A Lonely and Curious Country

by Matthew Carpenter

  I walk through the empty lane called Fish Street and into the ruined town square. The gulls cry loud from the nearby harbor. I light a cigarette and sit down on the front steps of the Starry Wisdom Church to wait.

  Ten minutes and two cigarettes later, I hear movement behind me. Out of the shattered doors of the church shambles a hunched, fishbelly-white figure. This Child of Dagon regards me with great, white, luminous eyes. I do not recognize him, but he recognizes me.

  I make the Sign of Dagon in the air before me, and he bows.

  "I need to speak to my grandmother," I say.

  ***

  The day of my fate. I stand naked, my body painted with ideograms from a pre-Human language. The bitter smoke from the incense on the altar fills my mouth and lungs, and my head swims. I swim. I swim into and out of the spaces in my, in our, head, and we swim with I together in me. We are I. I am they.

  Terrible things are blossoming in the corners of my vision.

  Before me stand my mother, and my grandmother, and her grandmother. The gold of their tiaras glints in the firelight, and their pale white eyes stand out stark on their ruddy skin. My grandmother traces symbols on the air, and they linger as afterimages before my eyes. I think there is something in the smoke. Something is in my thoughts. Swimming in my thoughts. Something is in me.

  I feel haunted.

  My grandmother throws the bones.

  Somewhere a bell is tolling.

  Drums run underneath the sea, throbbing onward like the pulse of the earth.

  She throws the bones-

  I can hear the bones humming.

  Full of terrible purpose.

  Reflected in the eyes of my ancestor.

  She speaks, and I hear her from a place inside myself.

  "The bones have spoken. Your fate is written on the stars. In the whorls of shells upon the sea's dead floor. You will go into their world. You will be as one of them. This has already happened. Is happening. Will happen."

  Do you hear that bell? That bell, tolling for the dead?

  "Past, present, future; all are one in Yog-Sothoth. It is written on the stars, in the entrails of my father. You will go into their world. This is your dho-hna."

  That bell, tolling for the dead.

  ***

  I drive back to Kingsport in the morning. In the privacy of his office, I show Boone the object of terrible purpose I carry. He is appropriately horrified.

  "According to McGovern, this order comes direct from Washington," I say.

  Boone scowls. "McGovern can take a long walk off a short pier. I didn't sign up for this."

  "None of us did."

  Boone looks away, out the window, over the town. For a long moment he says nothing, and I wonder if I should speak, or leave, or do some third thing. Then: "Guilford?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Tell me they're monsters."

  "Excuse me?"

  "The batrachians. You know them. They're not people. They're monsters. That right?"

  "Sir, I've known that town my whole life..."

  Boone turns back around to look at me.

  "They're monsters," I say. "Beasts. Whatever was in them, whatever might once have been human, that's all gone. Cleaning them off the world, that's a public service. Anything we do to them before that's just part of the business. Like exterminating rats, sir."

  Boone stares at me. His face relaxes, and he nods, clears his throat, and fishes in his coat for his cigarettes. "I understand. You would know, Guilford, if any of us would."

  "Yes, sir."

  Boone lights a cigarette, coughs, and sits back in his chair. "Very well. Take the team with you. Find a well or a cistern or something and...and do what you have to. God." He puts three fingers to his temple.

  I stand up. "I'll be back tonight."

  "Godspeed, Guilford." Boone is not looking at me.

  I go downstairs, collect Pennington from his office, and together we drive down to King Street. We find Harkaway and Robertson in the Last Reef, and after Pennington shares a beer with them, we climb back in the car and drive out toward Innsmouth. Harkaway and Robertson talk about baseball, women, politics, people they've known, trouble they've gotten into and out of. Pennington stares out the window and chain-smokes cigarettes. I concentrate on the road.

  The sun goes down in the west in an unearthly sprawl of colors.

  It begins to get dark.

  ***

  When McGovern returns to his laboratory I am waiting for him. He pauses in the doorway, blinks. "Guilford?"

  "A porter let me in," I say. "I came back to tell you. It's done."

  "Everything went according to plan?"

  "Yes." I pause, look away. "It was horrible."

