The Children of
Cambridge,
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On the south side of town, where those not so lucky in life
lived in run down homes with broken windows and shoddy doors, Bobby Bryant played hide and
seek with his new friend. Until recently, Bobby didn't have any friends, at least not any
that paid much attention to him. His mother was an alcoholic and he'd never met his
father, and kids can be so cruel when they find out things like that. Bobby suffered the
stares and the whispered ridicule at school, but he didn't have to listen to it when he
got home. His mother, along with the kids at school and a father he could only imagine
held no sway over Bobby's mind once he got home and let himself go.
Bobby's new friend appeared from thin air only a few days earlier,
but during those few days, Bobby experienced more fun than he had his entire life. Billy
treated him like a prince, listening to his every word and answering to his every whim. No
one had ever treated Bobby so good before. It was a new feeling to the six year old boy,
and it was something he decided with a smile that he liked a lot.
The storm that ripped through town just a few hours ago was but a
distant memory in Bobby's mind while he searched out Billy. Bobby's mom was out with one
of his uncles again, leaving the boy pretty much to himself. Had she realized
Billy's intentions, she might not have been so eager to let the boy alone. Or maybe she
would've, who's to say.
Dancing between the puddles on the dimly lit street, Bobby found
his friend exactly where he said he'd be. The black man smiled from ear to ear, revealing
rows of pearl white teeth that were blinding in the darkness of the alley. His silk
clothing rustled gently in the evening breeze like flags on a sailing ship, promising
Bobby adventures in far off lands with names he couldn't pronounce. Billy had often
engaged the boy with stories of thieves and genies, priests, and warriors. It was like
talking to one of the characters of Aladdin’s Lamp and Bobby loved every minute of
it.
"I was worried you wouldn't make it," the man said, his
voice like gentle music against the sounds of the real world.
"I promised I would come, and here I am."
"And so you are." Billy grinned. "Where's your
mommy?"
"Out. As usual." Bobby squared himself up in front of
his friend, trying his best to imitate Aladdin in the story. He put his tiny hands on his
hips and looked up into Billy's eyes. "You promised me a surprise if I came tonight.
Where is it?"
Billy laughed lightly at the boy's stance. He raised his right
hand to his face and stroked his chin.
"All in good time, little master. First, you must give me
what I asked for. Did you bring it?"
Bobby stuffed a hand down into his pants pocket and fished around
for a minute. Finally, he withdrew his hand and held it out toward Billy.
"Here it is." Bobby opened his hand, revealing an old
tin whistle his mommy gave him before he could remember. "Why do you want it?"
Billy took the whistle from the boy and held it up to get a better
look at it. "A warning to an old friend who should be along any time now," he
said finally. He pocketed the whistle with a snap of his wrist and looked back down at
Bobby. "So, little master. Are you ready to go to my palace?"
This was it. The moment Bobby waited for had finally arrived. All
the ridicule he'd suffered his entire life would be washed away like so much dirt as soon
as he went to where Billy came from, he just knew it. His dirty face broke into a wide
smile.
"Let's go," he said, reaching up and grabbing Billy's
hand with his own. Billy looked down at the child with a grin of his own, only this one
spelled anything but childish joy.
Renee Whateley's cellar stank of rot and decay, but
she was too far gone to worry about it. Her last meeting with the messenger was not at all
what she expected, and it cost her dearly. A small part of her mind, the part that still
retained what was left of her sanity, knew she would never survive another confrontation
with Nyarlathotep in her human form. Yet confrontation was inevitable. The clock was in
motion and things much greater than any force she believed conceivable were preparing
their entrance into reality. She could only hope she would be dead when it came.
Nyarlathotep came to her the night of Shannon Peterson's
disappearance, just as she expected. He brought her a gift, a pound of flesh and a beaker
of blood for her own consumption to seal their pact. Her father had told her to expect
some sort of ceremony to this end, though she had no idea it would be this. She partook of
the offering in order not to enrage her benefactor, and that's when everything turned bad.
The blood was tainted, laced with a narcotic known only to the
oldest priests and listed only in the darkest passages of the dread Necronomicon.
