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arry Singleton’s first impressions before he opened his eyes were those of excruciating pain in his neck. A weak, bubbling gasp escaped his lips, and he was further startled when he tasted his own blood. Ignoring those unsettling things for the moment, he opened his eyes in the predawn blackness, and immediately discovered that he was lying on the floor with his head turned sideways. Swiveling his eyes, he noticed furniture that informed him that before whatever calamity had befallen him, he’d been in someone’s office.
Then some of his memories returned amidst the throbbing pain: he’d been sent on a job. Vaguely, he recalled being paid.
But what job had he been on?
Swiveling his eyes further, he saw a ghastly sight: eight feet away to his right, the headless torso of a man sat slumped at a computer console. Blood had streamed over the desk’s edge, down the facing, and pooled on the carpet.
Because of shock, Barry didn’t immediately recognize the headless torso as his own. But as more memories returned, he realized that it was he and no other that slumped lifeless at the monitor. For a few moments he screamed at the ghastly impossibility of such a thing, until other memories flooded back into his mind, some of which told him that such a thing could happen to him and others of his kind.
As time crawled toward a chilly dawn in Denver, Colorado, Barry Singleton gradually remembered the events that had led to this tragic pass and with it, the unexpected encounter with something so evil and deadly that even now, his frightened mind screamed anew as he remembered the name of the man ultimately responsible.
After several close calls with treacherous black ice and blinding snow squalls on a steep, winding private road high in the front range of the Rockies west of Denver, Colorado, Carl Richardson arrived at his clandestine destination. The private home of his host, Barry Singleton, looked like a misplaced centuries-old European castle—a striking contrast to the popular A-frame mountain cabin that Carl had envisioned. Staring at the imposing structure through his partially-fogged windshield, Carl wondered why his potential business partner had insisted upon a secret meeting here instead of in Denver.
While Carl gingerly navigated the icy flagstones that zigzagged through the pines from his car to the landing, gusty winds hissed through the forest’s boughs; their sibilant voices nibbling the contents of his mind like ravenous ghosts. Shivering, he drew his coat tighter about him, and knocked on the oaken door impatiently.
Just as he was about to stand on tiptoe to better peer through a small, frosted window into the interior, a lone figure cloaked in shadow advanced from the inside, unlatched, and opened the door. Without preamble, the hulking figure asked, “You’re Carl Richardson?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Barry Singleton.” Bowing, he stepped aside and bid his guest to enter. "Please come inside and warm yourself.”
After seating Carl in a leather chair in front of a roaring fire Barry asked, “Before we get down to business, would you care for a drink?”
“Certainly. On a night like tonight, good spirits would be a Godsend.”
As Barry busied himself with the preparation of his guest’s drink, Carl scrutinized his host with growing unease. Amplified and distorted by occasional rogue flames that seemed to have a will of their own, Barry’s shadow, distorted upon the massive, irregular sandstone walls behind him, seemed to move independently of the roaring fire to which it should have been tied. Carl’s six-three host was an imposing, intimidating physical specimen, indeed. As he glided about the room, Barry exuded an economic grace worthy of a great, predatory feline. His resonant voice had a deep, hypnotic quality that both lulled and chilled.
But the piercing, deep-seated emerald-green eyes floating behind Herringbone glasses hinted at the cerebral side of the man. That intellect was what most interested Carl, and was why they’d met.
Still, Carl thought his host not completely well. Barry’s alabaster pallor seemed at-odds with his otherwise robust looks. Oddly, that item made Barry Singleton seem more formidable, not less.
Carl shook his head to clear it. Why should he have expected anything less? Would he have been satisfied with anything less? After all: he hadn’t engaged Barry’s services because the man was a Boy Scout. Nonetheless, Carl wanted nothing more than to conclude tonight’s affair and get the hell out of this isolated, creepy place. Not even Carl’s wife knew where he was, and he shivered at the disconsoling thought. Struggling to exhibit confidence that he didn’t feel, he leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. “Let’s get down to business, Barry. I’m worried the road may become impassable if the weather holds.”
Barry said, “Right. It is rather beastly out there tonight, isn’t it?”
