracting bits and pieces all over the place. Their faces were warped and skull-like, almost looking like they were screaming in rage. Swimming above and among the abductors and their victims, they seemed to almost radiate hate.
Their pure evil poured through my feeble, mortal frame, burning through my veins and heart, looking to sink its crooked claws into my heart.
Beside me, Barnes had begun to shake violently. The bug on the glass did a quick jitterbug, before it fell from the windscreen to lie dead on its back.
My time, I knew, was up.
When it rains, it pours. Typical. One second I’m having a stretch and watching Trevor gawping at a beetle on the car windshield, the next I’m stranded helpless in a nightmare. I thought this was another nightmare, tried to tell Trevor to just wake me up goddamnit, but no dice. He and the beetle were all stuck in place, as helpless as I was. The three of us, playing green light-red light with the forces of evil.
Trevor says I read too many pulps; that these things are gonna rot my brain. Who’d a thunk that all this sword and sorcery hokum would ever catch up with us? Ghoulies and ghosties and creepy-crawlies were one thing but this... this was sorcery, clear as day. And I knew I couldn’t deal with sorcery.
I was reassuring myself when a passing Army truck near rattled me out of my seat. The truck screeched to a halt in front of the warehouse and I saw the whole robed weirdo posse filing out of the back. Others joined them and they began herding female prisoners inside the gray building. We’d hit paydirt, but that didn’t help our situation any.
I fought against the mystical bondage that held me in place, but that didn’t do squat. As I stopped to catch my breath, I caught sight of the yellow mist that hung over the weirdos. Sweat was trickling down my forehead and pooling into my eyes. I blinked it away, keeping my eyes glued to the bizarre entourage, when I realized that the yellow fog was actually a swarm.
They twisted in the air, waving their limbs all over the place, each bursting out of the mass of their bodies, branching out as it went, before receding back into the mass. Their faces were things of pure evil that sucked all hope out of their pathetic captives. Not that I was doing any better, mind you.
I wriggled my tongue and let out a useless, gurgling moan, as I noticed Wallace’s wife among the captives. Mustering all the strength I had, I flexed the muscles of my mind and pushed back against the charm, feeling it go, inch by inch. From my neck, down to my shoulders, wrapping around my skull to my jaw until I finally let out...
“Trevor!” I hissed. “Can you move?”
His eyes were open and I could see that he was still struggling. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook. Trevor just stared daggers into my eyes.
“Fight it, Trevor!” I urged. “We still got some bastards to snuff!”
Trevor didn’t move, so I decided it was time I got some more drastic measures. If I couldn’t give him the strength he needed with my words, I’d let him draw from his own, unexhausting rage. Grabbing Trevor by the shirt, I said, “I’m doing this for our own good.”
I smacked him in the jaw with a hard right jab. Trevor began to howl through his clenched teeth, staring daggers at me, breaking out of the spell in a single flex of his red-hot mind. I knew for a fact that he was going to be okay when he groaned “Barnes, you sonofabitch.”
I slipped back to my own side of the car, watching Trevor as he slowly regained control of his own body.
“Looks like your beetle buddy is okay,” I said, watching Trevor rub his jaw.
He glanced at the windshield and grimaced. “Did you pop him in the jaw too?”
“No, I just gave him your digits,” I said.
“Good,” Towers said, “that beetle needs a real man.”
I shrugged and said, “Let’s get to work.”
Creeping toward the warehouse, I felt the side of my face where Barnes had hit me already starting to swell. For a pulp-reading nerd, he still knew how to throw a proper punch.
We wound our way around the truck and what little foliage grew around the warehouse, skulking for cover the entire way.
I pricked up my ears and heard no alarm. Peeking from a corner, I noticed that there weren’t any guards posted, either.
We were ten feet away from the warehouse, when I stopped to take the place in. It was a dump, no way around it, its many, dusty windows staring down at us from their rotting frames.
The chanting sent shivers down my spine.
I couldn’t make out the words, but I knew the intent—every single jigaboo word of it was thick with venom. It seemed to waft out of the warehouse, twisting in the air like some living thing.
Barnes tapped me on the shoulder, whispering, “Ain’t that just the bee’s knees.”
A loud, wailing scream cut through the litany. It was muffled out before we even had the chance to get around the truck and through the entrance.
So much for sneaking our way in, not with a dame in distress. We charged past the truck and booted our way through a pair of wide, faded blue doors, only to slip into madness, with a yellow-clad evil at the head.
The cultists didn’t even look up at us as we burst through the doors, guns at the ready.