She knew this the moment the blood touched her lips, but by then it was too late. Though
she didn't know of it herself, her grandfather once told her of an elixir that allowed the
mind to travel into the past. It was this elixir that she was now victim of.
Her vision blurred and the tiny cellar turned to fog, the only
thing remaining in clear focus was Nyarlathotep. Vertigo washed over her, threatening to
push the bile from her stomach in waves of nausea. Her vision spun wildly while sparks of
different colors exploded in her brain.
Slowly, Nyarlathotep faded from her sight and was immediately
replaced by a shadowy being of garganteous proportions. Behind the creature the landscape
took shape, if that's what one could call it. The primal vista steamed with grayish fog
from pits of oozing slime against a slate sky. Giant blocks of stone littered the
landscape, marking some great alien structure that was beyond human comprehension. To
Renee it seemed some mad architect had been hard at work, throwing blocks of granite into
a mishmash of physically impossible angles. Wherever those angles converged, though, they
created feasibility. The concept threatened to rip Renee's mind apart with its horrible
beauty.
Shadows began to move among the blocks of stones, slithering and
slobbering just beyond her sight. Whether she could not see them because they chose to
remain out of sight or because they existed in the realm just beyond the vision of mortal
man, Renee did not question. For either reason, she was glad she couldn't see them. Their
obscene sounds frightened her beyond her limited knowledge of terror.
Had her great grandfather known that acceptance into the fold of
the Great Old Ones would be like this? She doubted it. How could any man, no matter how
insane, wish for such a vision? Renee began to have doubts about what she had done, though
she knew it was much too late to do anything about it.
The largest of the shadows, what had been Nyarlathotep only
moments before, detached itself from its surroundings and moved toward Renee. Though she
knew that this was all just a vision, she could not help but flinch from the approaching
shade. It was so real, so real in fact that she could feel the frigid cold emanating from
its dark body. A smoky tendril broke away from the shadowy form like an arm and reached
out for Renee.
At once Renee knew what it wanted. Her entire body shook with
apprehension bordering on terror as she reached out for the shadow. Her fingertips brushed
the darkness and immediately felt the piercing cold of space. In that briefest of contact
with the form, she understood everything there was to know about Nyarlathotep, his land,
his soul. And in that briefest of moments her mind snapped in two like a brittle twig,
frail and vulnerable against the raging tempest before it.
The entire history of the Great Old Ones raced through her mind,
filling it beyond its capacity of comprehension with the way things once were on the earth
and how they would soon become once again. Her parents, her grandparents—they would
have never survived the ordeal and she knew it. They always said she was the strongest
Whateley to come along in the last two centuries. They would've laughed to see her now as
she witnessed the downcast of the Great Old Ones in vivid detail.
She watched hideous beings slither from primal pools of slime
across cyclopean landscapes. In terror she witnessed the birth of he who sleeps in R'lyeh
waiting for the stars to return to the proper position. Renee wept as the first children
of man were devoured by the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young before the
beginning of time.
In an instant, the heavens split asunder and the Elder Ones cast
down the kingdom of the Great Old Ones. The Elders overwhelmed the darkness with brilliant
light, ripping their enemy asunder and casting them into the black void of chaos for all
eternity. As she watched, mighty Cthulhu swore revenge upon those who imprisoned him. Then
his city was swallowed by the raging sea and sunk to the depths of the earth.
“Shimmara fhtaghan Ithaqua, lanara keal sebal.”
The voice was as smooth as the finest silk and as hollow as
lifeless iron. She'd heard the words it spoke once before, in a rite her father conducted
when she was still a small child. But hearing them now, they way they were meant to be
spoken, made her father's recitation seem blasphemous.
“Shimmara fhtaghan Cthulhu, lanara keal farnalahk.”
This time the voice spoke a little louder, echoing slightly from
the surrounding stones. Renee opened her eyes and stared up into the shadow that stood
before her. The shadow had begun to take on substance and shape, though she could not
quite make out what it was.
“Shimmara fhtaghan Hastur, lanara keal hiennak.”
A new terror began to take hold of Renee's soul, a new terror she
never dreamed could be possible. She began to understand what the words meant, and as she
did, a primal scream began to well in the depths of her soul. Her mind called upon the god
she forsake so many years ago to help her escape this madness. The voice spoke a fourth
and final time, and with its words came the beginning of the end for Renee's body and
soul.
