A Lonely and Curious Country (20 page)

              "You want me to poison the water supply."

              McGovern raises his chin. "This assignment comes from the highest levels. This is knowledge we need to have. You know the locals. You know the town. Are you fit for this?"

              I weigh the bottle in my hand. It feels very heavy. "Yes, sir. I am."

              "Good man. Knew I could count on you." McGovern straightens, takes a flask from a coat pocket. "Snort? No?" He drinks, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. The room is very stuffy. Tiny beads of perspiration have gathered at his hairline. "I'll want a full report. Everything you see. Take some pictures, too, if you can. Let's make this look good for Washington."

              "Yes, sir."

              I walk back to my car through the university grounds, past empty buildings whose original purpose is unclear. I pass by an abandoned warehouse, its windows dark, dusty eyes. In each window, an identical spider, sitting at the center of a geometric web.

              I drive out of Arkham, and take the Briggs Hill Road through the ghost-town of Zoar. The sun sets in a fireball of red behind the hills, and the shadows merge into one encompassing darkness. Past Zoar, the light fades out of the sky, and the stars emerge one by one. The road narrows, and I drive through a forested hill country, lonely and unpeopled. From time to time I see movement, beyond the range of my headlights. Something in the woods, shying away from the light. Something walking out there, in the lonely country.

              The land rises, and the trees thin out, giving way to rolling farmland and open fields. I pass the blasted heath, where nothing walks by day or night, and then turn northwards, following the mostly-forgotten road that leads past Newburyport. I pass no cars, and see no one. Overhead, the stars are very bright.

              At last, I come over a rise and look down on the bay, still water lying glimmering in the light of the moon. Quiet Innsmouth, where the seas bring in strange tidings from the deeps, and the wind, sighing through the stones, tells tales of outer places where the star-wind pours from unimaginable gulfs. Innsmouth.

              I park outside of town and walk down the chalk lane that leads into the commercial district. The countryside is silent. There are no other motors here, no commerce and no traffic. I hear my footfalls loud upon the overgrown earth.

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

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

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

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

***

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

              Terrible things are blossoming in the corners of my vision.

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

              I feel haunted.

              My grandmother throws the bones.

              Somewhere a bell is tolling.

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

              She throws the bones-

              I can hear the bones humming.

              Full of terrible purpose.

              Reflected in the eyes of my ancestor.

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

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

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

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

              That bell, tolling for the dead.

***

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

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

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

              "None of us did."

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

              "Yes, sir?"

              "Tell me they're monsters."

              "Excuse me?"

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

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

              Boone turns back around to look at me.

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

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

              "Yes, sir."

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

              I stand up. "I'll be back tonight."

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

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

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

              It begins to get dark.

***

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

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

              "Everything went according to plan?"

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

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

              "Very good, sir."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              "Pulling their weight?" I say.

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

              A moment is upon me. I take it.

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

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

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

              "Oh yes?" I raise an eyebrow.

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

              "Yes, sir."

              "Good man."

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

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

              "Pardon?"

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

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

              "No," I say.             

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

              "You look a little pale," I say.

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