Carl chuckled mirthlessly in part because his erstwhile partner's english seemed both rustic and modern, clashing at times. Then he realized that he might antagonize the man. Thinking quickly, he said, “Perhaps no better than it should be in light of tonight’s business. I trust our discussed sum of fifteen grand is acceptable?”
“The money’s satisfactory, Mr. Richardson. Even should there be, ah, unexpected developments.”
Carl rubbed his hands in anticipation. “Good. Now we come to the heart of the matter: I want the data recovered at any cost. I’ll spring for another ten grand, should you have to snuff Gonzalez or Marsh. But that’s unlikely. They’re in South America on business for several weeks.”
Barry eyed his potential benefactor, and took a sip of his drink. “I have no qualms about removing ‘problems’ Mr. Richardson, but I only kill when necessary. Best not to complicate issues by ‘pulling the whiskers on the tiger of the law’ by adding murder to corporate theft. But enough of that potential complication,” Barry said, waving one enormous hand dismissively. “Earlier you mentioned ‘getting to the heart of the matter.’ Well-stated, and very near the center of the mark where I’m concerned.” Barry paused, nodding at Carl’s glass. “Your drink is running low. Care for another?”
Carl nodded and held out his glass. “If you please.”
After refilling Carl’s snifter and re-seating himself, Barry said, “I accept your offer. For me, the thrill is in the
hack. Well, that amongst other things, which we will get to presently. If you brought the cash, consider our deal done.”
Carl reached into his pocket and withdrew a thick envelope, handed it to Barry, and relaxed while his host spoke of the art of computer hacking. As he listened, the brandy wrapped his mind in a warm, drowsy cocoon.
Then Barry changed subjects and said, “You really seem to have it in for this Gonzalez and Marsh. Why, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Carl’s face reddened in anger and he clenched his fists in suppressed rage. “The files they stole involve two decades of my life’s work, and concern archaeological ruins that may be the find of the ages. I sweat blood and money for those discoveries. They should have been mine.” Carl pounded his fist upon the massive oak coffee table and glared at his host. “If you do your job properly, they will still be mine!”
“And you’re sure the data is on a PC in their office?” Barry asked.
“Yes. After the theft by Marsh, they hired a night watchman to protect their firm. Coincidental timing, wouldn’t you say?”
“Too coincidental,” Barry replied. “Well, rest easy. Your concerns are in the best of hands.” Carl attempted to stifle a yawn behind his hand, prompting Barry to ask, “Getting tired?”
“Seems so. That brandy’s gone straight to my head.
Let’s wrap this up.”
“No problem,” Barry said. “There’s one final topic to discuss: earlier you mentioned ‘getting to the heart of the matter.’ Your statement was quite accurate. Perhaps even ironic, because we’ll do precisely that sooner than you think.”
Carl’s mind struggled with Barry’s last comment; a comment issued from a throat sounding like phlegm-coated
gravel; a hollow voice suddenly grown low and menacing.
Without warning, a wave of inexplicable fear gripped Carl, and he struggled to rise from his chair only to find his body had betrayed him. In vain he tried to focus on a room suddenly spinning like a wild carnival ride. As he slumped to the floor, he realized the truth: he’d been drugged! Barely conscious, Carl craned his neck and saw the horrible visage looming over him; a form that should be Barry Singleton, but wasn’t; a form whose features had undergone a most horrific transformation.
Inches from Carl’s face, the maw of the Barry-thing yawned so wide that the long, dagger-like teeth inside extended over halfway to the back of the skull. Eyes Carl remembered as emerald-green moments ago now glowed a smoky scarlet.
And there were other transformations of Barry’s form too complex for Carl’s muddled mind to comprehend. Or perhaps some subconscious part of him knew if he did comprehend, he’d go insane.
With its mouth gaping impossibly wide, the Barry-thing leaned over Carl in anticipation and said, “Ah, yessss: the heart of the matter! Now we truly, as they say, ‘get down to it.’”
While most of Carl’s senses were dulled by drugs, his sense of smell continued to function quite well—well enough to smell the bloated carrion breath of the horror, a stench reeking of the open grave. Carl managed a gurgling, truncated scream as the horror’s jaws clamped over his head, crushing his skull like a raw egg. For a few moments, the horror maintained its death grip. Growling in ecstasy, its smoky eyes rolled back, showing blood-shot whites while its victim’s brains and blood oozed sluggishly onto the marble floor. Every so often, Carl’s legs and arms twitched, prompting the thing to tighten its lethal grip.
