Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (48 page)

The apparent retrogression was very disappointing to Stillnor personally who had seen how energetic, if somewhat neurotic, Danforth had been only days before. Still, he’d hoped that upon his return to the hospital there would be a basis upon which to build an eventual recovery. That, however, didn’t seem likely and he was forced to fall back on a variation of the previous treatment regimen that had been in place before Danforth’s escape.

Thus, by the time the weekend rolled around, Stillnor’s professional frustration was such that he found himself willing to consider more unorthodox approaches to Danforth’s problem. Perhaps the answers did lie among Dyer’s papers housed at the Mikatonic library.

The weather was still frosty when he left home that Saturday afternoon for the short drive across town to the university campus. The sun never did make it much over the horizon as the days grew shorter, and already the shadows of coming evening stretched across the city with some areas where buildings crowded close together, in perpetual gloom.

As venerable as Miskatonic University was, it had not grown much since its founding, as most other such institutions had a habit of doing. It’s main buildings, including library and museum, were still crowded close together on some high ground overlooking Arkham’s historic downtown. Stillnor found some visitor parking below the hill and, joining a few students heading in the same direction, soon found himself in the overheated lobby of the old library building. The roomy hallways were all linoleum and polished wood frame, and through a pair of doors set in an entrance arch, Stillnor could see the reference section with its heavy tables, card catalogues, and shelves groaning under the weight of massed volumes. Entering, he spied the reference desk and approached a middle aged woman busy stamping arrival dates on the fly leafs of newly-acquired books.

“Excuse me,” said Stillnor. “I might be looking for something that could be in special collections?”

“Anything in particular?”

“The papers of Prof. William Dyer who held the archeology chair at the university in the 1930s.”

“That would be upstairs,” she said, pointing with her stamp in the direction of a staircase at the rear of the room.

“Thank you.”

Stillnor mounted the heavy staircase whose marble steps had been worn down over the years by the numberless feet of undergraduates. At the top, the landing was dominated by a large glass display case which upon closer examination, Stillnor was surprised to see contained the famous
Necronomicon
. He knew little about its contents beyond what he’d read in local newspapers from time to time, but he was aware that it was supposed to be an extremely rare copy. Briefly, he wondered why it seemed to be housed in such an insecure fashion. Well, he was here on other business at the moment and moved on to a doorway with a placard that read “special collections.”

It led to a medium sized room that smelled strongly of parchment and old books. Metal shelving crowded the available space leaving only narrow avenues between each. A scratched up wooden table with two chairs was pushed up beneath a pair of windows and in a corner, a tiny desk was covered in thick folders and a few ancient volumes.

“Hello?” ventured Stillnor.

“I’m here,” said a voice from among the stacks followed by the wizened features of what was no doubt one of the school’s retired teachers. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“I’m Dr. Aaron Stillnor, of the Pickerton Rehabilitation Hospital here in town,” said Stillnor. “I have a patient I’m working on whose case may turn on events that happened forty years ago and was hoping I might find records belonging to one of your former professors here.”

“What’s his name?”

“Prof. William Dyer. I think he may have taught here in the 1930s and 40s.”

“Oh, yes. Died in 1961. Served as chair of the university’s archeology department for many years.”

“Then you’ll know if any of his papers or records of any sort were preserved?”

“Naturally. Most of Miskatonic’s faculty bequeath their papers to the university…well most have anyway.”

As the clerk was speaking, he led the way into an adjoining room which was, incredibly, even more crowded than the first. Waiting in the doorway, Stillnor watched as the man made his way down one of the aisles and apparently found what he was looking for.

“We have all of Prof. Dyer’s papers here in bound volumes,” he said, looking over his glasses. “They’re labeled by year…”

“Those covering 1931 or so,” replied Stillnor.

Turning back to the shelves, the man reached up and pulled down one fat, crimson bound volume.

“Here we are Doctor,” said the man, handing the book to Stillnor. “I’m afraid it can’t be taken from the department though. You can examine it at the table here by the window.”

“Thank you,” said Stillnor.

At the table, Stillnor sat down and opened the book to the contents which indicated the bound records included Dyer’s scholarly papers and journals covering the years 1930-1935 and including material dealing with his celebrated expedition to the Antarctic.

Flipping to the relevant sections, Stillnor found the goals, itineraries, invoices, and lists of expedition members of the Antarctic venture as well as copies of the cablegrams forwarded to local newspapers from the advance camp set up by Prof. Lake. Although Stillnor had already seen much of the material in the folder Zarnak had left him, he was still somewhat surprised to find the more sensational aspects of the expedition confirmed in Dyer’s records. Here was the discovery of the hidden cavern, the strange star headed creatures or plants found there, the disaster that struck the advance camp after a sudden storm swept down from the mountains.

