Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu

by Lois H. Gresh

  The deck boards cracked.

  I looked down, aware that I was standing in water up to my ankles.

  “I mean now!” Holmes yelled.

  I grabbed his arm.

  “Holmes!” I cried.

  Water blasted up through the deck boards, and beneath our feet, the boat split in half.

  3

  A violent cold, as cruel as any knife, sliced through me. The deck stabbed the sky, jutting up at acute angles on either side of me, as the two halves of the Belle Crown sank into the Thames. Instinctively, I grabbed a broken board, kicking hard to stay afloat.

  In front of me, Holmes also trod water. People flailed and screamed, all trapped inside the double death walls of jutting deck.

  Holmes’s head slipped under the water, and he disappeared. Had he drowned? Or was he swimming beneath the jumble of kicking legs and feet?

  At any moment, the whole ship would smash into the Thames and sink. Whatever I did, it had to be fast. I didn’t want to die this way.

  Releasing the board to which I’d been clinging, I filled my lungs with air and then thrust my arms down, letting my body spring up as far as possible out of the water. As my body came back down, I thrust both arms out to my sides and up, up over my head, hence shoving my body as far below the surface as possible.

  With my eyes shut, I plunged into the icy blackness.

  I could feel the agitation of the water from the flailing arms and legs above me, and swam as fast as I could. If I didn’t get to the edge of the sinking boat quickly enough, if I didn’t get past all these people, then I would surely drown.

  A few bubbles of air escaped my mouth.

  Despite my best efforts, my body began to rise. My head knocked against a leg, and I grabbed it with both hands and shoved myself past it. I floated yet higher toward the surface.

  Expelling the last of my air, I wondered how long I could hold onto life.

  With death near, images of my beloved wife, Mary, and our son, Samuel, flashed through my mind. I love you, I thought, both of you, more than anything… and then my mind shifted to other things, perhaps my last thoughts on this Earth: Sherlock Holmes, Professor Fitzgerald’s warehouse on the edge of the Thames, and the eerie keening of the Order of Dagon. In my mind, I saw spherical bones etched with esoteric symbols, a ratcheted bone snake with gold prongs, and the creatures as they fell into the crowd from the warehouse ceiling. I saw the furniture of deadly dimensions. I saw Willie Jacobs shoveling lead into his deadly, gold-producing tram machine. I saw Swallowhead Spring, where Holmes and I had witnessed the deadly production of Bellini’s Norma. Finally, one image stayed with me, that of Mary and Samuel.

  My body begged for release from the freezing water. My lungs ached.

  I needed air, needed it badly.

  It was then that I realized that nobody’s feet and legs brushed against my body, that I was free of the Belle Crown.

  My head popped above the surface of the water.

  I gasped, deeply sucked the cold air into my lungs, and opened my eyes to a wash of prickly color.

  Flapping my arms, I trod water with my legs. Still gasping, I rotated, blinking rapidly to clear my vision.

  The ship was directly behind me. Dead bodies floated past. A hand clawed at the sky, then sank beneath the water. Blood, clothing, ladies’ hats, dolls, and ripped human limbs churned up and down on the black waves. As on the battlefield, I heard the wailing of death, the cries for help, the prayers to God. The wind reeked of blood.

  Desperation filled me.

  I twisted again into a swimming position, and this time on the surface, I swam away from the Belle Crown. It was tough going, as the current was fierce and I was exhausted; but as I finally stroked past the crash site, I let the current pick me up and sweep me downstream: past the ship and past the death scene.

  I, too, would die in the River Thames.

  Did I pray? I think I did, yes.

  Did I ask for forgiveness for the wrongs of my life? I think I did, yes.

  Did I have regrets?

  Absolutely, I did, yes.

  Yet I was at peace.

  I could no longer struggle against the power of the water.

  Nature rules everything. If you doubt for a second that man’s place in this world is negligible, put yourself in the middle of a freezing river, and you will immediately understand how weak we are, how dependent on the whims of nature for our very existence.

