Woolley sat down on the bed next to Wallace, a hand on the insensate man’s shoulder. “I tried, as did the county sheriff. At least I was told he did. But Wallace had not spoken of any family and he had nothing in his possession which could lead to any kin. I wrote to Miskatonic University without any reply. Sheriff Coggins wanted to ship the poor man off to the state hospital for the deranged but, by then, Mrs. Powell had heard of his plight and ‘adopted’ him. Her own son, James, was killed in a logging accident many years ago and I suppose she sought to replace him.”
Kincaid frowned. “You can’t just ‘adopt’ a grown man, injured or not.”
“Mrs. Powell can. She is very influential in this area. Powell money built this town, such as it is, and she is its last scion, though her means are obviously much-reduced. People defer to her and the sheriff saw no harm in letting her take care of Mr. Wallace. He obviously needed it.”
Kincaid hung his head – Woolley’s story made sense, after a fashion. It did not explain why Miskatonic hadn’t responded to the schoolteacher’s letter, though, if indeed he had sent one. He let go of his friend’s skeletal hands and stood. “What did Ted have to say about this?”
Woolley shook his head. “Nothing. He has not spoken in all this time. The doctor from Lancaster said it’s not related to his physical injuries. Something … something has damaged his mind. That much is obvious.”
It was obvious. Theodore Wallace had been an intelligent, outgoing man, full of life and vigor. This shriveled husk was not that man. Perhaps it was better to let him live whatever was left of his life in the care of an old woman who needed to feel useful. There was certainly nothing that could be done for him at this stage.
For a long while, neither man said a word; only the rattling breaths of the creature in the rocking chair stirred the air. Finally, Kincaid let out a deep sigh and said, “I went to the altar this morning.”
Woolley nodded. “I suspected you would. You’ve come a long way to find your friend; it would be odd if you didn’t visit the object that brought him here.”
Kincaid was not sure he wanted to progress with this line of reasoning, but Woolley was right – he had come this far, there could be no turning back.
He told Woolley of his observations of the stone, and the feelings he’d had in the area. Woolley listened as if the information was nothing new to him, but did not interrupt or seek to add anything to Kincaid’s account. When done with his story, Kincaid finished by saying, “And I did not see any trace of the writing you mentioned, illegible or otherwise.”
Woolley stood and turned Wallace’s chair back towards the window, allowing the crippled man to see what passed for his world. When he faced Kincaid again, he was careful not to meet the other man’s eyes. “No, you wouldn’t have.”
The evasiveness of the response triggered Kincaid’s anger once more; Woolley alternated between helping him and blocking his inquiries and the younger man had had more than enough of it. He wanted straight answers and he said as much, raising his voice more than he had meant to.
The response was immediate, but it did not come from Woolley. Mrs. Powell’s raspy voice called up the stairs, demanding to know what was going on and asking Woolley why they were taking so long. Woolley answered that they would be down momentarily, and turned back towards Kincaid. “We must go. We’ve pushed her far more than I had intended to and it would be unwise, for the both of us, to take further advantage of her hospitality.”
Kincaid thought to protest but saw the truth in those words. Wallace held answers that he could not share with anyone and arguing with Woolley in an elderly woman’s home would serve no purpose but to anger her and further alienate the displaced Vermonter’s neighbors. After some words of goodbye to his friend, Kincaid followed Woolley down the stairs.
The two men’s thanks were met by Mrs. Powell with a stare as full of menace as any living being could muster and Kincaid felt those eyes on his back long after the little house was out of sight behind them. Woolley had remained silent since leaving the Powell home and Kincaid had followed suit, formulating more questions in his mind. When the town was in sight a ways up the dusty road, Kincaid placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder to stop him. “There are things you haven’t told me.”
Woolley did not look as if the accusation was unexpected. “No, but I swear I don’t know what happened to your friend Mr. Wallace.”
Kincaid looked up and down the road to ensure they were still alone, this close to Drummer proper. He spoke without looking at his companion. “I believe you, but there are other things – the writing on the altar you mentioned, why the people of this town fear me so.”
Woolley looked up at the sky, which had cleared considerably after the noonday sun burned off most of the morning’s clouds. “I don’t think it’s you they fear, exactly – rather, what they think you represent.”
Kincaid asked what that could possibly be, and Woolley had to admit he didn’t know. “I have lived in this town for almost twelve years, and I am still an outsider. I will always be an outsider. I have studied the records in the town clerk’s office, trying to get a sense of this place’s history, as well as whatever materials people will loan or give me and I still understand barely more than you do.
“Your name, ‘Kincaid’ – there’s something about it, but I have no idea what. There was a Kincaid family here, several generations back. I’ve found passing references to them, mostly in inconsequential records of business transactions and the like. They arrived before Drummer was even a real town, just a collection of a few families living in proximity. There are birth and death records in the town’s books for every family of that period I can find – but none for the Kincaids. And after the War Between the States, there’s nothing at all. It’s as if they were wiped from Drummer’s records, and no one can tell me why. Or rather, no one will. It was a mystery that kept me occupied for a time, but one I was forced to give up unsolved. I’d strongly suggest you do the same.”
