The Dunwich Dungeon

by Byron Craft

  There is a science beyond humanity’s limited understanding of the universe, and I witnessed it that very evening. Sayter lifted what appeared to be a hatch, a trap door and moments later a crystalline object glistened, reflecting light that came from no apparent source but churned and roiled the radiance within its structure. It couldn’t have been more than three-feet high. If this was the mysterious Windlass, I had somehow imagined it to be much larger.

  In the glow of the mechanism, I could make out the ugly mug of Francisco Sayter. Unbuttoning his shirt, I saw a cloth sack hanging by a string around his neck. The fish monger undid the top and removed the medallion and the dagger. The two stolen artifacts that the fiend committed murdered to obtain.

  I had a strong urge at that very moment to run in and collar the S.O.B., but curiosity got the better of me. Part of me wanted to end our case then and there although I did yearn to know if the Windlass was all legend or steeped in fact. On the other hand, busting Francisco might not give me the whereabouts of Ian Woodhead. I motioned for Bell to stay put. We waited.

  Inserting the two artifacts into the device, we watched as Sayter adjusted the medallion piece and then pushed the knife, which had now become a lever, forward. The ballroom became brighter than sunshine. Upon the wall, where the five-sided charcoal drawing resided, appeared a country setting. It wasn’t crystal clear; a shimmering light curtained the life-size vision. Ghosts might be frightening when they are vague and unseen, but material horrors only grow with clarity in the light. In that instant, I knew that the things I was seeing were not tricks of the blinding glare or phantoms of the imagination.

  The image was mindful of a road heated by the sun, the air nearest the road becomes hotter than the air, and it plays havoc with light waves causing it to shimmer. Beyond the veil, we observed rolling green hills and a rich forest. Francisco Sayter shouldered a burlap sack and casually walked through the opening. There was a “pop, ” and he was gone. I jumped to my feet and jerked open one of the French doors. Bell was close behind. I ran across the parquet flooring and came within inches of the flickering portal. It was nighttime in Arkham but the day was bright and sunny on the other side of that wall. I observed a flock of birds fly out of a clump of bushes; they looked like whippoorwills. I expected the image to disappear any second; on the contrary, looking down at the Windlass I could see that it was quietly humming, still running. The golden spires on the device rotated in unison with its silvery mirrors. Cautiously reaching out I touched the radiant curtain array with the thumb and forefinger of my right hand. There was a slimy residue. It had an awful odor. “What is it?” asked Bell.

  “Smells like dead fish.”

  “What should we do?” he asked painfully aware that everything had now become unfamiliar and bizarre.

  All I had were my instincts to follow. “Come with me!” I ordered. “There is no time to lose.” I am certain that Bell had no idea of what I was about to do. He did, however, stick to me like glue as I ran back outdoors. “I’ll drive!” I commanded as I got behind the wheel of the Model A. Robber, as usual, jumped up on the front seat between Bell and me. I started the Ford and fired up the headlights. No need for concealment now.

  “What are you doing, Sir?” pleaded Bell.

  “We are about to discover the transformation of time and space,” I answered shifting into first gear. I pushed the accelerator to the floor and the car rode up the stairs in huge bumping, jerking strides. An instant later we smashed through the French doors. Bell had covered his face with his hands before the impact. I didn’t let up and shifted to second. I had forgotten about nights lacking sleep, my adrenalin was high, “The resale value of this automobile is rapidly diminishing!” I screamed above the roaring of the engine and the loud creaking protests of the wooden floor beneath our tires. All noise ceased when we entered the portal.

  We were lost to any sense of location or direction. Within the barrier we had penetrated all sound went unnoticed. We were someplace else . . . On a huge misty plain that stretched on forever. It was interrupted only by clumps of thicker fog banks, that went off in immeasurable distances and disappeared into the haze of a purple sky. The horizon didn't curve as it should. It was flat and endless. Nothing appeared to fade from view. It was as though we could perceive every aspect surrounding us with immense clarity using both a microscope and a telescope simultaneously. Our viewing scope was breathtaking. This dimension, if that is what it was, seemed so much bigger than the world we left just a few feet behind us.