  "I know. I understand." McGovern comes over to me, puts a hand on my shoulder. "The things we do for love of country, eh? You'll get a promotion for this, Guilford, mark my words. I could use an assistant down here, as a matter of fact. Free access to everything Miskatonic can provide. How does that sound?"

  "Very good, sir."

  "And I do mean everything. You wouldn't believe how many beautiful girls are walking around on this campus, good God."

  He is very close to me. I can smell whiskey on his breath.

  "What was it like, Guilford? What did you see? Don't spare the details, this is important."

  I run a hand through my hair. "Like I said, it was horrible. Ah. I don't suppose we could stop off for a beer before I get started? I just...I need..."

  "Need to relax, no, I completely understand." McGovern is all magnanimity. He raises his hand in an 'after-you' gesture. "We'll take my car. Tell you what: You've done a fine job. You won't pay for a single glass of beer tonight, Guilford. How do you like that?"

  "I like it very well, sir. Thank you."

  "Don't mention it, son. Come along! Our chariot awaits."

  I climb into his car, and we drive to a bar on the dark side of town called The Mason's End. McGovern parks in a nearby alley, and we go inside.

  Smells of stale beer, body odor, smoke. It is a weekday night, and apart from ourselves, I can see only a few hardened career drinkers, and a party of drunken college students.

  McGovern orders a beer and a shot for himself, downs the latter, goes to work on the former. He orders a beer for me. I sip it. It tastes like polluted water.

  "See, I was born in Boston," McGovern says. "And we Bostonians are hard-headed. Maybe those froggies are just the product of generations of inbreeding, but that doesn't matter. They worship heathen gods, and sacrifice to them, and that makes them monsters. None of this pinko moralistic bullshit." He sniffs, takes his hat off, runs a hand through his hair. "Way I figure, it's casualties of war. Goddamn amphibians probably weren't pulling their weight anyway."

  "Pulling their weight?" I say.

  "In the underworld, Guilford. Look." He leans in toward me, lowers his voice. "You're not a total country bumpkin. You know there's a whole network of evil strung through these hills. I tell you what, you read through the Necronomicon, or De Vermis, and it changes you. Changes your perspective. You start seeing things in a new way." He belches. His beer stein is empty. He orders another. "'Scuse. Mm. Gonna tap a kidney, back in a flash." He slides off the barstool and slouches toward the bathroom.

  A moment is upon me. I take it.

  He is back a minute later. "Hey, you hardly touched your beer. You going soft on me, Guilford?"

  "No, sir." I take another sip. I try not to cringe.

  McGovern doesn't seem to notice. He drinks off a third of his fresh beer in one go, frowns, smacks his lips. He takes another long drink, frowns again. "Bastards didn't clean the taps again. Anyway." He leans back, wobbling just a bit on his barstool. "Funny thing about all those bastards, cultists and sister-humping sorcerers and the lot, is that- and this is the funny thing, Guilford, this is- their gods are actually really real."

  "Oh yes?" I raise an eyebrow.

  "No, really. I mean it. This is the big secret. This is wh
at they don't tell you. It's all real, Guilford. Sorcery, alien technology, the blackest devils and things from space. It's all really out there. That's why we have to be prepared. Listen, this is a secret, okay? You can't go blabbing this to Boone, or any of those other idiots, right?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good man."

  We sit in silence for a few minutes. McGovern finishes most of his beer, but doesn't call for another. Tiny beads of sweat are standing out on his brow.

  "...they could be watching us right now," he says.

  "Pardon?"

  "Things. Things on another wavelength than us. They're made of something that's...it's not like matter. They could pass right through us. But they could...change us. I mean..." He scrubs a hand across his forehead. "You read things and...and you see things. Suddenly, you're sleeping with the lamp on. I mean, I'm no pansy, going to run back home because the ghosts are really out there, but..."

  He is quiet for a long moment. Then: "This world. It's like a haunted house. And...sometimes I'm not sure if we're the tenant, or the ghost. Do you know what I mean?"

  "No," I say.

  "We don't own the Earth. We're just...caretakers. The real owners, they're not even from this Universe. I shouldn't be telling you this."

  "You look a little pale," I say.

  "I don't feel so good." He sits up suddenly, looks around. "You hear that?"

  "What?"