Kincaid could accept this. There were peculiarities about such things that he had come across before. Throughout man’s history there were places, things, even people that became inadvisable to be associated with according to the group knowledge of a community or culture and the feeling persisted long after the actual cause was forgotten. People would simply think of the name of the thing and shudder, not even knowing why – only that it was the appropriate response.
Still, one half-answer was insufficient. “And the writing on the altar?”
Woolley sat down on a stump beside the road, still not meeting Kincaid’s eye as they spoke. “I haven’t seen it myself – it’s just one of those things, as I’ve said. An elderly relative, a friend of a friend of a friend, something like that – people say they’ve seen it, but only when the light of a full moon falls on the altar. And there are other things besides, things far worse than writing no one can decipher.”
A moment passed with each man left to his own thoughts. Kincaid broke the pause. “Wallace wanted to see for himself.”
Woolley nodded. “Yes. But you already knew that.”
Kincaid had known it; he supposed he’d known it from the moment he’d read Wallace’s long-delayed letter.
And now, he had to see it for himself.
IV.
It was now well into the afternoon and, though tired from his morning’s exertions and his poor sleep the night before, Kincaid had no time to waste. He was determined to view with his own eyes whatever wonders or terrors hovered about the altar in the hills and he knew that the moon would be, if not entirely full, then very nearly so that night. He hoped it would be enough as, if he had another option, he might have waited until the night legends said was optimal and the moon had achieved its full power, but the bus to Lancaster would arrive in the morning and he did not intend to stay in Drummer any longer than was absolutely necessary.
At his hotel, Kincaid filled one jacket pocket with his remaining snack supply and the other with his electric
torch and the small, snub-nosed revolver which had lain tucked into the bottom of his valise before he moved swiftly out of the village and along the ill-kept road he’d traveled only hours earlier. Bathed in the sun’s dying light, he made the trip rapidly up into the tree-covered hills, fueled by determination and aided by familiarity with the path.
The moon was a huge, silver disc that hung in the sky above the hills by the time Kincaid reached the point at which he’d have to climb and he shivered as the orb’s weird light flooded open spaces with stark whiteness and etched shadows deeper than seemed natural. Kincaid’s heart raced and he knew it was not simply from the physical activity – there was something in the air he could not identify. His rational mind urged him onward and upwards towards the top of the hill and the answers to the questions that burned his brain, but his soul screamed with a New Englander’s superstition, long-repressed and asserting itself at last. It was a superstition hardwired into his very being, handed down from ancestors who’d made this land their own, but could never truly conquer it. He shook off the idea and began to climb.
The feeling only grew stronger the further he went. It told him this was no fit place for a man who wanted to keep his soul and sanity his own. Living in peace in Montville, a place so far from the heart of New England and so civilized it was practically removed from it altogether, Kincaid had been able to scoff at old fashioned ideas like north woods cults and things that go bump in the dark but here – here! – in these dark and eerily-lit woods, in a place as wild as could be found in these parts, he was not sure. As he achieved the top of the hill, he took a moment to center himself, preparing for whatever he was about to confront.
In the clearing where the altar stood, he was relieved to find nothing immediately out of place or suspicious, though the feeling of unease continued to grow, sending icy worms crawling through his guts. The altar itself, bathed in the silvery lunar glow, stood out boldly from its surroundings and as Kincaid made to study it, he was disturbed that his weary eyes seemed to find faint suggestions of weird etchings on the stone – marks that had not been present during his first visit. Whenever he became aware of them, however, and made to take close inspection – they were gone. Look away, and he’d swear he saw stone hieroglyphics glowing under the moonlight from out of the corner of his eye. Turn back – nothing.
Kincaid moved away, back to the edge of the clearing, and armed himself with his flashlight in one hand and his pistol in the other before sitting down and pulling his knees to his chest. Within him, emotions and rationality warred, but he knew he must get to the bottom of this thing even at the risk of danger to himself. He felt he owed that to Ted Wallace, though he couldn’t have said why.
Alone in the woods, Kincaid questioned his own motives for the first time. Why did he owe Ted anything? This entire predicament was of Wallace’s design, and Kincaid had gotten involved long after any real difference could be made. The line of reasoning surprised him – these were not Bertram Kincaid’s thoughts. Bertram Kincaid and Theodore Wallace had been the best of friends and while it was true that they had inevitably grown apart some over the years, a man was nothing without loyalty. Questioning that was as alien to Kincaid as he was coming to believe this place was to the wholesome Earth he knew.
Whatever otherness existed in this glade, on top of this hill, surrounding this carved piece of rock that did not belong, was invading Kincaid in a way he would not have thought possible. He had always dismissed anything he could not see, could not touch, could not quantify, qualify and record in neat little books and ledgers. But in this place of evil repute and eerie mien, he knew he had been wrong – as Wallace had been wrong. These tales the villagers told were no superstitions repeated for generations by an ignorant people, but truths shared among those made wise by experience and wanting only to prevent what befell their own distant ancestors from befalling others. Kincaid grimaced and wondered if Wallace, too, had come to that conclusion.