  I looked at the pair seated next to me. Robber, the mutt, stared straight ahead, calm as could be, as if we were on a Sunday drive. Bell, on the other hand, looked like he was praying. Quite possibly a declaration of faith in a locality where worship might not have any meaning.

  The veil that obscured our reality gradually became detached, allowing our intrepid souls to peek under its hem and see the true nature of the world we were approaching. There was a rumble like an avalanche. In an explosion of light and sound, we found ourselves racing down a grassy slope. I softly applied the brakes to prevent us from rolling the car over. Gently pumping the brake pedal, I brought our vehicle to a complete stop. Ahead was a countryside both beautiful and primitive. In the rear-view mirror, I witnessed a sight that perplexed me. A large black bird emerged from a torrent of air resembling a tornado that had been turned on its side, the portal that we had just left. Bell, recovering from his religious experience, saw the bird too. He looked at me and I, in turn, looked at him, “Maggot,” we both declared in amazement.

  ***

  To most, Dunwich is a blank space on the map of Massachusetts. Not for me. I had brought along a detailed map of Dunwich. It was part of my hunch inspired by my ghostly visit from Ian. The archives at our station house supplied the chart, and I had it tucked into my lunch pail.

  Bell was observing Maggot soaring the thermals while I unfolded the map. “I wonder if having a vulture follow you is a good omen or a bad one?” he asked examining the sky.

  “I’ll settle for good,” I answered, carefully studying the chart. The drawing was at least thirty-years old, and I hoped it was still accurate. It probably was, nothing much changes in Dunwich. Opening the car door, I jumped down from the running board. The grass was damp. It must have rained recently. The ground was very soft. I tried playing Indian scout to see if I could pick up our perp’s trail. Sayter was a heavy guy, and his footprints weren’t difficult to find. I located multiple sets since he likely made the trip several times. The freshest set of tracks stopped abruptly next to tread marks in the mud. “Looks like our perp had a vehicle waiting for him,” I announced.

  One set of prints, partially washed out, led perpendicular, away from the tire marks, towards an outcropping of rock. “It’s curious that all of his tracks lead to here except for those,” considered Bell walking around the Ford with Robber on a leash. The dog sniffed and pawed at the recent footmarks.

  “That’s good enough for me,” I proclaimed and got back behind the wheel. Bell and Robber assumed their positions next to me once again. The engine turned over without a hitch, and we were on our way.

  I had my head stuck out the side window as I drove. Keeping an eye on Francisco’s tire marks, we slowly moved without stopping. Shortly, we came upon a fork at the junction of the Aylesbury Pike just beyond a place marked on the map as Dean’s Corners. The Miskatonic River empties into the sea two miles south of Kingsport. If you follow it, back up the land, east-to-west, as it flows through Arkham, across Massachusetts, it will eventually take you to its origins, the springs in the hills west of Dunwich. I came to a stop. The springs were on our left and ahead was the lonely and curious village.

  “Are we going into Dunwich, Sir?” asked Bell.

  “Probably not a good idea,” I pointed out.” We're dressed like city folk, and we could be mistaken for revenuers. They don’t take too kindly to government agents in charge of collecting taxes, especially ones responsible for halting the unlawful dist
illing or bootlegging of alcohol.” I knew for a fact that the Massachusetts State Police stayed clear of Dunwich whenever possible. “Look down there,” I said drawing Bell’s attention to an old building with a boarded parapet wall, and wood front walk on a mud caked street. “That’s Osborn’s General Store where every gun touting resident hid out during the Wilbur Whateley affair back in 1928.

  “You were involved with that case back then weren’t you, Sir?”

  “Only briefly. My partner and I came in at its conclusion and witnessed Wilbur’s death inside the library of Miskatonic University. He was a strange bird, only half human, maybe less than half. He’d been traveling the country searching for old documents he needed for some horrible quest of his. What that quest was, I was never in the know. However, what the state police and our guys at the precinct never learned, was Whateley’s source of income.”

  “What did that have to do with it?”