“Shimmara fhtaghan Cthugha, imalla reenek sinar Ad.”
The scream broke through Renee's lips like water through a
weakened dam. The shadow became solid, though it now in no way resembled Nyarlathotep.
Instead it was a mirror image of herself, though the look in its eyes were anything but
human. Its foul lips stretched in a mockery of a smile, spewing the smell of opened graves
from its mouth.
The voice that issued from the shadow's mouth called upon the four
elements of the Great Old Ones, ordering them to begin preparations for their return to
the realm of reality. Each, alone, had tried and failed time and time again to break
through from the void, but no one until now had dared attempted bringing them all four
together at once. In her arrogance, Renee had done something that should never have been.
The promises of power and wealth were suddenly exposed as lies before the light of truth.
Her payment for services rendered would be a slow, rotting death.
Unfortunately, her vision was far from over. She had no idea how
strong the elixir was that Nyarlathotep made her drink. She had to see this horrible
nightmare through.
“In each of the four shall the souls of the masters
rebirth,” the doppleganger spoke, her voice as flat and lifeless as her eyes.
“You have given us the first of the lives, and in as much you shall become the mother
of them all.”
Renee knew that she should be able to understand what her image
was talking about, but something in her mind had not yet released hold on the last shreds
of reality swimming in her mind. Until that happened, anything she heard would amount to
so much gibberish.
“When each of the four is bled and the tainted human life is
removed, the masters shall be invoked and shall take their places among the living. You
shall lead them and nuture them until the time comes that they shall inherit what is
rightfully theirs.”
The doppleganger smiled and began to melt into itself, returning
to its former shadow state. Before it was completely gone, it spoke one last time.
“You must also transform, for to approach the masters as the
human you are would be considered a transgression unforgivable even by the most tortured
of deaths. Prepare yourself for what you have asked for, for the minions which shall pave
the way shall be released.”
The words echoed insistently in her mind, she heard them over and
over as she demanded that very thing from Nyarlathotep when she first conjured the spirit.
She got her wish, the terror of that realization drove her deeper into insanity. As the
terrible landscape began to melt into the cold, gray walls of her cellar, a gush of air
escaped from Renee's lungs in a loud hiss. What did the shadow mean by transform?
That was two days ago, and Renee was now sure whatever it meant,
the transformation was taking place within her. She smelled of dead meat, her breath was
so strong it stung her own nose with its decaying stench. Dark blotches peppered her skin,
blotches that promised to turn into mucus filled blisters within twelve hours after they
appeared. Any attempt at eating only resulted in her vomiting with such force she was sure
her stomach would come out her mouth. Quickly the mere thought of food was enough to drive
her into dry heaves. She felt no better about liquids, and it had been thirty-six hours
since she had either.
Earlier that morning she half crawled, half stumbled into the
basement to her makeshift altar. She hoped that Nyarlathotep would reappear and somehow
lift this strange sickness from her. Deep down inside she knew her hopes were unfounded,
it was Nyarlathotep that made her this way in the first place.
The storm returned during the night and began to intensify
again near daybreak. Those awake early enough to hear it coming swore later that it
sounded like a tornado rocketing down the mountainside. The rumble started in the
distance, low and deep and slow, approaching Cambridge slowly until nothing but the roar
of the winds could be heard at all.
As with the day before, the ravaging winds lasted no more than
twenty minutes. That was long enough, though, to undo everything repaired since the last
storm. Trees cracked like twigs, bringing down power lines beneath their weight and
casting three-quarters of the town into darkness.. The phone lines were quick to follow,
though this time the sheriff's office was spared the inconvenience.
By 6:30 a.m., Ron, Al, and Sally were all sitting in the front
office discussing the weather. Ron lived in Cambridge all his life, but he could not
remember such weather ever hitting the area before. In the darkest recesses of his mind, a
dark link began to form between the weather and the missing children, though Ron wasn't
ready to accept it.
The sheriff's office fell into its routine, paperwork was filled
out and information filed away. The routine calmed nerves and allowed each member of the
team to collect themselves before they approach the problems at hand. Just after 7:00, Ron
called Al and Sally into his office.