  "Ah. Ah. Nothing. Ah. Let's get out of here." He slides off his barstool, staggers, gets his feet under him. "I need some air."

  "Sure." I get an arm around his shoulders, help him to the door. Nobody marks our passage. Nobody sees us go.

  Outside, the stars are clear and bright, even here in the city. McGovern turns his face up to the wind, but his eyes take in the stars, and I can see his fright deepen. "God, Guilford. It's so huge, it's so empty. We're not looking up, Guilford. We're not. We're looking out."

  A moment of deja vu.

  "They come from a place where things aren't the way they are here. I mean...physics...geometry. It's all wrong. It's all...haunted." McGovern staggers into the alleyway. He leans against the wall. He is sweating freely now, big droplets rolling down his pale face. His eyes are huge. "I...I...they came for me." He shakes his head like a dog, as if to clear it. "One night...I was alone...and they came to me. Offered me everything. Power. And I knew...I knew if I refused, something terrible would happen. Something terrible." Tears are leaking out of his eyes now, mingling with the sweat. "Oh god, something terrible. I'm so scared." He puts his fingers to his mouth, pulls at the lips, scrubs his hands over his face. "It's all wrong. It's all gone wrong. They...I...I didn't know they could do that to people." He looks up at me with mad eyes. "Say, boy, do you know this?" He makes a sign with two fingers in the air. A sign I've known since my boyhood.

  "No."

  "And I know the Voorish sign, too, and the Sign of Opening, and the Sign of He Who Must Not Be Named. They took me down the thousand steps to the pit, when I'd stopped screaming, and they showed me..." He sobs pushes his face into a grotesque mask with his hands. "I...I saw a shoggoth. It changed shape! Oh, god, nothing's ever going to be right again. Oh mother, I'm so scared." He looks up. "I don't feel good."

  "No," I say. "You don't." I am not surprised. I am not surprised by any of it. I am not surprised because while he was in the bathroom, I poured about a third of the bottle of McGovern's 'miracle drug' into his beer.

  "Oh mama. Mama, mama, mama, mama." McGovern suddenly throws back his head and howls, cords standing out on his neck. He reaches up with both hands and rakes them down his face, drawing blood. He catches the edge of one eyeball with a nail, and that begins to bleed as well. "Aaaah! Aaah-aah-a! Aaayunglui bcoma hatur ngglr! Wza-yei! Wza-yei yoggog rrthna! Aaah! Aaaaaaaaah!"

  Every muscle in his body has gone taut. His face is frozen, mouth open, bleeding. He has bitten through the tip of his tongue, and it dangles on the end of a string of gristle. He pitches forward, his whole trunk leaning like a falling tree, and slams his face up against the wall. He begins vigorously scrubbing it back and forth over the bricks, as if trying to wipe away his features, still screaming in Aklo, hands beating a tattoo on his own thighs.

  I step forward, reach into his pants pocket, and withdraw his keys. The movement, the touch, galvanizes him. He spins around to face me, and behind the bloody, ruined features I see two mad eyes, filled with more terror than I have ever seen on any creature. He shakes his head back and forth, blood flying, then turns and pelts away down the alley, venting terrible gobbling screams into the night air.

  I slide into his car, start the engine, and drive out of Arkham.

  ***

  I park the car well outside of town and lead my three companions in on foot. There are no lighted houses in this town, no streetlamps, no automobiles. It is utterly dark, and quiet enough to hear the breaking of waves on the unseen beach. The pale moon, rising over the horizon, casts a wan glow on cracked streets and tottering gambrel-roofed houses, their eyes empty.

  "I know a house on the edge of town we can use," I say. "It looks down the hill towards the town square. I'll venture out from there and find the well. You can cover me from inside."

  "How far?" Pennington hisses.

  "A few blocks. Stay close."

  We pass an old grocery store, its door hanging open over a splintery front porch. Only I glimpse the pale, luminous eyes that look out from that darkness for a moment as we pass. I do not turn my head. I continue on.

  Two blocks later, I turn down a narrow, tangled lane that runs along the hill's edge before the town proper. Its far windows look down on the decaying sprawl of Innsmouth, as far as the bay and the black ocean beyond. I turn around and regard my three companions. I have worked with Pennington and Robertson for two years, Harkaway slightly less. Robertson and Harkaway are married. Robertson has a daughter. Harkaway is hoping for a son in the fall. Pennington has collectors-edition copies of Dickens, Poe, Twain. Sometimes, on his off days, he will go for long rambles in the town, or sit in the park and read Yeats.