  I stopped trying to swim. The cold clenched me in its death grip.

  I peered at the dark water and the distant shore with its lopsided clutch of buildings. These would be my final visions.

  A fog bell sounded. As I raised my head so that my ears were above water, a man’s voice called, “Hold steady! Help is on its way!”

  A police boat was bouncing over the waves toward me.

  I could barely believe my good fortune. Somehow, I found my last thread of energy. My legs trod water more furiously as I fought to remain aloft with my head above the river. I lifted my right arm and waved.

  The small craft pulled alongside me, and two men threw a coiled rope into the water. I slipped it over my head and under my arms. The men dragged me through the waves to the boat. They hauled up the rope, and my hands found iron rings on the side of the boat. I hadn’t the strength to hoist myself up. The men did it for me. Strong arms and hands lifted me from that merciless black pit of water and over the side of the police boat. They deposited me on the deck. Stretched on my back, shivering, my eyes closing to the world, I whispered one word:

  “Holmes…”

  “What did you say?” A man’s voice was close to my ear. I felt his breath upon me.

  “Holmes,” I whispered again, this time more strongly.

  “Did you say, Holmes?”

  Weakly, I nodded.

  A second man stooped beside me, and through slit eyes, I saw the uniform of a London policeman.

  “Another man swam clear of the Belle Crown, as you did, sir. We picked him up, as well, and he rests yonder. We’ll take you both to shore and to medical care. You rest now, sir. You rest.” He touched my shoulder, then my eyes shut and I saw no more.

  The boat careened across the waves. My stomach filled with acid. I swallowed, trying not to be sick. I felt confident that the other man picked up by the police boat was Sherlock Holmes, for I’d followed him beneath the water—or so I assumed. On the other hand, he might have drowned along with the others. I preferred to believe that my thinking had evolved over time to parallel his, and vice-versa. I preferred to believe that, if I’d known that our only safe course was swimming beneath the other passengers, then Holmes would have reached the same conclusion.

  Of course, somebody else might have concluded the same.

  I managed to open my mouth and croak a few words.

  “Holmes. Other man. Holmes?”

  I opened an eye. The policeman still stooped beside me.

  “If your friend is tall and thin with gray eyes and a sharp tongue, then we have your man, yes.”

  At this, I let myself fall asleep, relief washing over me. Gray eyes and a sharp tongue. Who else but Holmes?

  4

  Two policemen helped me to my feet. I staggered between them down the wooden planks of the pier. In front of me, between two policemen of his own, stood Holmes, his legs shaking, his tall frame bowed, shoulders stooped. But whatever shape we were in, both Holmes and I were alive, and for this, I was deeply grateful.

  He looked over his shoulder at me. His face was bruised, and gashes split his forehead and left cheek. The gray eyes bored into mine. His mouth twitched into a smile.

  Then the police prodded him forward, and he turned back to the task at hand, that of stumbling down the pier and onto the London streets, where I assumed, a police cart waited.

  My teeth chattered. My body shook from the cold. I smelled terrible. My legs ached, as did my arms. I could barely move the leg that I’d injured in the war. Since my marriage and the rekindli
ng of my friendship with Holmes, I’d grown weary of limping and preferred to suffer pain than show my weakness. This time, however, I had no choice. I limped.

  It was hard to move my facial muscles; most likely, I was as bruised and gashed as Holmes. In particular, my forehead and nose hurt, and I winced, thinking of the stitches a doctor would use to sew me back together.

  My ears rang, the noise punctuated by screeching and chanting in a language I didn’t know.

  “Q’ulsi pertaggen fh’thagn daghon da’agon f’hthul’rahi roa. Aauhaoaoa demoni aauhaoaoa demoni aauhaoaoa demoni.”

  I clamped my hands over my ears, shook my head, swallowed hard, yet still, the noise persisted. I’d been hearing things and having the most horrid nightmares since working on the tram machine case with Holmes. Any moment, the visions would return: the color filaments floating through the air, the throbbing of items I knew to be stationary, such as buildings and walkways.

