“Not to be outdone,” Nighworth said, “the evangelical group held a
Sunday evening service.”
Boyer sighed. “Naturally, I went along when I heard. They sang half a chorus and then everything grew quiet. Then they filed by one by one for a chance to touch the thing. I was horrified.”
“Really?” Sarton asked. “Why is that?”
The religion professor frowned, uncertain how to answer. Perhaps it had not occurred to him to interrogate his reaction. Sarton enjoyed putting younger men on the spot like this; it was one of the things he would miss after retiring.
Nighworth came to his colleague’s aid. “I’m worried that some sort of cult activity is going on. From the way students have been talking about that thing in my classes, you’d think the Virgin Mary had appeared on campus.”
After a few more minutes of this, Sarton dismissed them. “I’ll look into the matter.”
It was a fascinating case, to be sure, but Sarton believed in treating religious manias like sleepwalking: whatever you do, don’t wake the patient up. After the religion professors left, he took another look at the underground rag’s SPECIAL GARGOYLE EDITION. He found a line-drawing of the beast he hadn’t noticed before and gazed at it for a long while. Then he looked at the articles again. One of the anonymous editorialists described how the gargoyle itself had urged him in a dream to undertake this dedicated issue. Sarton tried to laugh at this, but it made him uneasy.
SARTON BEGAN TO RECEIVE MYSTERIOUS PHONE CALLS at his home. When he answered, no one spoke, but the line remained engaged. If he listened long enough to the silence, a sound began to form, but at the point where he convinced himself it was a sound, and that his ear could distinguish the intervalled cadence of words, he always broke the connection.
According to his Caller ID display, the calls originated from the art building on campus. Roddick, no doubt, Sarton told himself, but this explanation was only good enough for his conscious mind. Deep down, he didn’t believe it for a moment.
RU IZ PHONED E ARLY on a Tuesday morning as Sarton was knotting his tie before a cloudy old mirror, moments before heading to campus.
“Before you come in,” he said, “you need to know. Some bodies have been found on campus. There was a suicide pact. Four kids with slit throats and a fifth hung himself.”
Sarton didn’t have to be told where he’d done it. The image of a tree outside the art building, under the gaze of a high-set round window, flashed immediately to mind. And so did these words, which he wrote on a scrap of paper on his nightstand: THE STONE BLEEDS.
No investigator has ever made head or tail of that phrase. And, of course, Sarton is not around to explain.
THE POLICE WRESTLED WITH ONE THEORY after another. When detectives placed three of the five students at a recent goth rock festival, they decided the dark music must have prompted the mass suicide. Strange as it is to find anyone, even college students, willing to kneel with hands pressed into a tree trunk as their throats are cut one by one, that’s what happened. The first to die was probably the economics major, and it seems the baseball player did the throat-slitting before hanging himself.
One of the victims was found to have a flash drive suspended from a cord around his neck. It contained design files from the underground newspaper. Since the special gargoyle edition was the last to appear, it is safe to assume this poor soul was its editor.
The mass suicide only increased the number of visitors to the exhibition.
THESE DAYS RODDICK TOOK VALIUM with his morning coffee and swore that nothing would make him enter that gallery again. A group of student artists found him locked in his office. They pounded on the door, but he wouldn’t open it.
“Robin,” one of them said, “we know you’re in there.”
“Have you seen the state of the exhibit?” asked a strident female voice. “Several of our pieces have been damaged. Paintings have fallen off the wall, ceramics are cracked—”
“My clay bust,” interrupted another. “It plunged face down on the floor, and now the nose is all busted.”
Roddick ignored them. He wasn’t about to open the door.
“Look, Robin, we know you’re under pressure. But why did you move everything but the gargoyle out of the side chapel? This is supposed to be an exhibit of our work.”
Roddick could only smile at this; he had done nothing of the sort. He hadn’t even entered the gallery since the first weekend, when he and Murray had tried to fix the lights. Now his former colleague no longer returned his calls or answered his apartment door.