After Carl’s death spasms had ceased, the thing released its hold. Cocking its head, it eyed Carl’s jugular with curious reverence. “Yesss, my friend. I only kill when necessary. And after fasting for five days, tonight was indeed necessary. So nice. So nice . . .”
“. . . So nice,” Barry said, recalling his encounter with the startled night watchman a few minutes earlier. Ever the opportunist, Barry had paused to make a blood meal of the guard before he’d taken the unfortunate’s keys and strolled through the front entrance of Gonzalez and Marsh as if he owned the place.
Barry was a thing of his word, and had honored Carl’s request. Nothing could keep him from a good computer hack, and tonight he was getting his money’s worth. Even he, computer hacker extraordinaire and vampire-come-lately, was delightfully surprised. He had to credit whoever had designed the PC’s security system because he’d tilted his e-lance at the best. God, he loved this country! Where else could a vampire hack a computer, hit a night club, get laid, and savor a blood feast all in one evening?
After twenty minutes of intense concentration, Barry gained access. Without delay he browsed the directories, located, and opened the files of interest. Just as Carl had said, the architects had discovered ancient ruins predating known civilizations by geologic eons.
So this was the source of the firm’s unprecedented success. As good as their designs were, they paled beside the ancient structures Barry saw before him now—fantastic curves, arches, and geometry so bizarre they dizzied the eye.
Barry discovered text documents linked to the strange ruins and read:
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Carl Richardson was right. Located ruins right where he indicated, and began excavation. Discovered upright columns whose upper ends were truncated below Cretaceous unconformity, making the site at least sixty-five million years old. Pictoglyphs on columns extremely worn. Great Cthulhu, or Others?
Also discovered massive, horizontal slab situated on pedestals of intricate design. Saucer-like structure nearby had traces of dark, mineralized staining. Possible altar? If truly sixty-five million years old, what in those pre-human times, was sacrificed? Site seems to be sister-city to fabled R’lyeh, so to whom the sacrifices were made we already know: Dagon and (dare I say his name?) Great Cthulhu.
Honor and glory is ours! |
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Another puzzling note read:
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Laird, |
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Was finally able to mail you R. incantation, but was not easy. Even after 70 years the feds still watch Innsmouth. Not as many as before, but with all the new electronic gadgetry they have, there doesn’t need to be. And if you’re an Innsmouth Marsh or relative, well, lucky you left when you were quite young before they knew who you were.
Innsmouth’s experiencing a rebirth of sorts, if you call all those uppity outsiders buying summer homes a rebirth. But it goes down hard, because there was a time when we would’ve driven them out, or made something else happen.
Order of Dagon hangs on, but barely. Too many prying eyes. Too many outside distractions for our young ones, including TV and those blasted computer games. These problems will cease after relocation.
Devil Reef nearly abandoned. Those remaining fear what the feds might do again. Most have left for our new home of which you know. I’ll follow soon, but must take water route. Passing through the Panama Canal might be risky, but it’s better than traversing Cape Horn. That way is not altogether safe, either, because of the shoggoths. Ill rumor has it that they are growing restless in their Antarctic stronghold, and may soon venture north in massive numbers. Anyway, land transportation’s quicker, but I’m too many years past the change and can’t abide it.
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Yours in Better Times to Come,
Addie Marsh |
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Barry chuckled. “I think Gonzalez and Marsh have been smoking funnier things than cigarettes and cigars, lately. Sixty-five million years old, indeed! And as for all that other rubbish—What an absolute crock of crap!”
Barry concluded the text files were “plants” placed in the computer’s directories to frighten off prying eyes, and he got an inspiration: normally he would have been content to browse, filch, and leave. Now he intended to kick the firm of Gonzalez and Marsh right in the financial crotch.
Barry printed out some design files with the intent of fencing them to a couple of less reputable associates. While waiting for the files to print, Barry found an attache case to carry away his ill-gotten gains.
Seated again at the PC, Barry placed the case on the floor beside him, unconcerned about being discovered. And why not? Any fool unfortunate enough to discover Barry would have no chance against his vampiric strength, easily the equal of ten men.
