The Damned Highway (9 page)

“Get a grip on yourself! Courage, man.”

He begins to weep, and in between the sobs, he babbles about a black goat with a thousand young and something called a Shoggoth. The phrase strikes a chord with me, just as the word R'lyeh did. Didn't the vagrant in the bus station where I began this journey mention that word,
Shoggoth
, as well? I think it's possible, but then again, I haven't always been in control of my faculties during this trip. As I consider this, Smitty's sentences turn into more of that weird, inhuman gibberish. It sounds like somebody sneezing backward during an epileptic seizure.

I grab the tape recorder and stuff it in my bag. Then I hop out of the cab and slam the door, cutting off the rest of his plaintive cries. He'll be all right. This is what I tell myself so that I can safely abscond with a clear conscience. An hour from now, one of the union dockworkers will come in and find him there, sitting in his idling truck and drooling all over himself and bleeding and babbling about oceans attacking people and squid-headed demigods. Business as usual for the late shift, probably. Your average union member deals with strangeness like that every day, and if they can't, then they shouldn't pay their dues.

Moloch. Cthulhu. Ancient religions and weird cults and politics as usual. Just what the hell have I gotten mixed up in? None of it makes any goddamned sense, and trying to sort it out as I run across the tarmac only gives me a headache. I need sleep and whiskey. Both await me on the plane. All I have to do is reach it.

It started raining while I was in the truck with Smitty, and I get soaked as I race across the tarmac, heading for the terminal. I burst inside, breathless and dripping and most likely looking like a rabid dog in heat judging by the expression of the people around me. I didn't expect the terminal to be this crowded so early in the morning. Who knew this many people out here in the middle of nowhere had other places to be? Perhaps they're fleeing, or maybe they're on their own personal quests, as well. If so, I wish them luck, and hope that they'll appreciate my efforts toward saving the world should those efforts lead to my untimely demise. I feel an unsettling certainty that said demise will be happening sooner rather than later, but then again, I've felt that way most days. It is true that I have gone through life expecting that demise to happen at any time. As a teen, back in Kentucky, I never expected to reach my twenties. A psychiatrist might say that's because my father died of myasthenia gravis when I was fourteen. Poor bastard. One day, he was fine. The next, his eyelids began drooping and he had trouble talking and swallowing. Eventually, he couldn't even breathe on his own as, one by one, his muscles grew weak and betrayed him. He was only fifty-eight years old at the time, not a spring chicken by any means, but still in good health, strapping and robust and full of life—until suddenly when he wasn't. Late at night, when the whiskey and caffeine and drugs and tobacco are coursing through my system working their special form of alchemy, I think about that. I certainly inherited my father's patriotism, but I suppose his untimely passing is where my nihilistic fatalism came from. In my twenties, I never thought I'd make it to thirty. I was sure that my time in the air force would finish me, or that the editor of that newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, whose car I crashed into his home (while his daughter was sitting next to me) would shoot me dead. And Puerto Rico . . . ye Gods, how did I ever survive that gig as a stringer? And yet, I did. I survived unscathed and crossed over into my thirties. The Hells Angels. Las Vegas. I should be dead a hundred times over, just like my attorney the Brown Buffalo, but I'm not dead yet, and I don't have time to fuck around with the complete water heads staring at me like I am a madman.

“Move aside,” I shout. “I am here on official business and you are impeding my progress. I have a plane to catch and a world to save, and so help me God, if you people don't make a hole, this morning will end with great and terrible violence. I own many guns.”

The crowd parts like the Red Sea, more from bemusement and the sheer impulse to obey (and aren't those often the same) than from fear, and I rush to the ticket counter, leaving wet tracks in my wake. I give the woman my name, my real name rather than my current adopted moniker, lowering my voice so that no one else overhears it, and she lets me know that I have barely made it in time, but that's okay, because she will call ahead and let them know to wait. Then she compliments me on the Vegas book and asks if I will sign an autograph for her. I scribble my name on the back of a receipt, add a little doodle that would make Ralph weep in pity at my digital retardation, and then head for the gate. Behind me, people stare and mutter amongst themselves, and I hear a fat, sweltering businessman ask the woman at the counter, “Who was that guy?” My cover is blown, and that's not good for business. I walk faster, hoping to melt into the crowd on the causeway, only to find my escape impeded by some nut in a brown robe. I step to the side and the geek steps with me, blocking me a second time. I dart left and so does he. I move right, and he does the same, smiling beatifically, his eyes blinking rapidly behind the huge lenses of his fingerprint-smudged eyeglasses.

