Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (45 page)

“Have you tried hypnotherapy?”

“As a last measure of desperation but it hasn’t succeeded. The patient lacks the ability to concentrate long enough for such methods to work.”

“And what are you looking for from me?”

“To be frank, doctor,” said Stillnor, “you’ve had some success in other cases that have seemed intractable. As with any other professional, it was difficult for me to admit that there was nothing else I could do for the patient and that I needed to consult with a specialist. I hope you can help me doctor.”

“Well, I can’t promise anything, of course, but I’m certainly willing to give you all the assistance I can.”

“Fine,” said Stillnor, rising. “Would you like to look at the patient then?”

“Certainly, doctor. Do you mind if I leave my things here?”

After Zarnak had deposited his briefcase and coat in Stillnor’s office, the two made their way from the administrative wing to the wards. Emerging from the elevator on the third floor, they encountered patients sitting quietly in wheelchairs or shuffling down corridors. Others remained in their rooms as a nurse held down a station midway along the corridor and an orderly and some nurse’s aids worked directly with patients.

“How is the patient in Room 12?” asked Stillnor of the duty nurse.

“He’s been quiet for about an hour now,” said the nurse in low tones. “But that happens occasionally. I don’t expect it to last.”

“Has there been any change in his behavior otherwise?”

“I’m afraid not, doctor,” said the nurse. “When he’s active, he still raves about the snow and such.”

“Thank you. This is Dr. Zarnak; he’ll be consulting with me on Danforth’s case.”

“How do you do, doctor?” asked the nurse who could not help noticing the slash of silver that zig-zagged like a bolt of lightning through Zarnak’s otherwise dark hair.

“Very well, nurse…Popworth?” said Zarnak, looking at the name pin on the woman’s uniform. “What’s this about snow?”

“A mania the patient has,” said Stillnor before the nurse could reply. “Ever since coming out of the coma, Danforth has expressed an extreme phobia of snow. Possibly connected to his experience in Antarctica many years ago. I’ve considered the possibility that his current state is some kind of throwback to those days…he may be imagining that he’s still there in those cold, isolated wastes.

“Such cases have been known to drive men to insanity but, from what I understand, he was somewhat well adjusted after he first returned from Antarctica,” said Zarnak. “Something else may be at work here.”

“Only one way to find out,” said Stillnor leading the way to room 12.

There, he opened the plain wooden door…it was unlocked…and motioned Zarnak inside.

According to the chart that Zarnak took from the end of the bed, Charles Danforth was 60 years old but looked older due mainly to a thin frame which had been nourished almost entirely intravenously since his hospitalization in 1935. His hair was entirely white and the padded cuffs that held his arms and legs to the bed frame seemed hardly necessary to restrain such a wisp of a figure.

At the moment, the patient was awake but resting quietly. His dark eyes were alert however as they focused on Zarnak and tracked him as he moved around the bed. Taking a penlight from his breast pocket, Zarnak examined Danforth’s reaction to light. Satisfied, he straightened and put away the instrument.

With Danforth’s eyes still looking into his, Zarnak saw the patient try to speak.

“What is it, Mr. Danforth?” asked Zarnak, bending forward.

“Snow…” whispered Danforth. “Is it…snowing?”

Encouraged by the seeming rationality in the patient’s voice, Zarnak was careful in making his reply. “Why no. It’s not snowing outside. Why does that matter, Mr. Danforth?”

“The snow was white,” said Danforth, struggling for breath. “The mist was white…those mountains…higher than the clouds…higher than anything… They were so big, even 300 miles away…so high they touched the stars…but there was something bigger still! I saw it! It moved and was standing
behind
the mountains!
Behind
the mountains!”

Suddenly, Danforth lost control of himself and began to laugh hysterically, then to thrash about, pulling at his restraints. Froth began to foam on his lips and his eyes grew big and round with the veins standing plain on the whites of his eyeballs.

“The snow! The damned snow! It covered it all over so that I couldn’t see! The thing! The thing that towered over the mountains! Oh, God! The snow! Thank God for the snow! It hides everything, even the truth!”

So violent became his struggling that Stillnor feared for the patient’s safety. Quickly, he called for a sedative and when it was finally delivered, stabbed the needle into Danforth’s arm and threw the plunger.

It was a powerful dose and soon took effect…or at least it seemed to.

Danforth had certainly calmed down but the action came too swiftly to be the result of the sedative. His eyes still open, they no longer made contact with those of his visitors. Instead, they stared unblinkingly at the ceiling.

“The shape must be altered,” he was saying, almost under his breath. “The bounds disfigured. The Elder Sign of Mnar must be broken. Must find the stones. But the snow, the snow will make it hard to find them. Must find them before it snows…”

The words trailed off at last as the full effects of the sedative took hold.

“Is there anything else you need to see, doctor?” asked Stillnor after a few moments when the room was filled only with the sound of Danforth’s steady breathing.

Zarnak shook his head from where he had moved to the foot of the bed. “No. I think I’ve seen all I need to see.”

Later, back in Stillnor’s office, the two physicians consulted.

“So what has been your own diagnosis, doctor?” asked Zarnak by way of opening the discussion.

“Well on the face of it, the patient’s ravings make little sense aside from an obvious phobia related to mountains…a fear of heights perhaps? On the other hand, he also seems unusually apprehensive about snow; you noticed how the first thing he said when he saw you was to ask whether it was snowing?”

Zarnak nodded.

“The solution to the patient’s problem then is to find some way to relieve him of these unfounded fears,” continued Stillnor. “Unfortunately, his nervous attitude seems to preclude, at least for the time being, analysis of any kind. A leading dialogue with the patient is out of the question so long as he isn’t rational.”