An hour later Barry was satisfied and prepared to exit the directory and log off. While closing the directory, Barry was surprised when a message appeared on the monitor. Emblazoned in bold, blood-red letters on a black background, the message read:
THAT IS NOT DEAD, WHICH CAN ETERNAL LIE
Barry watched while the letters ran down the screen in a gruesome imitation of slowly-oozing blood. As the letters approached the bottom of the screen they slowly faded away, leaving Barry staring at a blank screen.
With his eyes burning scarlet in anger, Barry said, “Nice touch, my friends. Ghosts and goblins, indeed! But no vampires? What? You say we don’t exist?” Then he rumbled low in his throat and said, “Oh, but we do, we doooooo! And I fear your little prank will cost the two of you far, far more than you can afford to pay. No longer will I be content to ruin you financially. I vow to hunt you down at my leisure upon your return and . . . eh? What’s this?”
Suddenly, the PC’s hard drive chattered like a famished squirrel in a cage looking at a backyard full of pecans. A batch file had been launched; a batch file of most cunning design.
After completion the monitor flickered once, turning dark green. Like hikers advancing through thick fog, obscure outlines appeared and slowly grew clearer. Barry gasped in recognition at graphical representations of the ancient architecture he’d viewed earlier.
The shifting panorama cleared further as it approached a long, low, tomb-like structure with a massive, hingeless door partially buried in the ground at a shallow angle. Gigantic tendrils of seaweed framed the edifice, swaying in unseen currents. A school of fish swam into view, lingered a moment, and darted away.
The massive door opened, tilting in a way that dizzied the eye. Inside crouched a blackness beyond black. But the oily, midnight surface wasn’t still; it rippled like sluggish waves, lapping at the top of the enclosure. Squinting, Barry attempted to penetrate the inky depths. But even his vampiric gaze was confounded. Such a thing had never happened before. For the first time, a feather of fear tickled the back of his mind. Then he gritted his teeth in anger. “Obtuse fool!” he thundered at himself. “There’s nothing to see because you’re looking at computer graphics.”
Then his attention was drawn to the back of the enclosure. There seemed to be a large, amorphous object surrounded by a hint of luminescence hidden just below the inky surface. Despite his earlier bravado, his fear returned again. Screaming silently, his mind desperately warned him to flee. But Barry snarled at his fear and obstinately remained seated.
Hidden beneath the murk, the nightmare shape edged closer. Without warning, it exploded from the structure in a blur of incredible speed and raced straight at him. Barry had only a moment to glimpse its true, hideous form before it eclipsed the entire screen.
When Cthulhu’s tentacles lashed through the monitor and hugged Barry’s face, neck, and head in a death grip, he discovered that there are horrors far exceeding the physical; horrors that rend the mind and sear the soul. Too late, Barry discovered that vampiric evils are the merest of ripples glossing the surface of a bottomless well that is indescribably foul. For the first time in many years, Barry Singleton knew mindless terror, and screamed the useless scream of the eternally damned.
Two hours later, a patrolman passing the firm of Gonzalez and Marsh noticed the security guard was not at his post. After calling for backup, he drew his revolver, approached the front office door, and cracked it open.
There are commonplace sounds and odors that by themselves seem harmless. But when combined in particular ways, they stir primal instincts of fear. Despite having weapon in hand, the officer backed away while the hairs on his neck and arms danced with a will of their own.
Twenty minutes later, ten minutes before sunrise, Barry Singelton’s headless corpse was discovered slumped at the computer terminal by several officers. The monitor was drenched in blood where the ragged stump of his neck rested against it. A detailed search of the office and grounds failed to find Singleton’s severed head. But a curious dusting of ash on the office carpet, framed in a rectangle of blazing morning sunlight eight feet from the mangled torso that had been bagged and removed to the morgue before sunrise, led many to wonder if the missing head had once lain there.
Raoul Gonzalez and Laird Marsh were the chief suspects in the bizarre case, but their alibi was airtight. They were in South America, seen daily by several reputable witnesses for the past several weeks.
Two months later chief investigator Dean Tilson received an informal note from county coroner Bill Wentworth, which ran as follows:
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Dean, |
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Apologies for the delay, but there are matters about this case that send my train of thought down tracks perhaps best left un-traveled. Writing of them may help exorcise my demons.