“Excuse me, junior,” I snap at him. “I don't have time to dance.”

“Have you seen the Yellow Sign?” His voice is breathless and small, and filled with rapturous wonder, as if doing the two-step with me here in this airport is the best thing that has happened to him all day, and who knows, perhaps it is. I am anything if not a good dancer. I take a closer look at my new friend. The only thing even remotely remarkable about this brain-damaged pinhead is the pendant hanging around his neck on a pewter chain. It's a gem in the shape of a trapezohedron that shines when the overhead lights hit it just right. Other than that adornment, the geek is uninteresting. His head is shaved clean right down to the scalp. Nothing wrong with that style, of course. I sported the same look back when I ran for sheriff of Aspen a few years ago, but on this guy, it looks strange. His skull is misshapen, and covered with strange knobs and indentations and a mole that bears an uncanny resemblance to either Jesus or Che Guevara. The brown robe hides what I suspect is a skinny frame. I estimate him to weigh one hundred and forty pounds, maybe soaking wet, and he is much shorter than me—just the sort of fellow one can run right over. He didn't even come in a trio like those Hare Krishnas do at the better airports. There's no threat here, unless the weirdo has a gun or a knife hidden inside the folds of his attire. Still, he's in my way, and I'm done with the dance. I reach out, find his balls beneath the robe, and give them a friendly squeeze hello.

“Now listen to me, you gap-toothed skunk fucker. I do not have time to play with you today. I don't know what your bag is or what you are about, and I don't really care, because right now, you are in my way. If you don't get out of my way, I will rip your balls off and stuff them in your mouth, after which I'll cut off your head and stump fuck your neck. I have never passed up an opportunity to relieve my fevered loins, and your spurting, headless corpse is just as good a receptacle as any. Do you dig? Nod once for yes and twice for no.”

“I—”

“That's not a nod.” My fist tightens in time with my smile. His testicles feel like two pralines in my hand. I wish I had the time to stop at the bar, get some bourbon for the flight up, for the head trip down, maybe grab a handful of nuts for my pocket, but these will have to do. Tears run out from behind his thick, smudged lenses. “Now try again, shit weasel.”

He nods once, but then opens his mouth to speak. I squeeze harder, eliciting a squeak of pain and fright. Just then, someone taps me on the shoulder.

“We'll miss our flight.”

Still holding the geek's balls, I turn at the intrusion and find myself staring at a middle-aged man in a gray tweed sports coat and sharply creased slacks. His salt-and-pepper beard is neatly trimmed, and his glasses, unlike those of my new dance partner, are immaculate. Almost lensless.

“What's that?”

“The six fifteen to Arkham,” he says. “You're on it too, yes?”

“Who are you, and who do you work for?” My eyes narrow with suspicion. Was he CIA? FBI? DEA? Irish mobster? A rival editor?

“Professor Madison Haringa of Miskatonic University. We're on the same flight.”

“How do you know that?”

“I was two people behind you in line at the ticket counter, and I'd recognize you anywhere. I'm an admirer of your work.” I start to protest, but he cuts me off. “I also had the sense that perhaps you are . . . undercover, shall we say? If so, then please don't worry. Your secret is safe with me. What shall I call you instead?”

“Lono. Uncle Lono.”

“Ah, very good. We should go. They won't hold the plane for long, I imagine.”

I turn back to the geek. “What about you, smiley? If I let you go, are you going to behave yourself?”

He nods vigorously, the pendant swaying back and forth as he does, catching the light and shining brilliantly. It's very striking, and for a moment, my eyes center on it. “What the hell are you, anyway? A Moonie?”

“Close,” the professor says. “In that he's a member of a cult. But your friend is no follower of Reverend Moon. Unless I'm mistaken, and I don't think I am, he is a devotee of the Church of Starry Wisdom.”