Here also was Dyer’s monograph written in an attempt to dissuade the sponsors of the Starkweather-Moore Expedition. It was rather long so Stillnor skimmed much of it, lingering only when Dyer mentioned the discovery of Gedney’s body deep in the bowels of the ancient city. Overall, he had to admit that the monograph did have a discomforting effect with its sense of mounting horror and hints that the builders of the city had come from another world and came to Earth millions of years before the appearance of men, indeed, were said by Dyer to have mastered telepathy and cellular manipulation and been the creators of human kind! It was rubbish of course. Dyer offered no definitive proof that any of his conclusions were even plausible, but however true or untrue they were, it was clear he believed them. So much so that only a few pages later, his journal entries indicated that after conferring with a colleague named Wilmarth, he seemed to have been convinced that use of star stones brought back by the expedition would protect him from something he feared might follow him from Antarctica. Consequently, he enlisted the aid of Danforth in burying a number of the stones around Arkham, arranging them in the pattern of a single large five-pointed star shape. In the following years, so far as Stillnor could tell, Dyer made no more trips outside of town and soon after burying the stars, Danforth went into cataleptic seizure.

So Danforth was telling the truth when he said he and Dyer had buried the stones! But if that was so, what about the other things he mentioned? Stillnor thought a moment. Danforth said that the five pointed star was the sign of the Old Ones…those whom Dyer claimed built the city in Antarctica…and that voices in his head were telling him to remove the stones, remove the protection…why? If the star stones belonged to the Old Ones, from whom did they need to be protected? In the monograph, Dyer said that Danforth had seen something even more horrifying than the star headed creatures found at the advance camp or the so-called Shoggoth that chased them out of the city. Was that what they were afraid might come after them even so far away as Arkham was from the bottom of the world?

He’d still not decided what to believe when it occurred to him that the Miskatonic’s museum was connected to the library building and that he could view for himself some of the artifacts returned from Dyer’s expedition. Suddenly convinced that the answer to his doubts could be found among the bones and petrified samples that lay so near at hand, Stillnor returned his book to the clerk.

“Tell me, is the university’s museum open at this hour?” he asked.

“Every day until 8 p.m.” The man checked his watch. “But if you want to have time to look through it…there’s plenty to see…you’d better go now, it’s almost 7.”

“Already?” Stillnor was genuinely surprised. He had no idea that he’d been reading for so long. “Then you’d better give some good directions so I can find it without any trouble.”

The man did so and a few minutes later, Stillnor had traversed a short connecting tunnel in the library’s basement to an adjoining wing where he took another few minutes to find the corner housing the artifacts from Dyer’s expedition. The lights in this section of the museum were turned down low, no doubt due to the fact that it had few visitors. Standing in the gloomy corridor outside the exhibit, he had to chuckle that such a collection was even still on display forty years after it was gathered. Maybe there was some truth to the school’s reputation for being behind the times. Even the Peabody Museum in nearby Salem was rumored to be getting rid of its fabled anthropological collection in favor of a less offensive approach to aboriginal cultures.

Stepping under an arch giving way into the exhibit, Stillnor was startled after coming face to face with the biggest penguin he’d ever seen. Bigger than he ever suspected such animals to grow! Erected on a pedestal by the door, the stuffed penguin towered over him and must have stood at least 6 feet tall. Its pointy beak partially opened in a silent call, it seemed ready to leap down and charge across the room. Recovering from his surprise, Stillnor was forced to admire the animal and recalled Dyer mentioning such beasts while exploring the stone city.

Slowly, he made a circuit of the room, looking into its many wood and glass display cases and noting the yellowed character of the cards that gave descriptions of the various items. Here was a display of the tools used by the expedition to chip away pieces of ice and rock for samples, there photos of the expedition at different points: at a banquet the night before embarking, aboard ship, views of the Antarctic ice shelf, Dyer standing with some loaded sledges with the dogs milling behind, an aerial shot of the planes sitting on the snow at the advance camp. Stillnor looked more closely when he came upon a photo of Dyer and Danforth together and another of Prof. Lake directing drilling into the ice.

Moving on, Stillnor became interested in a display of prehistoric artifacts found in the cave explored by Lake and his colleagues: bones, rock fragments including some displaying the odd “footprint” that Dyer claimed belonged to the Old Ones, and an exact replica of the star stone Detective Shonross had given him. Next came more photographs, this time of the megalithic city discovered by Dyer and Danforth on the other side of the mountains that looked down upon the advance camp. Suddenly, the reality of Dyer’s claims became substantial to him as he gazed upon actual evidence of the existence of the city. A feeling of mounting strangeness overcame him as he looked at the historical carvings Dyer had described so vividly in his monograph, the titanic stone structures that had collapsed upon themselves, the winding stairways and inclined planes that led into deeper gloom in chambers that lay far beneath ground level, the occasional rubble and the long corridors that ended in darkness ahead. Occasionally, a photo even captured the figures of either Dyer or Danforth themselves standing beside some object to help to give the observer some notion of its size. Looking at them, Stillnor was struck by either man’s youthful appearance. Danforth had only been an undergraduate of 20 or so when he accompanied the expedition while Dyer was in his prime at 54.