  My friends. My daylight companions.

  "I'm going in," I say. "Pennington, you and Robertson follow close, cover me. Harkaway, if you could go around the back, check for movement, anything suspicious, then follow us inside. All right?"

  They nod. They are frightened. The town is so silent. The night is so complete.

  "All right. Go."

  I open the door and step inside. Once through the door, Pennington and Robertson switch on their flashlights. The light picks out a bare, empty shell of a house, with a set of broken stairs leading up to a second-floor mezzanine. A closed door stands to our direct left, and a short hallway leads to the kitchen, and a back door.

  Pennington taps my shoulder, points toward the rear door, and goes down the hall to check it.

  "I'll check the bedroom," Robertson whispers, and opens the door. He steps inside, and I hear a brief flailing tattoo of motion as he tries to backpedal or catch himself. Then a fall, a strangled cry, and a thick splash somewhere far below. Then a second splash. Then silence.

  I shut the door.

  Pennington comes running back into the room. "What was that?"

  "I don't know," I say.

  "Where's Robertson?"

  I nod at the bedroom door.

  Pennington looks at it, looks back at me, and I see something cross his face. Something I've been expecting for years. Pennington is thinking very hard. "Where's Robertson?" he asks again.

  "In there." I nod at the door.

  As if on cue, there is another splash from somewhere beyond and below.

  Pennington draws his pistol. He throws another sidelong glance at me, and then steps forward and opens the door.

  My sister is there, in all her glory. She has changed so much since the days of my childhood, but I still know her. I would know her anywhere. We have shared dreams of sunless seas, and deep bells echoing on the north wind. She looks down at Pennington with her
beautiful, pearlescent eyes. Her body gleams in the torchlight.

  "Jesus Christ." Pennington takes a step back, raises the pistol.

  A scream from outside. Pennington jerks his head in that direction.

  I take the pistol out of his hand.

  He looks at me, eyes wide and staring, showing whites all around. Pennington is intelligent. He knows what is happening to him.

  "Robertson is dead," I say. "Harkway is dead."

  "You did this."

  "No," I say. "I am only the hand. The instrument through which the will of Mother Hydra and Father Dagon flows. This is my dho-nha. This is what I am for."

  The front door opens, and terrible shapes are on the other side. I can hear the Children padding down the hall from the back door. They have crept up out of the deeps to enact my grandmother's will. Our great Father's will. Our will.

  Pennington shakes his head. "You don't have to do this, Paul. You don't have to..."

  "I always did. I always have. I always will. Past, present, future; all are one in Yog-Sothoth."

  The smells of fish and sea-water fill the room. The shapes of the children, my brothers and sisters, my kin, fill the doorway, the hallway, are crawling from the hole in the floor to join my sister. Pennington looks around at them; at their great, naked, ruddy bulk. He looks at me. "Not like this, Guilford. Please. Let me die a man's death. Not like this."

  "I always respected you," I say.

  "Please, Guilford."

  I raise the pistol.

  My hand does not shake. My aim is true.

  I can grant him this favor.

  I do.

  I return to Kingsport in the early morning. I climb the steps to Boone's office.

  The door opens. In I run.

  I put a bullet through the upraised newspaper and into Boone's gut, then turn away before the paper drops and I have to see the look on his face. I walk out the door, down the steps, back to the car.

  I drive to the coast, to a disused pier that juts out past the last of the hills, out into the wide Atlantic sea. The mist is still heavy on the shoreline. I step out of the car. I take off my coat, my shirt, my trousers, my shoes. I step out of my my underwear and, naked, I leap into the sea. The water hits my body like a blessing, like a benediction, washing away all the blood and dirt and horror. I swim. I swim south along the coast, down from Kingsport to Innsmouth. To quiet Innsmouth, where the white gulls tarry around a spire of rock that juts up from the bay. I climb up on that rock and watch the sun rise, and shake and shiver and cry and laugh. I wonder if I spilled some of the elixir on myself after all. I feel ill.