"I went through the stuff we got from Arkham last
night," he said, offering each a cup of coffee by pointing at the pot while he spoke.
"Any one else want another cup?" Sally asked, pouring
herself a cup of the dark liquid. Usually she couldn't stand to drink the stuff Ron put
out. Two sips and you were awake for forty-eight hours, minimum. Today, though, she needed
it.
"No, thanks," Ron replied. "There's a lot of
information here, enough to get us thinking but not enough to help us prevent a repeat of
what happened in Arkham in '62."
"Sounds like you think the two cases are linked," Al
observed. He poured himself a cup of coffee and grabbed a stale doughnut from the plate
next to the pot. Ron watched the deputy take a bite of the dry pastry and winced.
"Let's just say I got a feeling about it. Right now, the only
solid things that tie us in with what happened in Arkham is Billy. Problem is, Shannon was
the only one who mentioned the guy. If Bobby knew the guy, he didn't say."
"Did they find out anything at all in Arkham?" Sally
asked.
"Not anything that was indicated by the records they sent us.
There were hints, but nothing spelled out in specific terms."
"Hints?" Al's voice was muffled by a mouthful of
doughnut. If the world was falling around your feet Al would still be eating.
"They referenced a place called Dunwich, along with some port
town to the north, though what they found out in the investigation wasn't in the report
they sent me. As of right now, we only have a few leads to go on.
"A Dr. Karl Mendleson of the Miskatonic University that was
called in on the case for whatever reason they saw fit. His name figured prominently
throughout the investigation and especially toward the end of the summer. That, plus the
names of the chief of police and his deputies during that summer should keep us pretty
busy."
"Do you want me to get the state in on this?" Sally
asked.
"Not just yet. I'd be hard pressed to explain how we came up
with this link so quickly, on the basis of a story from two drunk cops and an imaginary
friend. Let's see where this goes before doing anything like that."
"I'll make a few calls up to Arkham, see what I can find
out." Sally stood up and left without waiting for a reply. A minute later the two
could hear her talking to someone on the phone.
"You need to make your rounds and make sure things are as
smooth as they can be after this storm," Ron said to Al. "I'm going to get with
Pete and the state police and continue with the search. Don't think much is going to
happen because of the storm, but we'll see."
"Anything special you want me to watch out for?"
"Yeah," Ron said while standing up and walking to his
door, "imaginary friends named Billy."
The talk with Pete Smith was short and to the point. The mayor
was worried about the disappearances, though for a reason completely different then that
of the sheriff's. The election was a year away, the last thing he needed was a bunch of
kids to come up missing out of the blue. Of course, Pete never said it out loud and Ron
didn't ask, but both the sheriff and the mayor knew it all the same.
The meeting with the state police was a bit more productive.
Though no one could give any tangible leads on the whereabouts of the two children,
someone did come forward that morning with information about where the Bryant boy was last
seen the night before.
Two neighborhood boys saw the Bryant kid just before sundown
playing near the railroad tracks. They said he looked like he was playing with someone
else, though neither boy saw who it was. When asked how they knew there was someone else,
the older said the Bryant kid kept talking and gesturing to someone in the shadows.
The rain kept falling hard and steady, restricting the search to
the immediate area where Bobby Bryant was last seen. The search for Shannon Peterson was
all but over, the parents about the only ones left who still believed their daughter was
still alive. The mountains are unforgiving to the most seasoned of travelers—a lost
child didn't stand a chance in the storms that pelted Cambridge.
By midday, the state police had searched most the buildings in the
area indicated by the boys but had turned up nothing. Ron searched with them, but came to
the conclusion that the place had nothing to offer. He decided to search one last building
before returning to the office and seeing if Sally found out anything about Arkham.
The structure stood apart from the rest in an overgrown lot of
weeds and brambles. Here and there trampled paths crisscrossed the area, indicating the
place was well liked. Oddly enough, none of the paths led directly to the building. In
fact, it looked as if the paths went out of their way to avoid it.
The building, itself, was nothing more than a shack slapped
together using a mismatch of boards and a corrugated tin roof. The only thing that looked
sturdy enough to withstand a good wind was the door. Made of heavy oak and was closed
tight against the outside, the door looked wrong, out of place, almost sinister. From a
distance, it looked as if no one had entered the premises for quite some time, but
something about the place caused Ron to check it out anyway.