Sobered by the series of photographs that had altered Dyer and Danforth in his mind from an historical figure and a madman to flesh and blood human beings who had lives and hopes and dreams, Stillnor came to the final portion of the exhibit. Mounted on the wall in glass fronted cases extending from floor to ceiling, were the organic remains of the star headed creatures discovered by Lake in the cavern beneath the Antarctic ice. Whether they were plant or animal, no one was sure at the time, although in his monograph Dyer claimed they were actually members of the alien race he called the Old Ones. Rather unimpressive, most of the artifacts appeared to be bits and pieces of the things, desiccated and petrified, cut by scalpel in such ways as to best display external and in some cases internal, bodily functions.

Taking an involuntary step backward, Stillnor felt an odd repulsion at the display and as his gaze moved upward, it finally came to rest on what could only have been one of the creatures’ star-shaped head. It lay flat against the tack board behind it with pins holding the five pointed ends at full extension along with the thinner eye stalks. The slit at the center of the star shaped head was as Dyer had described it in his monograph. All of it was vaguely disgusting to Stillnor without his being able to say exactly why. Just then, the shadows created by the muted lighting seemed to press down around him and he felt suddenly alone. He hadn’t seen a single person in all the time since he entered the museum wing and wondered if it was still open to the public. If no one knew he was here, maybe he’d been locked in? He was on the point of looking for the welcome desk when he was stopped by a peculiar odor. Sniffing, he began to cough and his gorge threatened to rise. He managed to overcome his initial reaction and, controlling his breathing, couldn’t help but follow the scent to find out what could be causing such a stink.

Stepping back out into the corridor, he looked up and down and still saw no one about. Continuing on, he followed the hallway back the way he’d come until arriving at another arched doorway. This one led through a darkened room to another archway on the other side where light revealed many green plants. Heading in that direction, the stench remained strong but now included elements of earth and green growing things. Arriving at the second arch, he found himself at the entrance to a greenhouse filled with what looked to him like exotic plants. Great fern trees stretched to a glass ceiling where a cloud-veiled moon struggled for release in the early evening sky. Closer to the ground, exotic shrubs, flowering plants, lianas, and other flora more akin to a rain forest than the forests of New England dominated. Everywhere, the unpleasant smell still lingered and despite his having come no closer to discovering its source, something prompted him to continue deeper into the greenhouse where light from the entrance found it difficult to penetrate. Here, the ferns and palms hung thickly about, their details obscured as clouds continued to cover the moon. There was a tinkle of something knocked across the floor, and suddenly Stillnor was certain he wasn’t alone. Frightened, he whirled, casting quick glances around him and seeing only the looming silhouettes of plants whose fronds brushed his head and shoulders. At last, his attention rested on one particular shape that bulked largely amid trunks of palm trees and low hanging branches. Had it moved? Stillnor wasn’t sure; it could have been his own looking about that stirred the still air of the greenhouse.
If only the moon would come out from behind that cloud
…Then, his vision seemed to come into focus and gradually, he was able to distinguish the shapes about him. There was a palm tree and there a cactus and there…he gasped and drew back tripping over something that clattered too loudly in the silence of the greenhouse. Tumbling, he flailed his arms helplessly trying to find support and failing, fell heavily to the concrete floor. Kicking himself away from the plants in front of him, he couldn’t help looking up hoping he’d been mistaken about what he thought he saw. He wasn’t. Looming before him in the gloom was a bulky figure topped by a star-shaped head piece! Soundlessly, cord-like tendrils waved about it and half way down the solid trunk of its midsection were ropy appendages that divided and sub-divided into a myriad grasping hands. And then, appallingly, there was the sound of stiff, plastoid flesh stretching and pulling as the thing bent slowly forward. Stillnor felt the oppressive nearness of its heavy bulk pressing him down, cornering him and suddenly, the stench that had receded into the background of his consciousness flooded back in greater force than ever. At that moment, the damned moon chose to emerge from the clouds that up to now had prevented Stillnor from getting a good look at the thing before him. It lasted only a moment, but it was enough. The fright that had been building somewhere inside of him, that had been kept pent up, controlled somehow, was finally loosed and he screamed, screamed like a child faced with its worst nightmare, screamed like the poor souls he dealt with on a daily basis at the hospital. The next he knew, he was stumbling from the greenhouse, running blindly, not knowing where so long as it was away from that arboretum of horror and madness. Afterward, he could never recall just how he escaped the museum only that he never stopped running. He ran and ran until exhaustion overtook him and he fell to the cold ground panting, his heart pounding. When he was able to stand again, he ran some more and this time didn’t stop until he’d burst through his own front door and locked himself in. He spent the rest of the night on the floor, his back firmly pressed against the door, deathly afraid that something that had followed him from the museum would get in.