“The what?” I let go of the geek, who collapses to his knees, moaning and cradling his balls in his hands. As we walk away, he bends over and vomits all over the tiles.
That's me in six hours
, I decide. I need another drink. Or twelve.

“The Church of Starry Wisdom,” the professor continues as we hurry down the concourse, “also known as the Starry Wisdom Cult. They've been active since the mid-1800s, albeit not so publicly as they are now. All of these groups really went public with the Age of Aquarius.”

“And how do you know this? Are you an expert on freak religions? What kind of religion even refers to itself as a cult?”

“No, I'm not an expert on freak religions, but I
am
an expert on ancient languages. I specialize in ancient grimoires. We have a remarkable library on campus. You should visit it sometime. We are the envy of occult researchers worldwide. So many rare volumes.
The Book of Eibon
. The
Daemonolatreia
. Abdul Alhazred's
Necronomicon
. Two different translations of Ludvig Prinn's
De Vermis Mysteriis
. We even have an original edition of Friedrich von Junzt's
Unaussprechlichen Kulten.
”

“Unspeakable cults,” I translate. I mean, it's easy enough to do so. I could have made up
Unaussprechlichen Kulten
. Or how about
El Booko Loco de la Cultas Unspeakabalo
, in comedy Spanish, while I'm at it?

The professor nods. “Very good, Mr. Lono. I'm impressed.” He's not really, but he's still friendly enough. It must be rough for a multidegreed scholar like him, specializing in writing about books nobody wants to read. “You've heard of these volumes?”

“I get around. I can order a whiskey in about twenty different languages.”

“Indeed. I've read some of your dispatches. In truth, I'm surprised you haven't been to Vietnam yet.”

“I keep meaning to. The place has been causing enough trouble that I suppose I'll have to look in on it sooner or later. But not right now. I have another assignment.”

“I see.”

“So this Starry Wisdom Cult . . . they're in this book?”

“
Unaussprechlichen Kulten
? No. The Church of Starry Wisdom didn't come along until 1844, when Professor Enoch Bowen founded it in Providence, Rhode Island. Bowen was an Egyptologist and archaeologist. He was an occultist, as well. He had a small fortune, and upon his return to the United States, he purchased the former Free-Will Church that sits atop Federal Hill and started the cult. They worshiped a deity they referred to as the Haunter of the Dark, who was most likely one of the thousands of guises of a malign god known as Nyarlathotep. The Haunter of the Dark gave them limitless knowledge, revealing the mysteries of the cosmos in exchange for human sacrifice. Of course, like any other religion, the cult had their share of sacred relics, the most prominent of which was known as the Shining Trapezohedron.”

“Which is what Laughing Boy back there had around his neck.” Even as I speak, I realize my error. This Haringa character isn't going to shut up—he speaks in term papers and gestures in footnotes. “
Was
known
as Shining Trapezohedron, but now you see, Mr. Lono, it's called by a new generation of cultists the City that Shines upon the Hill, because . . .”

We continue our conversation, or Haringa does it for me, as we board the airplane. Outside, the sun has finally risen. It looks like it is going to be a beautiful day. I am very tired.

“The cult grew quite popular over time, despite the fact that it was denounced by the other local churches and scorned by many prominent local citizens and the local government. Eventually, they ran afoul of everyone from the authorities to Rhode Island's Sicilian crime families and by 1877, they publicly disbanded.”

“But if they disbanded, then who was the guy in the airport?”

“Oh, they were run out of Providence, but the sect had already spread to other locales, and it flourished. San Francisco, Yorkshire, Chicago, Toronto, and even my beloved Arkham had church members.”

“Church members? Church members are people who behave like pagans all week long—cheating on their spouses and their taxes, and maybe beating their kids around on Thursday night—and then go to church on Sunday to wash it all away. These Starry Wisdom wackos sound a little more . . . interestingly counterculture than that. Extreme. I'm a bit surprised the cat back there even retained enough scrotum to squeeze. Even as I reached out for him, I thought,
I hope this guy isn't one of those piano-wire eunuchs
.”