Once the students had gone, Roddick swallowed another pill to even himself out. His office was upstairs, on the opposite side of the building from the gallery, but still he felt an oppressive presence whenever he entered the building. Eerie singing filled the gallery from time to time. No matter how often he locked the doors, groups of students and local pilgrims always managed to open them. At night he dreamed of them gathering around the gargoyle. They cut themselves and presented their wounds to the impassive beast on the pedestal.
But that was the drugs talking, spiking his nights with image fragments from the suicide story he’d seen on the news. In addition to Valium, he had a desk drawer full of prescription drugs he’d bought from a student putting himself through college with the proceeds from dealing.
He was rummaging through the drawer in search of an interesting pill when a knock sounded at the door. His first thought was that the students had returned. His second thought was of Murray, followed closely by the vivid impression that it was the gargoyle at the door, tapping a clawed hand against the panel.
“Dr. Roddick?” a voice called. It was a calm, masculine voice with just the hint of a Southern drawl.
Roddick opened the door—at least, he watched his hand turn the knob. There was no trace of volition in the act. Outside, he found a distinguished though rather emaciated fellow dressed in a crisp gray suit with thick, old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses. His black tie was as narrow as the ones men had worn when Roddick was a boy, and he smelled of Bay Rum. In his right hand, the man held a black leather case shaped like a medical bag.
“I’ve come about your gargoyle,” the man said. “My name is Wardlow.” Roddick shook his proffered hand. It was warm to the touch.
“I’ve had a look at it, you know,” Wardlow said, “and it’s not a gargoyle at all. As I suspected.”
“Are you some kind of expert?” Roddick asked. “An art historian?” Wardlow tapped the leather bag. “No, son. I’m a preacher.” Then, with-out giving the professor a chance to absorb this information, the old man took Roddick by the arm and led him toward the stairwell. “Something you need to see.”
With horror, Roddick realized they were heading straight for the gargoyle. He tried to pull away, but the preacher’s grip was strong. He guided Roddick down the stairs and through the lobby to the gallery’s entrance, which was locked tight.
“That’s funny,” the old man said. “You have a key?”
Roddick watched as his own hand burrowed through his pockets and produced the shiny talisman. Wardlow accepted it and threw open the doors. Inside, the gallery was dead silent. Light from the windows illuminated dust motes. Roddick imagined people lurking in the shadows, but when the preacher walked forward, he followed.
“I’ve seen this before,” the old man was saying, “though it was years ago. I was only a boy back then, of course, but they told me it could happen again. They told me to stay in readiness.”
At this, he shook the leather bag, rattling the contents within. Roddick noted the sonorous ring of steel against steel.
The closer they came to the side chapel, the heavier Roddick’s feet became, until he had to drag them one after the other just to advance. Finally he stopped. Once Roddick caught sight of the gargoyle, his body would carry him no further. He came to a halt at the precise spot where he had seen his vision of the black-clad worshipper on the first night.
“It’s not a garg
oyle, not in the traditional sense,” the old man said. Unlike Roddick, he had no compunction about approach the thing. The preacher was like a man of science in a world of superstition, untroubled by the taboos that plague weaker minds. He stepped right up to the creature and placed his index finger on its breast. “You see the chest area,” he said, indicating the swell with a circular motion. “Also, this raised area here on the brow.” He rubbed the gargoyle’s head, indicating a spot just above the point where its eyebrows met. “No, this is not a gargoyle at all.”
“Then what is it?”
“This,” the old man said, patting it on the head, “this is a Baphomet.” “A what?”
“I know what you’re thinking.” The old man circled the gargoyle, an admiring twinkle in his eye, then placed his bag on the ground in front of it. “The details are too precise. The goat’s head, the pentagram on the forehead, the breasts—as if it was directly based on Eliphas Levi’s rendering, which is nineteenth century. . . .”
“Eliphas Levi?” Roddick asked.