The cold rain had long since soaked its way past his rain jacket,
giving the sheriff the feeling he was wrapped in an wet wool blanket. His hands were pale
and shriveled and his fingertips were turning blue. As he approached the building, the
miserable feelings were violently pushed away by feelings of fear and nausea.
Standing just a few feet from the shack, Ron saw that he was wrong
about the place. Someone had been there recently—the grass and vines that threatened
to pull the building down to the earth were broken away from the door. Even with the
torrential rains, he could see the scrape marks in the ground where the door had been
forced opened. If there were any footprints, though, they were long since washed away.
The sheriff looked back toward the railroad tracks. Most of the
state police had returned to their cars and Al was lost somewhere among them. Suddenly,
Ron didn't want to enter the shack alone. It seemed he didn't have a choice. He turned
back to the shack and reached out for the door handle.
The handle was icy cold, sending a chill up his arm the second his
fingers touched it. At first, nothing happened as he tried to open the door. Finally, the
handle creaked and scraped in protest against the intrusion, but gave way to Ron's
persistence. The door jumped out at the sheriff just an inch with an audible snap.
"Daddy?"
Ron's breath froze in his lungs like ice cold lead weights. It
couldn't be!
"Help me, daddy! I'm so cold."
The sheriff's body trembled against the voice. Though he hadn't
heard it in over ten years, yet it seemed as if it were only yesterday. From the darkness
of the shack, his daughter was calling to him, crying for help against the cold.
A glint of steel from across the building flashed, shattering the
darkness.
"Daddy, please help me!"
Ron grabbed the door with both hands and pulled hard. The bottom
of the portal scraped against the concrete step of the porch, jamming the door only inches
after it opened. Ron pulled harder, opening it another six inches. That was enough. He
pulled his gun free from his holster and squeezed in through the crack.
Ron wasn't prepared for what he saw. The only illumination in the
building was the dim gray light filtering through the door. Against the far wall was his
daughter, sitting in a chair and dressed in nothing more than a T-shirt and a pair of
soiled panties. She was covered with filth and her hair in wild tangles about her
shoulders, but it was her, it was Jessica.
"Jessica," he wheezed, the word so strained in his
throat that it cracked before making it out of his mouth. Along with the name came a sob
that welled from the bottom of his soul.
The little girl was tied to the chair, her arms pulled behind the
back of the chair while her feet were pulled up beneath the seat. A single piece of rope
tied her wrists and ankles together, vicious bruises shown in the darkness around her
wrists and ankles.
Again the glint of steel flashed from the shadows, though this
time he was in a position to see what it was. From the far corner of the shack, a robed
figure was sharpening a long bladed knife on a stone next to Jessica's head. The robed
figure seemed completely ignorant of the fact that Ron was there at all. He pointed his
pistol at the figure's head.
"Put down the knife."
The figure continued to sharpen the instrument, the steel
scratching slowly along the surface of the stone.
"I said put down the knife."
Jessica whimpered. "Please daddy, make him stop. I don't want
to play anymore. Please make him stop."
The hooded figure reacted to Jessica's plea, dropping the stone to
the floor with a loud clack and waving the blade in front of the little girl's face.
Jessica pulled back from the knife, her eyes wide with terror. Ron cocked his pistol and
stepped further inside the shack. He'd lost his daughter once, he'd be damned if he'd lose
her again.
The figure immediately a handful of Jessica's hair, pulling her
head up and back sharply, driving a whimper of pain and fear from her lips. The knife
flashed in the dim light of the shack just a split second before its sharp edge sliced
into Jessica's throat.
A scream erupted from Ron's gut—and locked in his throat. He
was alone in the room, the robed figure and his daughter gone as if they'd never been. The
only other things in the shack a couple of musty blankets and a rat torn mattress
scattered across the floor.
Tremors wracked the sheriff's body, coming so fast and hard they
drove him to his knees. This was all too much for him. The case along, the possible link
to Arkham were bringing back too many memories. There could be no possible link between
his own daughter's disappearance with all the rest, yet his subconscious forced her into
the scenario, showing Ron scenes that only belonged in the darkest of nightmares.