  “Come on, then, let’s get you cleaned up and off you go.”

  I clasped the man’s arm, thankful for his voice, for it broke through the dreadful noise assailing my ears. The chanting withered, the screeching abated. My ears still rang… though faintly.

  My rescuers supported me to a standpipe and pumped clean water over me, washing off as much of the river muck as they could. I suffered the force of the water, glad that I had not swallowed any of the foul stuff. They did the same with Holmes, then eased us onto crates, where we waited for the police cart that I’d hoped would be there already. We waited for blankets or warm, dry coats.

  “You look as if you’ve just returned from the war,” Holmes said.

  “As do you,” I said, “and you did not even serve in the war.”

  He chuckled through blue lips. Blood stained his face. The gash on his cheek puffed along the edges, indicating possible infection; though the swelling might cease, I thought, given appropriate medical care: ointment, bandages, periodic ice.

  As if either one of us wanted ice applied to our bodies any time soon…

  Holmes stared at the hard dirt of the street.

  “That officer told me that most of the passengers died,” he said. “Those who were not rescued before the boat broke up. A few men survived the wreckage, though, as well as one or two young women. All the others—infants, mothers, the elderly—everyone else drowned, Watson. The police will be dredging the river for weeks.”

  “As they did with the Princess Alice,” I said, “when more than 650 perished in the Thames.”

  People sauntered past: couples chatting, children laughing as they had aboard the Belle Crown right before the crash. Any of these people might have chosen to take a pleasure cruise on the river instead of strolling along its edge. Any of them might now be dead. I wondered, Has news of the wreck not yet traveled this far downstream?

  Carriages and horses clattered along the cobblestones and dirt. Men with carts called to each other, bargaining over prices and goods. A boy pointed at Holmes and me with our police escorts. His father whispered something in his ear, and the boy looked quickly away.

  Holmes chuckled again.

  “They probably think we’re criminals,” he said.

  “Or drunken idiots who jumped into the Thames and had to be rescued by police,” I said.

  “I have my chemical habits, Watson, but drink is not one of them.”

  “And for that, I’m thankful,” I said, thinking of my friend’s cocaine habit. My ears had ceased ringing, but I wondered, as I had for this past month, if I were going mad. I wasn’t the type to overly indulge with drink, nor did I seek what Holmes referred to as his chemical habits. Something was affecting me, of that I was sure: an infection of the mind, a disease.

  A group of men staggered past, clutching at one another to maintain their balance, their faces haggard, their laughter gruff. An old woman stumbled from a crumbling ruin of a building, the siding unpainted and splintering, the windows boarded up with rusty nails.

  The Eshocker dens, I thought. They’re everywhere by the docks and even on the side streets where people live. It was becoming commonplace to see electrotherapy addicts mingling with ordinary citizens.

  I glanced at Holmes. He had also noticed the addicts. His eyes sparked with desire. With a start, I realized that Holmes was no stranger to the Eshocker dens. A man who sank into the haze of drugs to fight boredom could just as easily seek out electrotherapy devices.

  “There’s nothing wrong with electrical stimulation,” Holmes had told me many times. “Those of the medical profession, doctors such as yourself, use these devices all the time to cure a vast majority of modern ailments.” And it was true, I knew, that doctors were applying mild electrical voltage to treat everything from constipation to blindness and paralysis. Holmes owned an electrical-stimulation hairbrush as well as a belt, and had been enthusiastically testing their efficacy upon his own person, without, I thought, much effect.

  But electrotherapy treatment was one thing and Eshocker den addiction was quite another. Pay a price, and you could zap your brain into oblivion.

  A boy with a dirt-streaked face darted between two addicts and ran into the crumbling building. He reminded me of Timmy Dorsey, Jr., the boy who lived with his father, a butcher turned murderer, in an Osborn Street building adorned with an unedifying sign that proclaimed MEAT. The building was a short walk from where Willie Jacobs had operated the now-simmering tram machine. I shuddered to remember that monstrous beast, with its steel limbs clattering against the walls and ceiling, its coiled tubes and phosphorus pit, its abilities to attack and even kill.