  “Odd Wilbur, you see, was born here and like most residents of Dunwich should have been dirt poor. Wilbur Whateley, on the other hand, traveled the U.S. extensively in his mad search for knowledge and that must have cost a pretty penny. How he came by the money to fund his pursuit no one ever found out.”

  We came upon a ravine with a crude wooden bridge of questionable safety spanning it. I had Bell and Robber get out while I, alone, slowly drove the Model A across the boards. There was a stretch of marshland below that was fed by one of the Dunwich streams. It was a good steep drop of at least twenty feet. The bridge held and once on the other side I motioned for my two companions to follow.

  The thick woods surrounding us opened abruptly into a clearing. From studying the map, I knew exactly where we were; the Devil’s Hop Yard, a bleak hillside where no tree, shrub, or blade of grass is said to grow. “There were stories about this area back when the Whateley line flourished,” I announced, hoping to put a scare into Officer Bell. A little fear can be a healthy thing. It keeps a fella on his toes. “The folks around here tell of noises in the hills that continued year after year. They say it formed a puzzle to geologists that came to investigate. The consensus amongst the locals is that some of the Whateley kinfolks were attempting to call forth demons from the stars.” I ad-libbed a bit, but it got Bell’s attention better than one of those Amazing Stories Magazines he reads. "Many have gone into Dunwich and never come out," I added just for fun.

  "Really, Sir?" he asked swallowing hard, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. “Maybe we should get the heavy artillery out of the trunk,” he suggested.

  I eyeballed him. His nerves were on edge. “Not yet, Bell. Not unless things get serious. Besides, there’s not much room left on the front seat to start bringing up the iron.” He nodded and chambered a round in his Colt.

  The gag was steeped in half-truths, well maybe seventy-percent. I was going to continue with the rib, but then a wooden structure came into view. It was no less than two-stories high with a flat tarpaper roof. It looked as if it had been constructed piecemeal out of used lumber. The rummage-sale material was almost comical. Some boards were blue others green and more than a few displayed the residue of whitewash. It reminded me of a patchwork quilt pounded together with rusty nails crudely splicing sections of splintered wood together. It was a haphazard building, leaning toward the south and one wall bulging outward. There were no windows that I could see from our point of view, only one set of rolling barn doors facing us.

  The ground around the structure had been flattened, and the remains of a farm fence were scattered around the perimeter. I brought our car to a stop about a hundred-yards short of the building and turned off the motor. The three of us sat in silence and stared straight ahead. There were no signs of life.

  “If Sayter came here there is no vehicle in sight,” said Bell breaking the silence.

  “Unless he parked it in that building,” I added. I looked at Robber. He whined. He seemed anxious. “One way to find out,” I declared and got out of the car. “Time to bring out the iron, Matthew.”

  Fully armed we marched quietly towards the hodge-podge assembly. Bell and I spread out keeping ten-feet between us. Crossing the battered perimeter, I noticed a small faded sign atop a rural mail box that had been crushed flat to the ground. It read, “Whateley.” Had Francisco Sayter, somehow, come into possession of the Whately property? Or was this a clandestine borrowing, a trespass, an ideal hideout? The people of Dunwich were very superstitious about the area and very seldom came near the old farm.

  I cocked the Tommy Gun and set the selector lever switch for full auto. When the trigger is depressed, the bolt is released traveling forward to chamber and simultaneously fire the first and subsequent rounds until either the trigger is released or the ammunition is exhausted. The damn thing was heavier than hell. Bell followed suit and cocked his 12-gauge. We both briefly halted, aware that the metallic sounds of chambered rounds might attract the deadly curious. All was still quiet.

  Bell rolled the barn door to one side while staying clear of the opening. Robber remained at his side and marked his territory next to the door. I, on the other hand, stood flat-footed with the machine gun pointed at the interior. Our American servicemen nicknamed the Thompson “The Trench Broom.” I hoped and prayed, at that moment, that whatever horror might come would be swept clean. Bell took up a position next to me. So, did the mutt. We waited. It seemed that lately, that was all we were doing, waiting.