The pressures of the last four days overwhelmed him, wracking his
body and driving him to his knees. Two children missing in a city that was just beginning
to awaken to the possibility of the nightmare was only the beginning and he knew it. There
could be no possible link between his daughter's disappearance with this terror, but his
subconscious forced her into it anyway, throwing Ron into the darkest of nightmares.
The cool musty air of the shanty was momentarily replaced by a
warm breeze that carried a soft, sweet smell upon it. He knew the smell all too well, from
countless nights he'd enter her room after he got home from work at night to make sure she
was all right. Ron looked up at the far wall, half expecting to see his daughter there
again. The wall was blank.
"Don't worry daddy, you can do it." The voice was quiet
and distant, but warm and reassuring at the same time. Then the smell was gone and Ron
knew he was totally alone.
That's when Ron saw it. Laying on the floor was a small package
wrapped in paper and tied with a string. He might not have even noticed it at all except
that it stood in dire contrast to its surroundings in the precise way it was wrapped and
set on the floor. Whoever put it there did so deliberately for someone else to find.
Ron stood up and walked over to the wall. All the trash had been
pushed back from the package, and the floor beneath it looked as if it had been swept. The
package was small and rectangular in shape, wrapped in a vanilla sheet of paper and tied
with a bright red and gold string. The string ended in a tassel draped carefully over one
side.
In all reality, there was absolutely nothing to indicate this
package had anything to do with Bobby Bryant or Shannon Peterson. As far as Ron knew, some
drunk could've dropped the thing there while seeking refuge from the rains. As it was with
Arkham, though, deep down inside at the base of his existence Ron knew otherwise. The
package stank of evil, it seethed and pulsed with an unholy air that only pointed in one
direction. And in that moment Ron realized he would never find those two children if he
searched a million years. They were gone, devoured by the evil that left this tiny parcel
behind.
The sheriff knelt down and reached for the package. His fingers
touched the surface of the bundle gingerly. The paper felt cold and hard beneath his
fingers, alien and evil. A second later he had the package open and was inspecting its
contents.
Except for the string and the paper it was wrapped in, Ron found
only an old rusted tin whistle inside. The paper proved to be the most peculiar item,
though. It was covered with strange characters and letters that reminded him of the
writings the Egyptians used to do. Hieroglyphics, he remembered from school, though he was
sure no Egyptian wrote these. Though he could not understand them, he knew what they stood
for. Their obscenity rose from the page like green vapors of poison.
Too late the sheriff thought of the possibility of fingerprints on
the paper or whistle, though he was pretty sure that he wouldn't find any anyway. Ron
folded the paper and stuck it in his shirt beneath his jacket. He pocketed the tin whistle
and took one more look around the tiny shack. Whatever was here was gone, but it left a
mark that would stay there for a long time yet to come. Brushing off a tremor of fear that
ran up his spine, Ron pushed his way out the door and back into the welcome storm waiting
for him outside.
Joannie Bryant was not the picture perfect mother she wanted
everyone to believe she was. Hidden somewhere beneath her facade of tears and sobs was
something not quite motherly. It was almost as if she was relieved her son was gone. Ron
had to admit, though, she did put on a pretty good act.
The woman was borderline anorexic, her skeletal visage made one
wonder how well she took care of her son if she let herself get to this point. Even under
such circumstances, the heavy aroma of cheap wine and liquor hung over her like a cloud.
Mixed with the odor was the smell of cigarette smoke and something Ron and Al had smelled
on derelicts a hundred times before. It was the smell of slow death brought on by alcohol
and drugs and disregard of human life.
Ron decided to stop by the Bryant place before returning to the
office, more to see if Joannie recognized the tin whistle more than to fill her in on what
was going on. The woman answered the door in a liquored daze and half spoke, half slurred
a welcome to the sheriff. Once—a long, long time ago—Joannie was considered good
looking by most. Now, her long, greasy mouse brown hair, her thin frame, and the scars of
hard life turned her into a hideous mockery of her former self.
"What'd you find out, sheriff?" she asked, stuffing a
cigarette in her mouth and lighting it with a match. She sucked hard on the smoke and blew
out a billowing gray cloud that fogged the room.