In the dim light, we saw it all: the wide chamber had a flat, dusty concrete floor flanked by distant, peeling walls. The cracked rafters from the high and distant ceiling seemed as long and wide as a giant’s ribcage.
We gawped, like terrified ninnies, at the awful things inside.
The group of chanters were on their knees around a row of large wooden blocks, arranged into an altar, just thirty feet away. The rest of the yellow-clad weirdos were bent down in prayer, with their hooded heads facing the altar and their backs to us.
The women were arranged to the left of the altar, choking back tears. One of them had been laid out across it, her pale body naked with her chest ripped through from the navel up to the collarbone.
Barnes said, “Those filthy fucking butchers. It’s a goddamn chopping block.”
I just nodded, absolutely dumbstruck.
Another hooded man, the one that I assumed was the big cheese, stood behind her limp form. He held a bloodstained knife in one hand, something red and dripping in the other.
We were about to charge in, guns blazing, when something else slowly faded into view behind him.
This wasn’t a phantom, this much I knew. Not a swarm of howling ghosts or any creepy crawly that we’d ever seen before.
We watched as the big cheese offered his still-beating offering to a yellow praying mantis, as big as a man.
It wore a grinning, golden mask; the claws at the ends of its arms had long-fingered, human-like hands growing at their tips, bearing large golden trays. One made a gentle, tinkling sound as the heart plopped on its glistening surface.
Another weirdo stepped up from the silent congregation and took the big cheese’s place, dragging a new victim by the hair as he headed for the altar.
I recognized this one; Wallace’s wife was headed for the chopping block next, so we sprang into action.
Like a penny dreadful villain, the man dragging Mrs. Wallace paused and pointed at us, shouting, “Usurpers!”
Every head turned in perfect sync to stare at us, shocked as they watched two charging private dicks coming at them.
I have to admit, I didn’t feel too bad about crashing that particular party. The bug-thing—their King in Yellow—looked absolutely livid.
Waving his Thompson around, Barnes said “On the ground, hands up where we can see them.” Then, “You there, let the girl go.”
The man dragging Gemma Wallace let go, without thinking twice about it.
I covered Barnes, sneaking worried glances at the bug-thing. How he could look past that monster was beyond me.
We were a few steps away from the cultists when the thing dropped its golden plates. They went clattering down to the altar, the still-beating heart in one smacking the concrete.
We pointed our guns at the thing. It made a noise from behind its mask, a guttural alien screech that might have been a warning.
We froze on the spot, just like back in the Buick.
Son of a bitch had us all wrapped up and ready to serve.
I stared daggers into the mantis-thing’s mask. It stared back with grim and golden contempt. Whatever lay beyond those slits for eyes made me feel feeble and small.
Around us, the cultists began to rise, muttering nonsense as they reached for us.
The man on the altar addressed them, his words dripping with malice.
“See the gift the King has brought us? Fresh cattle to add to the pile!”
From the back of my mind, I knew I’d heard this voice before. I filed this away for future reference, closed my eyes and focused on my trigger finger, making it wriggle by sheer grit. Thankfully, I mustered enough strength to pull it all the way back.
A spray of red-hot lead flew, getting the King square in his misshapen, yellow head.
My body sprang back into action, with Barnes following suit, pumping a good dozen rounds into the charging weirdo’s chest.
Hail to the King.
Everything turned out as usual, as soon as we burst into the warehouse. We were outnumbered and scared half out of our minds, but we still gave the bastards one hell of a fight. We’d saved Wallace’s bird, but she wasn’t out of the woods just yet. When the King in Yellow struck us with his binding magic, Trevor broke the spell by tearing the thing’s head clean in half.
I had just downed one of the King’s main flunkies, when the wounded creature began to scream. It flailed around and its unholy shrieks made me feel as if my skull was splitting in two. I clutched my head with one hand and was about to finish the freak off when it suddenly collapsed into a sprawling mass of wriggling meat. It looked almost helpless for a moment, until it outright exploded.
I was about to mouth a warning when the yellow phantoms we’d seen earlier burst out from the gory remains of the King, flitted about the room and then slipped through the concrete floor. A black stain, shaped like an odd three-pronged sign, bled through the floor where each creature had disappeared.
The weirdos started to run. Trevor dropped more than a handful in one long, weaving spray. I made for Wallace’s wife, who seemed to be suffering from major shellshock. I had almost reached her when the yellow-robed loony I’d just shot jumped up on his feet. He seemed all riled up, despite the sucking wounds across his chest. He raised the knife, ready to plunge it into the dame.
“Gemma, move!” I yelled, raising my gun. She fainted and I guessed that’d have to do.
Another burst took the bastard out for good. I made my way to the Wallace woman and checked her pulse, rubbed her wrist and slapped her cheeks gently, just for good measure. She was still out.