  A loud chorus of whippoorwills amongst the nearby shrubbery commenced a rhythmical piping, and an abnormal profusion of dragonflies flew out of the opened doorway. The birds remained unseen, but the dragonflies zigged then zagged and skirted around us.

  “Do you hear a sort of humming?” asked Bell in a whisper. “It is high-pitched.”

  I listened but could hear nothing.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It is probably a little higher than your ears can pick up. My hearing is very sensitive.” There was a slight tremor in his voice, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Detective,” Bell confessed, echoing my thoughts. I questioned my judgment about the telling of the ghost story. It probably made matters worse for Bell, and it was certainly giving me the heebie-jeebies.

  There was that dead fish smell again when we entered the rickety building. I could hear the humming by then. It was slight and mechanical. Once inside I could easily see that it was a windowless structure because no light poured in beside the open doorway. With my right arm, I shouldered the Thompson pointing it ceilingward and removed the flashlight from my trench coat. I flicked the switch; the light revealed a shadowy immense one room structure piled high with junk. Empty glass cylinders like the one I broke in the fish monger’s warehouse with that grotesque appendage inside littered the earthen floor. More glass was strewn helter-skelter, vials, possibly for medical use, dozens of them. The most out of place, as well as an unsettling array of oddball items, was the collection of old tires. Some were worn out car tires, truck tires and most were old tractor tires. They were stacked a good eight-feet high creating a maze of barriers. The walls of dirty black rubber created an opening, a tunnel effect, that began near the doorway and led to the center of the building. I headed in first, realizing, with regret, that it was the perfect place for an ambush. My compatriots were close behind and the humming noise grew stronger, so did that damn smell.

  It was a dark hallway of twists and turns. I was the best to be in the lead seeing that I was the one with the only flashlight. Bell had left his in the car. I was also the one with the “Trench Broom.” At one point the gloomy corridor narrowed down so tight that Bell and I had to turn sideways to keep moving. We were sitting ducks. The passageway made an abrupt turn to the left and opened into a room, all four-walls constructed of tires, as well. It was about twelve-feet square with a makeshift table made of wooden crates in the middle. There were tools the such that a plumber might use, short pieces of metal wire, along with a surgeon’s scalpel and a syringe attached to a hypodermic needle. All were neatly spread out on
a white cotton towel next to a current copy of the Arkham Advertiser. Arkham's main newspaper is the Advertiser, which has a circulation that reaches as far as Dunwich. The collection was altogether innocent, wacky and unpleasant. I expected Doctor Frankenstein to walk in at any moment.

  I was seized by an intense sensation of dread when the silence around us was broken by a visceral groan and the sloshing of water. Robber became ferocious and barked furiously at the opening to the rubber room we occupied. So much for our stealth. Whoever was in the building the jig was now up. Robber charged out of the room, and I was right behind him. I didn’t turn around to see if Bell was following. The canine stormed deeper into the interior. He out distanced me easily. Pursuing his barks and growls, I rounded another corner. I skidded to a stop coming to the end of the maze and was staring at an area just about half the size of that old ballroom in Arkham. Coming close behind, Officer Bell almost ran into me. A gasoline generator must have been on the outside of the massive building that powered a large black box with a façade of dials and gauges, the source of the humming. A dim electric light bulb dangled from the rafters barely illuminating the room.

  There was what looked like a surgeon’s operating table straight ahead and, at the far end, a large metal tank, bigger than a Buick. Something was moving inside of it. It slopped and splashed spilling water over the side as if it was trying to rise out of the cistern shaped container. I shined my light on what I took to be a face. It screamed. It sounded somewhere between a woman’s wailing and a police siren. Then I could see why it was having trouble getting out of the confines of its giant tub. One arm, if that is what it was, was missing, from where the elbow should have been on down. The head rose higher over the rim of the tank. It was goat-faced and hairless. Above its sunken yellow eyes clumped a mass of writhing feelers, a nest of headless snakes. Only they were translucent like jellyfish in waving seaweed. It shrieked again, stood erect and towered full height within the tank, exposing its upper torso.