The preacher glanced back at him shrewdly, light reflecting off his glasses. “All right, all right. Alphonse Louis Constant, if you will. I had no idea you were knowledgeable in such things, Dr. Roddick. But the point is, Constant actually based his rendering on one of these.” He bent over the bag and worked at its straps. “They’re found all over a certain region in France, on Templar churches. Although this is no simple carving, like those. No, this is the real thing.”
“Real? You mean authentic?”
“I mean real,” the preacher said. “The living Baphomet.”
Roddick stood perfectly still. His throat grew dry as sand.
“The dreams,” Roddick whispered. “They come from that thing?” “Oh, yes.”
“All right then. Let’s do it. Let’s destroy it.”
The preacher chuckled, straightening up. He had his back to Roddick, who couldn’t see what he had drawn from the leather bag. Images came to Roddick: a wooden stake, or perhaps a curved dagger. But these were ridiculous weapons to use against a stone idol. More likely he’d brought a hammer of some sort. Roddick wanted to step forward and help, but his body would not obey.
Wardlow bowed his head for a moment, and then he spread his feet somewhat, like a man preparing for action. He began to crouch—Roddick envisioned a mighty blow, as from a prophet of old—and then sank gently to his knees. The old man’s hands rose above his head, and clasped between them Roddick saw a gleaming cup.
The professor began to shake.
A prayer issued from Wardlow’s lips, but Roddick could not understand the words. They were echoed by voices behind him.
Roddick turned to see a group of people—twenty or thirty, perhaps more— advancing solemnly through the gallery. His knees gave and he collapsed. The congregants parted around his fallen body. They wore black robes, and they stank of offal as they passed. Roddick felt something inside, a burning in his veins, like all the pills he’d been swallowing had finally gone into action at once. His eyelids fluttered, but beneath the robes of the passing worshippers, he was sure he recognized the gait of his former colleague Murray.
BOYER FOUND THE OFFICE DOOR OPEN and decided to wait. Originally, Nighworth had agreed to join him in confronting Roddick, but that was before the Episcopalian had stopped answering his phone. Boyer hadn’t seen his colleague on campus in days.
He sat at Roddick’s desk and it wasn’t long before he spotted the half open drawer and found the colorful assortment of drugs. He examined the labels, then lifted the telephone and dialed the number for the campus police. After he hung up, he heard the sound of singing downstairs. No, it wasn’t singing, but a rhythmic chant.
The religion professor descended the stairs two at a time, then stopped at the gallery’s entrance, gazing in through the open door. Peering into the distance, he saw Roddick prostrate on the ground, surrounded by hooded figures. They faced into the side chapel, their silhouettes illuminated by a reddish glow whose source was hidden from view.
He could have turned and run. But Boyer had had enough. He knew what he had to do.
THE ARSON INVESTIGATORS WERE SHOCKED at how many flammable substances an art studio keeps on hand: paint thinner, turpentine, a variety of solvents.
Apparently Boyer commandeered a drum of one substance or another, found a cigarette lighter in Roddick’s desk, and then charged into the gallery. He made it through the cordon of worshippers and managed, after a short struggle with Wardlow, to douse the gargoyle—though he seems to have soaked himself and the old man in the process.
Then he ignited the lighter.
The investigators were at a loss to explain the fireball that blew the glass out of the chapel window and spread like napalm through the room. One theory was that faulty wiring in the track lights contributed to the conflagration, but the argument was never entirely convincing.
Nighworth, who appeared on the scene right after the campus police arrived, later insisted that a divine hand was at work in the explosion, but his judgment has been widely questioned. Witnesses at the scene described him as a raving lunatic, screaming like a madman at the burning gallery. The side chapel was utterly consumed by the blaze, as were Boyer and Wardlow, who was identified through dental records. He was a retired mechanical engineer, but his grandfather had been a snake-handling exorcist back in the day. Among those killed in the blast were Roddick and Murray, the former sculpture professor.