Shaken from dark thoughts by a noise that was not natural to the forest, Kincaid’s eyes flicked open and he realized that he must have dozed. His first sight was of the altar, glowing wickedly and proudly as if it had absorbed the day’s light and was hurling it back out into the night for its own purposes. He leapt to his feet without conscious intention and moved closer, kneeling down and gazing this way and that, running his fingers lightly over the designs that were now prominently evident, but were not, indeed, carved into the stone itself. He had no idea what science or sorcery could make them appear under the light of the full moon, but the symbols that adorned the altar were clearly visible – arcane scribblings that resembled no earthly writing Kincaid knew of, but instead sent his thoughts hurtling back to those long-gone musings he’d shared with Wallace over the Mad Arab’s book and the ghastly figures it contained which belonged to a people who were not men that had lived long before this area was even above the brine of an ancient sea.
So engrossed was he in his investigations that Kincaid did not notice he was no longer alone until a weird, haunting trilling piped by some unseen musician began to fill the area. He whirled, seeking its source, only to start in fright and crouch to press his back tightly against the altar for whatever measure of protection he could gain. The circumference of the little glade was ringed by robed figures, their faces lost in shadow but uniformly tall and moving silently save for whichever one was playing the unholy tune that filled the air.
The newcomers seemed to pay Kincaid no attention and linked hands, forming a circle around the entire clearing, broken only when one stepped forward from the group to approach the altar and the others immediately closed the circle again. Kincaid was sure the one moving slowly forward intended to confront him and wrenched free from the grip of fear to throw himself to one side and practically jump into a standing position. Remembering the pistol in his hand, he brandished it towards the hooded being and shouted, “Come no closer!”
The weird worshipper ignored him entirely, however, and kneeled before the altar, much as Kincaid himself had done earlier, though with far more reverence. The others around the glade began to sing in a wordless chant that mimicked the strange, increasingly frenetic piping that seemed to be coming from all around them. Kincaid was terrified but could do nothing save stand watching as the being threw back its hood, revealing a man a little older than Kincaid himself, whose already-racing heart pounded even harder as he saw a more-than-vague resemblance to his own features in the other’s face!
Kincaid took a step back, realized that would only put him within reach of the other cultists, as he now thought of them, and resumed his former stance. He was trapped with no option but to see this thing out and hope for a chance of escape. Keeping his firearm trained on the man who shared his likeness, Kincaid watched.
As he did, the kneeler made signs of obeisance before the altar, his head tilted back and eyes closed, wearing a look of mixed ecstasy and anticipation. His movements were intricate and Kincaid found himself curiously intrigued, temporarily overcoming his terror. The man’s rhythmic motions were echoed by the worshippers who ringed the glade and as the music continued to pick up intensity and tempo, so did their ritual gyrations. This continued for some moments before reaching a fever pitch, and Kincaid wondered how long they could possibly keep up this level of frenzy, until the crazily genuflecting man nearest the altar reached his climax and whipped his neck forward, slamming his head into the still-glowing altar, shocking Kincaid and bringing forth in him a new wave of horror and revulsion. The man crumpled to the ground, insensate or dead Kincaid could not tell, and the others changed their demoniac hymn, transitioning smoothly from high-pitched, frantic wailing to a low, slow, droning chant that did nothing to alleviate the terrified intruder’s unease.
From either side of the clearing approached two of the robed figures who not only drew back their hoods, but shed their robes entirely as they moved closer to the altar, revealing themselves as male and female and making visible faces akin to both Kincaid’s a
nd the man he now realized was a willing sacrifice. Kincaid wondered if these two were also sacrifices, their naked bodies gleaming palely under the eerie light of the altar and the moon, when together they hefted the first victim’s body onto the low platform and traced curious designs on their own breasts with the blood still flowing from their fellow’s head-wound. They had not, to this point, joined in the low chanting of their peers, but now they turned towards one another, flung out their arms, linked hands, and began a tune of their own, one of faster tempo but even lower pitch. In unison, and still holding each other, they began to whirl and weave and twist their bodies this way and that, ever faster, until Kincaid feared they would repeat the suicidal act of the first man. He chanced a look at the other figures around the clearing and took note that they ignored the dancers just as they still ignored him. Instead, the empty-seeming hoods were all fixed on the altar itself and the body that lay upon it, pumping out its remaining life to spill across and cover the stone, which seemed to increase in luminance as the vulgarly twirling pair capered.
As the brilliance from the altar began to reach a point nearly equaling the noontime sun, the disparate chants of the main group and the single pair reached a sort of synchronicity until they were intoning the same words once again. Kincaid could at first understand none of it, but interspersed with various others, came again and again the words “Iä! Iä! Yog-Sothoth! Yog-Sothoth fhtagn!” and at their recognition from his scant studies in the occult, Kincaid was seized by a bone-deep terror that threatened to either break his wits or freeze his very breath in his lungs. The chanting grew exponentially intense until all voices coalesced into a single wordless shout of exultation as the evil piping reached its crescendo, and the dancers their finish, as blinding light, of a different cast than had been seen previously, burst forth from the altar to engulf the sacrifice only to fade instantly.
The Altar in the Hills and Other Weird Tales Page 4