  A police carriage clanked around the corner. The officers helped us up and called for the driver to take us to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

  “The Eshocker dens are vile places,” I told Holmes as we settled onto the carriage seats. “You should avoid them. They could kill you. All this electricity, we don’t know what it really does. Other doctors may have their ideas—the electric aura, the sparks, and vibratory motions, thinking of electricity as some sort of magic fluid that cleanses the body of toxins—but I have my doubts. I see no real proof.”

  “I will use my belt, and I will use my brush,” Holmes said, “as they do me no harm whatsoever, and indeed, they provide mild and enjoyable stimulation.”

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t in the mood for an argument about anything, much less any of Holmes’s less-than-desirable addictions. If I were going to break him of one, it wouldn’t be his hairbrush. Rather, it would be the cocaine.

  “That creature I shot,” Holmes said, abruptly switching topics, “it was not alone, Watson. There are others of its kind in the Thames. The police must keep all boats off the river and must keep all citizens away from the banks. Perhaps the creatures prefer the water—that is why I was looking for them in the river today, though I admit I did not expect them to have grown so large in such a short space of time. Perhaps the Order of Dagon has been careful to release them near water—at Swallowhead Spring and at the warehouse on this very bank not so long ago.”

  Holmes still sought rational explanations for the creatures’ existence, something other than my theory about different realms or dimensions beyond our own. And yet, I feared that his conjectures were only that: conjectures that we would never prove to be fact.

  “But why would they prefer water, and on what grounds do you think the Dagonites have released the creatures?” I asked.

  “I have no grounds, Watson.” He frowned. “I am but trying to draw parallels among the events.”

  “I agree,” I said, “that the families here, enjoying a day by the river, are at risk. Those things in the river… what if they slither up to the shore and enter the heart of London, the streets themselves?”

  “Anything is possible,” my friend said, and then he shut his eyes. His body trembled with cold, as did mine. We would confront the nightmare of the creatures and their assault upon London in the morning. For now, it would suffice to rest and regain our strength.
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br />   But first, I had something more important to consider, and I was not looking forward to considering it, much less taking the necessary action.

  I could wait no longer.

  I had to send Mary and Samuel out of London and to safety. They’d only returned to me last week, and this time, when Mary left me, she might never come back.

  5

  DR. REGINALD SINCLAIR

  Whitechapel Lunatic Asylum

  “Close your right eye. Now tell me, what do you see, Mr. Norris?”

  I crouched by the patient, carefully watched his movements, and gauged his reaction to my instructions. He was insane, as were all of my patients, but Mr. Norris’s hallucinations—unlike most people’s—seemed one-sided. That is, he saw specters with only his left eye and heard demons only with his left ear. I believed him to be an excellent candidate for my Eshocker machine, possibly in extreme treatment mode.

  Excitement surged through me, spreading a tingling sensation down my arms and into my fingers. Was this not an electricity of sorts? Excitement galvanized people, did it not? Excitement was the spark of life, whether its cause was natural or induced by electrotherapy.

  Ah, the marvels of the modern world. How wonderful to be a medical doctor, a scientist of the brain, in this modern age. How wonderful to control the treatment of patients, to be the director of the Whitechapel Lunatic Asylum.

  Mr. Norris squeezed his right eye shut and squinted from his left. Both hands quivered on the arms of the chair. He smelled like decay. His teeth, what was left of them, were chipped and brown. A few strands of gray hair hung over his eyes, and I reached one gloved hand up and swept the strands from his line of vision.

  His arm lifted, still quivering, and batted at the air, then dropped again.

  “What do you see?” I pressed.

  “Th-the heads, they float past me, and such evil lewd grins, sir, such as I see! Th-the hands, they float past, pointing at me, judging me, condemning me. Th-the voices—” At this, the poor man slapped his hand over his left ear. “They threaten me, want to kill me, tell me I’m evil, tell me I am bound for hell, though truth be told, sir, I am already in hell!”