The story of the religion professor who fire-bombed a campus art exhibition cropped up in a number of news broadcasts. There was talk of a local town hall meeting, and a fund was established to rebuild the gallery and establish a new art department. At the next board meeting, the trustees broached the subject of necessary cuts, suggesting that the religion department hadn’t been justifying its costs for a long time now.
WHEN SARTON DID NOT APPEAR on campus for a few days, and no one in his office was able to reach him by phone, Pete Ruiz volunteered to drop by the house and check up on him. He found the front door unlocked.
Inside the vice-chancellor’s house, a gloomy stillness prevailed. The man had been a widower for twenty years, living alone, and this was the first time the dean of students had ever been inside the place.
Ruiz followed a darkened hallway into the master bedroom, where he found Sarton propped up on pillows near the edge of the bed. His eyes followed every movement Ruiz made, but his face was a mask of indifference. The vice-chancellor’s breathing was shallow. He never spoke a word. The dean questioned him and then, getting no response, called for an ambulance.
While he waited Ruiz had an idea. He found a pen and a scrap of paper on the nightstand and placed them in the vice-chancellor’s hands.
“If you can’t speak,” he said, “write your answer. Tell me what’s wrong.” Sarton gazed at the pen, then at the paper, but he wrote nothing. After a moment, he began to cry. Ruiz went to the door to let the paramedics in.
As they rushed down the hallway, Ruiz wandered to the other side of the house. A set of French doors opened into Sarton’s study. One glimpse inside and the dean’s legs gave way. He leaned against the door frame to keep from falling. The study had been transformed into a shrine to the gargoyle. Muddy newspaper photos covered the walls, and at the center of the frightening collage hung the line drawing from the underground student newspaper.
When he returned to the bedroom, he found the paramedics standing by the entrance. One of them held a handkerchief to his nose. He saw Ruiz and shook his head.
“He’s dead all right,” the man said. “From the smell, I’d say he’s been dead for days.”
“Days?” Ruiz pushed past them and went to Sarton’s side. The pallor of the vice-chancellor’s skin was unmistakable. His arm hung over the side of the bed, his eyes rolled back in his head. Ruiz couldn’t believe what he saw. Had he imagined the earlier exchange? He turned toward the paramedics, wanting to tell them Sarton had been alive just a few minutes before, but something caught his
eye.
A scrap of paper on the floor, beneath the dead man’s hand. It had been blank when Ruiz left the room, but now he could see writing on the paper. Ruiz stooped down to read.
In a shaky hand, the vice-chancellor had written: THE STONE BLEEDS.
THE LOOKING GLASS
MELODY GRAVES
I never thought the simple sound of a woman’s voice could raise my soul from the dead.
She stands only four feet eleven inches and resembles a lovely china figurine, dressed in lavish silk, resplendent in jewels. Her eyes, Spanish coals of blackened heat, entice me; her long tresses draw me to her moorings.
I must tell you her name. Breath of my breath, keeper of my soul. My angel and my demon. My sacrament and my damnation: Violetta.
Her plummy lips mouth a sweet “o” of ecstasy as her voice rises with her bosom. This voice, the breath of God, indiscriminate in its transcendence, blankets me with holy manna. How does this sound nourish, when it is merely a chimera?
Voice, the badge of the elect, how we rise above our animal brethren. Voice, which makes us human, yet enables our blasphemy. Voice, which now commands the Holy of Holies, all that—
“Pardon me, sir, do you mind terribly putting away your journal?” the man whispers. I glance up at him, his face a dim silhouette against the stage lights illuminating his earlobe.
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry to disturb you.”
The man nods and turns toward center stage, where she stands. But the moment is too perfect, and I must finish my sentence.
Voice, which now commands the Holy of Holies, all that I am and all that is in me. Fairest Eve, seductress of the ages, how can I resist you?
The man next to me coughs pointedly into his kerchief. Yes, yes I’m putting it away now.
MIdnight Diner 1: Jesus vs. Cthulhu Page 10