When I opened the stomach of Barry Singleton, I was shocked when a large quantity of blood spurted out, spattering the front of my smock and forearms. It was human, and matched the blood type of the deceased night watchman. I won’t be surprised to find a DNA match between the blood from Mr. Singleton’s stomach, and the aforementioned.
The mysteries get worse.
What remains of Mr. Singleton’s corpse presents its own set of dilemmas. Initial examination indicated some tissue oddities possibly related to the enormous strength he displayed while under assault from the as-yet unknown assailant, but no drugs aside from alcohol were found.
Mr. Singleton did not yield easily to his unknown attacker(s?), because the metal fragments discovered embedded in his clenched hands were torn from the edge of the computer desk . . . all of which begs the question: if Singleton’s strength was this prodigious, who in God’s name were his assailant or assailants?
Mr. Singleton seems to have died from brute trauma severing the head from the torso. X-rays of his cervical vertebrae, and dissection of surrounding neck tissues indicates the head was pulled, not cut from the body. How this was done remains unknown.
But Mr. Singleton’s head trauma does not explain the presence of almost a liter of sea water in his lungs, suggesting death by drowning prior to decapitation. Nor does it explain the bruise marks on the victim’s clavicle—marks coinciding precisely with the edges of the nineteen-inch monitor where the deceased was discovered.
Equally bizarre was something I nearly missed. There were isolated microdroplets of the victim’s blood found enmeshed within the glass of the monitor, itself. The more I think about that, the less I want to think about it. In short, it’s scientifically impossible.
And there was one final thing: traces of sea weed were found on and around the victim. Not only is the nearest coastline over a thousand miles away, but the species of seaweed is of an exotic variety native only to Pacific Polynesia.
I’m too old for this sort of thing, anymore, Dean, so I think I’ll take my wife’s suggestion and take a long trip to Tahiti to kick off my retirement.
I wish you luck in solving this bizarre case, but I don’t think you’re going to succeed. Maybe it would be better if you didn’t. You may not like what you find. |
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Sincerely,
Bill |
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Epilogue
Barry Singleton’s head was never found and the case remained unsolved. Dean Tilson eventually moved on to other more mundane cases.
But if vampires have ghosts, then Barry’s shade will never rest because the investigators didn’t know about a certain
letter; a letter hand-delivered by runner from Raoul Gonzalez to Laird Marsh in a remote Peruvian mining village a few days after Barry Singleton’s demise; a letter which ran as follows:
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11/14/99
Laird Marsh
6 Avenidas de las Palmas
Chixacoatl, Peru
Laird, |
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Am writing in great haste, as there has been a shocking if not unforeseen development at our home office in Denver. A few days ago, a Mr. Barry Singleton succeeded in hacking his way into our computer system.
The intrusion ended as you said it would. But I marvel at your ability to foresee potential problems, and am humbly remorseful for doubting your wisdom. Your insistence that we install the R’lyeh passage on our computer system proved its worth. The hard drive was destroyed during Barry Singleton’s “removal,” so there’s no chance of some bumbling investigator making the same unpleasant discovery.
We’ll be asked to return to Denver for questioning, but I foresee no problems. My son Rafael takes the brunt of the investigation, but holds up well.
As you’d mentioned: while They need our help to prepare for Their glorious return, the final, best defense in times of trouble is still the Great Old Ones, Themselves. So it has proved to be.
I look forward to my initiation into the Discipleship of Dagon, servant of Cthulhu, and feel the time is right. The physical changes you foretold have begun. I experience increased difficulty breathing this thin, high-altitude air here at the dig, and the low humidity causes my skin to dry and crack in ways unwholesome for others to see.
I shudder to think what would have happened had you not uncovered our common Innsmouthian ancestor, tracked me down, and prepared me for my rightful heritage.
Very soon we’ll have to leave the firm in the capable hands of my son Rafael, who thanks to you is well-prepared for what will someday become his legacy as well.
I find it ironic newspaper headlines will soon lament us as being “tragically lost at sea off the coast of Peru,” when in fact we’ll be anything but.
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Yours in the Eternal Glory of Great Cthulhu,
Raoul |
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