Towers was still firing at the stragglers. When his cartridges were good and spent, he made for the other women, all huddled together in a corner. After making sure they were alright, he turned back to me.
“Some of the bastards got away,” he said, grinning. “The girls are shook up, but they’ll live.”
“Maybe that’ll teach them to steer clear from weird books,” I answered.
“I guess.”
A gurgle bubbled out from the bloody yellow heap nearby. I stared at the cultist I’d almost cut in half already. “Jesus Christ, how are you still alive?”
“Shit, Barnes, good thing you never tried to be a hitman.” Towers laughed, before adding, “Hey, I think I know him.”
Wallace’s wife slowly returned to consciousness and I tried to comfort her. Towers walked over to the dying cultist and tore his garish mask off. “Well, isn’t that something,” he said. “That’s lover boy.” He walked over to the sacrificial victim and grimaced. “And this is the runaway trophy wife.”
He walked back to the moaning cultist and stood over him. I’d seen that look in Trevor’s eyes before. Our rescued captives had had enough horror without having to watch all the awful stuff that Trevor was going to put the man through.
“Trevor! I’m taking these gals out of here.” I said.
Distracted, he answered, “’Sure buddy, knock yourself out.”
I led Mrs. Wallace with the other women and slowly herded them out of the warehouse. I glanced back and saw Trevor kneeling beside the cultist.
I almost wished I’d shot him dead.
Almost.
I sat behind my battered desk and poured a stiff drink. It had been several days since the incident in Kingsport, with Mrs. Wallace safe and sound in her husband’s arms. His gratitude would keep our creditors out of our hair but I wasn’t too sure if his wife would pull through. Wallace certainly wasn’t going to let her out of his sight, not after the last mess she got herself into, and let’s face it: she wasn’t going to stay put when she snapped out of it. But that’s marriage for you, I guess: one part lies and nine parts compromise.
I thought of my own kid sister and regretted that this Riley Barnes hadn’t been around for her back in those days. Maybe things would have turned out otherwise, if her big brother had been around. Then again, maybe I was spouting a load of bushwa. At the end of the day, people do change. Trevor and I sure as hell weren’t the same men we’d been back before Falmouth. Yeah, we were still rough around the edges and we lacked finesse, but we got things done. We were pit bulls: once we latched onto something we wouldn’t let go.
The newspapers reported that Errin Fox had managed to escape the carnage at Kingsport. That poor schmuck doesn’t know it yet, but he’s living on borrowed time. Maybe it’ll be next week or next year but we’ll get to sink our teeth into the bastard. Long and crooked teeth, the kind only ugly, battle-damaged pit bulls like us have.
; And this time, we won’t let go.
Redemption
I wiped my forehead with a grimy handkerchief and cursed at the weather. Arkham’s streets were hotter than a whorehouse’s sheets on this August day and my partner, Trevor Towers, had had the good sense to take a day off and waste his time at the beach with the newest waitress of the Arkham Kettle. Looking at Trevor, you wouldn’t expect him to be the day-off type, but if it helped to take the edge off his strung-out attitude, then it was alright with me.
Barnes and Towers Investigations had been doing pretty well for itself since we opened shop and my old war buddy, Wade Kearney, was largely to blame. He had moved to Illinois to help his brother-in-law set up a trucking firm and had been generous enough to let us use him as a reference. Kearney had a reputation for handling the screwy cases and we sure as hell weren’t strangers to that kind of thing. Hell, half the stuff Trevor and I had been caught in sounded like it had been ripped straight out of the pulps. Still, it was a good living. Better than a guy fresh out of the stir could hope to have. I had been framed—the wardens didn’t buy it, of course—but the truth eventually came out and I was free to go. Kearney had helped me get a license and I had kept busy ever since. Then again, the license was just a formality; Trevor and I always had our own sense of doing what we thought was right. But now we were on the level, at least on paper.
Business had been so good, in fact, that we had put up an ad in The Arkham Gazette for an office girl to help out on a semi-regular basis. The lucky dame was a part-time college gal named Betty Polanski and she was already an hour late for her first day on the job. I figured I could overlook this breach of punctuality since we needed a bird if we were ever gonna get us some higher class john. The young lady was a bearcat and I just knew Trevor would be pleased as punch to see her.
To keep myself busy, I rifled through the looser desk drawers and took out a bottle of Old Sea Dog, pouring two finger’s worth in our cleanest dirty glass, complimenting my treat with a butt straight out of my hope chest. I blew out a plume of smoke and sighed. Yes siree, this was the life.
Arkham Nights Page 11