“Dialogue does seem out of the question….”

“Do you have any suggestions, doctor?”

Zarnak was quiet a moment before suddenly getting to his feet. Hands in his pockets, he paced briefly before pausing by the window and looking out over the spreading lawn leading down to the street.

“Tell me, doctor,” he began. “What do you know of Danforth’s personal history?”

“Well…aside from the years spent at Danvers…he seems to have been a promising student at Miskatonic University when he was a young man. I’ve been told that professors at the time had high hopes for him — one even recruited him for an expedition to the Antarctic I believe. In fact, I’d given brief consideration that his phobia regarding snow might have been connected to that trip.”

“In a way, I think it does,” conceded Zarnak turning to face Stillnor. “Does the name of the Dyer Expedition mean anything to you doctor?”

“I believe that was the name of the expedition that Danforth accompanied to the Antarctic.”

“Correct. It took place in 1930 and was quite well equipped at the time,” said Zarnak.

“I’m afraid that I’m not familiar with the details of…”

“The expedition’s major claim to fame was the discovery of a megalithic city nestled between a pair of mountain ranges off the Ross Ice Shelf,” explained Zarnak. “When communications failed between the base camp and an advance camp located at the foot of the first range of mountains, Danforth accompanied Prof. Dyer to investigate. Although the two said little about exactly what they found there upon their immediate return to civilization, a later plea written by Dyer intended to discourage further exploration beyond the mountains was more explicit describing a scene of horror in which all the bodies of their comrades had been torn apart. You can imagine how such a scene might impress a young mind…”

Stillnor nodded. “I hadn’t realized…”

“But that was not all,” continued Zarnak. “Dyer also described a series of strange burial sites in the snow where portions of biological specimens discovered by his colleagues had been interred…”

“I seem to recall something about that but thought it mere fancy…”

“Not hardly, doctor, as portions of those specimens were rescued from the camp site and returned to Miskatonic University where, I believe, they have been stored ever since.”

“Be that as it may, what does it all have to do with Danforth?”

“Suffice to say that if we are to believe Dyer’s words, the condition of the advance camp site was only a prologue of other horrors to come when he and Danforth went on to discover the stone city. There, amid the ruins, they came upon evidence that whoever killed their colleagues at the advance camp had escaped in that direction taking along the body of Felix Gedney, a close friend of Danforth’s.”

“I still fail to see…”

“From what I have read in newspaper accounts of the time, it appears that Dyer and Danforth agreed to say as little as possible about the expedition beyond their discovery of the advance camp site,” said Zarnak. “Later, Dyer described Danforth as having been the more shaken of the two, and sometimes barely able to keep his composure. I believe that Danforth struggled against having a complete nervous breakdown and even sought psychiatric help. Unfortunately, nothing helped and to protect himself from whatever it was that disturbed him, he forced a self-induced catalepsy.”

“It sounds plausible,” conceded Stillnor. “But how does it explain his coming round now? Or his phobia about snow…?”

“His ravings about something that was behind the mountains…that is, the second, more distant range of mountains beyond the stone city…I think is the key. In short, where Danforth may have prompted self-induced catalepsy, something else may have brought him out of it.”

Momentarily at a loss for words, Stillnor simply stared at Zarnak.

“Something else?”

“The thing he mentioned just now,” said Zarnak. “The thing that stood behind the mountains.”

“An imaginary…thing…of course?”

Zarnak shrugged. “Not necessarily.”

“You mean based on the ravings of a deranged mind, you’re suggesting to me that some kind of…of monster is influencing Danforth’s mind across time and space or whatever?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“You might think so, but it sounds ridiculous to me.”

“Be that as it may, a simple phobia of snow is not Danforth’s problem.”

“I’m sorry, doctor, but I cannot accept your explanation,” said Stillnor, rising. “I appreciate your taking the time to see the patient but as a consultant on the case I can only take your opinion and keep it in mind in my considerations. I’m sorry I cannot be more specific in my conclusions than that.”

By way of reply, Zarnak took his briefcase and resting it on the desk, opened it and removed some folders.

“I understand doctor,” he said, placing the folders on the desk. “These are copies of the material relating to the Dyer Expedition and Danforth’s return to Arkham in 1931. I’ll leave them with you.”

Snapping shut the briefcase, Zarnak shrugged into his coat.

“If you change your mind and would like to talk further on this case, doctor, call my office anytime.”

In another moment, Stillnor was alone in his office.

Later that afternoon, while making his final rounds of the day, Stillnor was still thinking about the things Zarnak had said. On the third floor, he checked with nurse Popworth asking in particular about Danforth.

“He’s been quiet since you and Dr. Zarnak left,” reported Popworth. “But I’m afraid we’re going to have to put him on an IV again if he refuses to eat.”

Nodding, Stillnor went to room 12 and, not wishing to disturb the patient, merely peeked in through the small one way window set in the door. Danforth was still secured but resting quietly. His eyes stared at the ceiling and his lips moved silently.

Satisfied, Stillnor checked in again with the nurse and returned to his office. Gathering his things, he hesitated only slightly before including the folder given him by Zarnak in his briefcase. The drive home was uneventful and he went through his routine of preparing dinner and catching up with the news on television. Refilling his cup with coffee, he retired to his study where began going over the day’s reports.

He had not been at it long before the phone on his desk rang. Wondering who it could be, he picked up the receiver and identified himself.

“Doctor, this is nurse Popworth at the hospital,” said the voice at the other end. “Something has happened here that I thought you should know about right away.”

“What is it?”

“Some time ago, we don’t know exactly when, the patient in room 12 managed to escape.”

“Escape!” said Stillnor, surprised. “Mr. Danforth? He was all right when I checked on him before leaving for the day.”