“I’ve been looking all night. I can’t find it,” the voice from outside said. The man sounded whiny.
No, she thought. Impossible. Not here.
“Never mind,” Nyarlathotep’s deep voice answered. “I don’t need you anymore.”
“Never mind? That’s a real drag, man. I just spent hours…”
“Tim,” Euphoria asked. She knew it had to be. “What are you doing here?”
Tim stepped into the door so that he could see the bed. When he saw her, his face collapsed, like it was melting. Then it was replaced by a mask of rage.
“What the fuck, asshole!” he half-screamed at Nyarlathotep. “You told me if I got the necklace I’d get her back.”
“You didn’t get the necklace,” the dark man said. He moved to close the door.
“Fuck you, man!” Tim swung a fist at Nyarlathotep’s face. Moving faster than humanly possible, Nyarlathotep caught his fist with his left hand. He squeezed and a horrible crunching sound filled the room. Even in the dark, Euphoria could see red pulp oozing out of Nyarlathotep’s fist.
Tim screamed for a half-instant, but almost instantly passed out from the pain. His body crumpled to the floor.
Euphoria was out of bed; she too was naked and her nipples were hard in the cool night air. “I think — I’ll be going now.” She was panicked, out of control. Her hands reached for her clothes as she tried not to look at the door.
She felt him behind her, that most terrible phantasm of the night.
“You mortals always amuse me,” he said. His voice was soft. “You work so hard for your miserable survival. Why fight for such drivel?”
“What do you want from me?” she asked. Her voice quavered. She knew she was going to die and thought suddenly of her parents, and felt sad that she hadn’t talked to them for so long.
“Not much more than I’ve already gotten,” he leered at her. He was so beautiful, yet so masculine, she thought, that even now she half-feared him, half-craved him. “But I’d really like your jewelry.” He reached out his long, slender hand.
Her fingers were too shaky to try and untie the knot. She slipped the star over her head, and gently placed it on his palm.
“Just so,” he said. “I will be back — there’s never been a better time to be a messiah. But for now, I must go. He waits for no one.”
“Wait,” she asked suddenly.
He turned and looked at her. Her knees shook; he seemed on the verge of destroying her.
“Can I… can I get one more kiss?”
Nyarlathotep smiled a huge glowing smile. His teeth shone. “You were… energetic. Much more so than your friend Diane. I can reward you, yes.”
He leaned down, grabbing the back of her head while his lips pressed to hers. “Diane?” she wondered, then forgot. Her hands, much more still now, were clasped around his neck as her body flushed once more with desire. She moaned as his tongue slipped into her mouth. Her fingers worked busily and then her left hand clenched. He half dropped her, stepped away and then, surrounded by a thousand stars, he disappeared.
She pulled on her blouse and jeans and followed him. She stepped over Tim and his bloody hand. That’s karma for you. Nyarlathotep was gone, and the revelers were all asleep. She walked out into the street, and smiled.
She opened her hand and examined the contents. Not a bad trade, she thought. The pyramid wasn’t as cool as the octopus, maybe, but the new chain was cool and she had a groovy story now. Best of all, she had a pretty good idea of what she wanted to do with it.
Once it was morning, she needed to find Diane and say goodbye. It was time to get out of Ashland. The sunshine of California would be nice, but might be better to cruise up the I-5, head to Yellowstone, and then back out to Iowa. After all, she had one hell-of-a late birthday present for her father.
Maria Mitchell
SONG OF THE CATHERINE CLARK
“That is where my grandfather saw her on the winter solstice of 1873.” Abe Gilman thrust his bony, wart-addled finger towards Devil’s Reef and took another swig of his plum-flavored poison while Dryden scribbled the information hastily. “Of course, no one but a gossip rag would report on the ship having been seen here in Innsmouth. My grandfather was quite angry because the tabloid made it out to be a kind of ‘Flying Dutchman’. The Catherine Clark vanished after departing from England sometime in the winter of 1872. As far as the legitimate records are concerned, she sunk at sea sometime after her departure and was never seen again.” Abe took another swig and Dryden wrinkled his nose in disgust as a dribble of slime clung to Abe’s chin.
“Thank you, Mr. Gilman. I certainly appreciate you taking the time to recount to me what your grandfather knew of this affair.” Dryden Brewer looked cautiously at the Innsmouth waterfront while Abe swaggered drunkenly away along the pier. Dryden watched in mounting disgust as Abe continued to swill down the liquor as he stumbled toward the sea. He was soon joined by a cluster of other old men, and the usual sharing of the bottle commenced. Dryden knew from experience that they all smelled of rotten fish, and hurried away. He had spent two months in Innsmouth and had begun to loathe the Massachusetts town teetering on a desolate coast. Just getting anyone in the town to speak to him at all had been a feat of Herculian proportions. Outsiders were seldom welcome in Innsmouth, so most of Dryden’s information was gleaned from his voracious study of the historical articles on loan to him from the nearby Miskatonic University.
What had frustrated Dryden most about Dyer Gilman’s account was none of the historical documents detailing the vanishing of the Catherine Clark could confirm that the ship had ever been anywhere near Innsmouth. The ship registry noted that its destination from England was New York. It could have been steered off course by a gale, but if it had ended up in Innsmouth in 1873, where was she for that whole year she was unaccounted for? Dryden puzzled it over. Piracy was common back then. The Clark could have been commandeered by sea wolves and then used to transport contraband. Innsmouth had a dark reputation that had been whispered about by its neighbors for over a century and a half. The town was universally shunned by anyone living near it (except, of course, by those living inside of it), the general impression being that its citizens carried themselves outside the laws of mankind. Dryden had hoped that Dyer’s grandson, Abe, would supply the concrete corroboration he needed. Instead, the man had been supremely unhelpful, and Dryden grudgingly walked up the trail back into town.
One of the few people who treated Dryden like a welcome guest was Hitch Leeds, manager of a coffee shop near the pier. He’d lived in Innsmouth for about ten years and most of his clientèle was comprised of the non-native longshoremen and other sailors who drifted in and out of Innsmouth Harbor regularly. Hitch smiled as Dryden entered the warm shop with a bit of mist clinging to his gray coat.
“Your special today, Dryden?”
“Please, Hitch,” Dryden replied with a halfhearted smile. Hitch set to work brewing a black coffee, laced with espresso, while Dryden sat down and set the bound articles from the university on the counter. Hitch cast an absent glance over at them.
“Light reading for the weekend, huh?”
“Not exactly. It’s a bunch of articles detailing that shipwreck I’m tracking.”
“I used to do a little beach combing myself when I was a kid, down in North Carolina. Down there, every kid goes through a phase where they think they’re going to be the one to solve the mystery of what happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke. That’s how I used to spend a lot of summer days — scrambling around Roanoke with my cousins. All we ever found was cigarette butts and cans. Some shells.”