"Nothing yet," Ron replied, glancing over at Al. The
deputy was visibly sickened by Joannie's underlying attitude.
Joannie chuckled to herself and wiped her face with her forearm.
Her eyes rolled back in her head for a split second before becoming surprisingly clear.
"Told that boy not to wander off while I was at the
store," she whispered hoarsely. "That's all I was going to do, you know. I went
to the store and when I got back, he was gone."
Actually, she was only telling half the truth and Ron knew it. She
did leave Bobby alone, but not to go to the store. More likely she went over to someone's
house to do some crank, or worse. Soon after Bobby's disappearance, the state police
dwelled on the assumption that Joannie might of had something to do with the case. At the
time the option was still open, but neither Ron or Al believed it to be true. Bobby
brought her social security money, good money she could use on booze and drugs. Why would
she want to get rid of her meal ticket?
Ron's hand fumbled absently in his coat pocket, rustling the
plastic bag the tin whistle was in. The sheriff was already pretty sure the whistle
belonged to Bobby, but he had to have Joannie identify it before he could admit it as
evidence. For a second, he wondered if she was sober enough to recognize the instrument.
"Joannie," he said, interrupting her from a torrid of
curses aimed at her missing son. She looked up at him with bleary eyes and took another
drag from her cigarette. He pulled the baggy from his pocket and held it up by one corner
in front of her. "Do you recognize this?"
Joannie brought her face up to the bag and squinted, then handed
it back to Ron.
"Belongs to the boy. Damned kid used to blow that fucking
thing all day and night till it drove me nuts." She laughed to herself and hit the
cigarette again. "Little sucker always did know how to get under my skin."
Ron looked over at Al. The deputy had had about enough of this,
and for that matter, so had the sheriff.
"We're going to head back to the station, Joannie," he
said, stuffing the tin whistle back into his pocket. "You call us if you see
Bobby."
"Damned straight I will, after I beat the little sucker
within an inch of his life." The drunken woman opened the door to let the sheriff and
his deputy out.
"You know, sheriff," she said in a voice surprisingly
sober for her condition, "I don't think I'm ever going to see my boy again."
"Why's that?" he asked, looking hard into her face.
"Would you come back from one death to live in another?"
Ron watched the look in her eyes and saw, for the first time, a shred of grief pass before
them. She knew he was gone, just as he did, though he was still sure she had nothing to do
with it.
"We'll see what we can do," he replied, moving past the
woman and into the welcome coolness of the night with Al close behind.
The news back at the station was a little better than Ron had
expected. Sally's attempts to locate any of the officers assigned to the Arkham case came
up dry. The Arkham Police Department informed her the individuals involved were either
dead, moved away without a forwarding address, or just plain didn't want to talk about the
incident. Ron found the latter a little strange. If he'd been involved in the case and
found out it was happening again, he'd do everything in his power to make sure it didn't
happen again somewhere else.
Sally had been able to locate Dr. Mendleson, though. The professor
still taught at Miskatonic University and proved rather easy to find. When Sally told him
who she was and briefly explained the situation to him, he seemed hesitant to make any
comment at all. When she told him about Billy, the professor's attitude changed to one of
nervous excitement boarding on fear. Sally gave Ron the professor's phone number and told
him Dr. Mendleson was waiting for his call.
Ron grabbed a cola from the machine and went to his office. After
closing the door and sitting down at his desk, he pulled the paper with the strange
hieroglyphs from his pocket and spread it out, placing the paper with Dr. Mendleson's
phone number on top of it.
He picked up the phone and dialed Mendleson's number. After a
moment, an elderly man answered the other end.
"Hello?"
"I'm looking for Dr. Mendleson," Ron said in his best
official voice. He wondered if the man on the other end could hear the slight tremor in
his voice.
"This is he." The voice trembled slightly, from
something Ron could only interpret as fear.
"Dr. Mendleson, this is sheriff Myerson of Cambridge County,
Kentucky. I believe my secretary talked to you earlier about a case we're working on down
here."
The phone was quiet for a moment. When the professor spoke, his
voice was hushed and strained. "She did. To tell the truth, I was hoping the call was
a crank. You've no idea how long I've dreaded this very call."
"Excuse me?"
"If your situation shares any common bond with what happened
in Arkham, you have but scratched the surface of what is about to happen to your
village." The tone of the professor's voice was so firm and serious that Ron had no
choice but to believe him. The sheriff swallowed hard as the professor continued.
"We must, of course, establish a link between the two
incidents before we go any further. I would not presume to build false hope, or
hopelessness as it was in our case, before finding out."
"What do you need to know?"
"Before we continue, sheriff, you must understand something. What happened here in
Arkham went far beyond what was explained in the police reports or the papers. It was
agreed upon by all those involved that it would be better that the world at large never to
learn the true story. Such horror had never been experienced by a nation before. The
crimes of cannibalism in Chicago, the butchery in Florida—these are but minor slaps
in the face of humanity when one considers what went on in Arkham."
Ron's stomach began to churn and twist into vicious knots. Had
he heard this kind of talk a week ago, he'd have offered the man a ride to the lunatic
farm. Now he sat in silent expectation.
"Sheriff Myerson, did any of the children describe
Billy?"
"Just the first one, a little girl named Shannon
Peterson."
"Let me describe him for you, sheriff. He is a black man,
probably very tall, with skin so dark it could swallow the light of the sun. He wears
exotic clothing, most likely something flavored after the Middle East."
Ron opened the file on Shannon Peterson to verify the description
without really needing to. Shannon once told her mother Billy's skin was as black as a
chalkboard. When Mrs. Peterson asked Shannon where Billy came from, she replied that he
was from Aladdin's Lamp.
"Continue," Ron said hoarsely. He was getting a really
bad feeling in his gut.
"There is only one more thing I can ask that will prove we
deal with the same problem, sheriff. It will seem a bit trite, and chances are you will
not have even come upon this yet, but before we go any further, it must be verified.
"The kidnapper in Arkham left a calling card of sorts just
after the second abduction. We almost didn't find it because of its obscurity. As much as
we gathered, it was left not for us to find, but for someone else, someone we never found.
If you've locate such an item, you'll know what I speak of. "
Ron sat and thought for a moment. A calling card. Then he saw it,
staring up at him from the desk.
"During the search today, I found a toy tin whistle that
belonged to the latest victim wrapped in a piece of old paper. The paper is covered with
strange symbols, like the ones you see in Egyptian tombs."
The only noise Ron could hear from the other end of the line was short, hurried breathing.
When Dr. Mendleson spoke again, his voice was troubled, shaken, and very serious.
"Indeed, Sheriff Myerson, the disappearances in Arkham and
those in Cambridge do seem to be linked. I must come to Cambridge, sheriff. We have to
talk about what is going on there."
"Can't we talk about it over the phone?"
"The phones aren't safe. What we have to discuss will not do
for others to hear, even after the case is resolved. Where is the nearest airport?"
"I guess that'd be Lexington."
"I shall make arrangements as soon as I hang up. I'll call in
the morning with my itinerary."
"Are you sure you want to make the trip?"
"Those with a continued interest in the case will be more
than happy to help defray any costs incurred, I assure you sheriff. You will find that
what I have to say is much more important than anything you have ever heard before."
The rest of the conversation was short and to the point, with Dr.
Mendleson promising to call by eight the next morning with his schedule. Ron hung up the
phone and looked back down at the paper.
In the middle of the paper, one symbol stood out from all the
rest. After staring at if for a moment, it seemed that all the other symbols radiated from
it like the rays of the sun. Only one symbol did not do this, it was tucked away in the
lower left corner of the paper and was drawn somewhat smaller than the rest.
The larger symbol was drawn inside a box. Its central theme was a
star in the middle of a circle, and just below the circle was an eye. The smaller symbol
was drawn inside a circle and depicted what Ron could only guess as a rod with a ball of
flame at its base.
The sheriff stood up and stretched. The clock on the wall
indicated it was almost midnight. There was no use going home, he'd have to be back at the
station by seven to be sure he got Dr. Mendleson's call.
So, as he'd done so many times before, he cleared the couch in his
office and laid down to sleep. When he did doze off, he dreamt of flashes of steel and tin
whistles and mountains swallowing the sun.