The Innsmouth Syndrome (10 page)

“Oh, give it up.  I’m not threatening your religion Mr Esgrith.”  Carla was beginning to lose her patience.  “Perhaps a little more concern for the well-being of your flock would be in order.”

Esgrith leveled an accusing finger at her.  “You leave my flock to me!  D’ya hear?  It just so happens that Senator Dalton is mighty supportive of the churches in this state – and he don’t like the federal government overmuch either!  Just you wait `til I phone him!”

“Please, Reverend, would you let me –“

“Go!”  His pointing finger swung to the door.  “Get the hell out of our temple!  Get the hell out of our town, you nigger bitch!”

The word hit her like a bucket of iced water, driving the rest of her argument from her mind.  Esgrith sat back down, smirking.  Waiting to see if she would react in kind, give him some new complaint to take to the mighty Senator Dalton.  Bitterly, Carla fought her rising indignation and got to her feet.

“Well, if that’s the way you’re going to behave you leave me no choice.  I’ll be back, of course, with a team of technicians.  And the police.  Oh, and be in no doubt” - she leaned down until her face was inches from his - “we will take this place to
fucking pieces
until we find what we’re looking for.”

Carla swept from the room and began down the rickety steps.  Esgrith hobbled to the door of his office and shouted after her.

“That’s harassment, right there!  You’ll be sorry, you black bitch!  No-one messes with the children of Dagon, ya hear me?  No-one!  Oh, you’ll be sorry alright!”

Carla ignored him and crossed to the door.  Before leaving, she turned back to the irate Reverend, standing at the top of the stairs wreathed in cigarette smoke.  “See you soon” she promised, and stepped out into the daylight.

*****

She was furious all the way back to the hotel.  With Esgrith, obviously, and with herself for letting him push her buttons so easily.  There was no way Terry Whitehead was going to let her put together a team and turn over a church.  Esgrith had called it a temple.  Well, church or temple, she knew her boss, and without an exciting and headline-grabbing disease agent she was going to be on her own.  Heck, one phonecall from Senator Dalton to Atlanta and she’d be on the next plane out of there.

She punched the steering wheel in frustration.  “Nobody messes with the children of Dagon.”  What was he on about?  She knew the name Dagon, of course.  It was in Dagon’s temple that the Philistines had put the Ark of the Covenant.  Had
supposedly
put the Ark of the Covenant - she corrected herself.  And it was a temple of Dagon that Samson had pulled down, or so she had been taught.  The semi-literate screed she’d found on the internet had mentioned it too.  Carla failed to see a connection to Esgrith and his miserable little church though.

Stuttering Oliver was on duty behind the desk at the hotel when she got back.  Khalil had left a message, he wanted her to call him.  She did it from her room. 

He began apologetically.  “Doctor Edwards.  Thankyou for calling me back, I hope it is not inconvenient?  I’m afraid I have unfortunate news.  Well, rather I have an unfortunate absence of news.  I have collated information from the birth records of Innsmouth children as you asked, but aside from a single case of cleft palate and several heroin-dependent infants, I can find no record of abnormalities.  The records available digitally only extend back as far as 1985, of course.  However, it does appear to rule out a congenital syndrome, does it not?”

“Well, it’s what we expected to find, I suppose” answered Carla, staring out of the window.  The rain had returned, driven before a stiffening gale that was already making the overhead cables whine.  It was going to be a rough night.  She drew the curtains.  Khalil was enquiring if she was still there.

“Yes, Doctor, I’m still here.  Look, do you think there’s any way that – well, it sounds silly, but do you think they could be doing it to themselves?”

It was his turn to fall quiet and her turn to prompt him.  “Do you mean self-harm?” he asked, clearing his throat. 

“No.  Well, yes, obviously we’ve seen some self-harm issues in Gary Taub and his friends.”

“But that wouldn’t explain the other cases.”

“No, of course not.”

“Cartilaginous deformities cannot really be self-inflicted, for example.”

“No, I know, that’s not what I meant.  Do you think the people here could be deliberately exposing themselves to … something?  Something toxic?”

Khalil thought.  “You mean perhaps as if they were using recreational drugs that were contaminated in some way?  I must say, the causative agent would have to be quite extraordinary.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of religious practices” Carla persisted.  “People can do some very strange things because of their beliefs.”  Her mother rose unbidden to her mind.  “Snake handling, drug taking, refusing medical treatment, eating all kinds of unpleasant things …”

“You’re talking about the E.O.D. aren’t you?” said Khalil uncomfortably, “I have to strongly recommend that you –“

Carla knew what he was going to say, and interrupted.  “Look, all the kids in that car were members, yes?  The Taubs are members.  Heck, most of the families in Innsmouth seem to be members.  Right so far?”

“Yes, but –“

“The kids hated the Order.  Gary Taub is terrified of them.  There seems to have been some kind of rumour circulating on the internet a few years back about them using poisons.  Gary Taub himself warned me not to eat or drink anything while I was there.”

“You went there, then?”

“Is it too far-fetched to think that they might, just might be using something ritually?  Something highly toxic.   As an entheogen, as a sacrament, whatever?”

Khalil was quiet for a long time.  When he eventually spoke he sounded cautious.  “I suppose it might explain why there is no earlier onset of symptoms.  Maybe if it was used in a ritual only for teenagers and adults.”

“Right” agreed Carla.  “It fits the epidemiology.  The only question is: what is the agent?”

“Ergot?” suggested Khalil, doubtfully.  Carla considered it. “No, it fits some of the symptoms but it wouldn’t trigger the kind of abnormal tissue growth we’ve seen.  It can only be genetic.  Some kind of transposon?  A deletion on chromosome 22 maybe?  Or a collagen mutation?  I don’t know!  We need to characterise the syndrome to pin down the cause, we’ve got too many different symptoms in too many different patients at the moment.”

It was a long time before Khalil replied.  “Well.  What do we do next?” he eventually inquired.  “If you think deliberate poisoning is afoot, do you not need to inform the police?”

Carla laughed, ruefully.  “I don’t have anything to give the police.  They’d think I was mad.  I need empirical evidence to get anyone else involved and I need to get other people involved to get the evidence.  So, tell me, where am I meant to even begin?”

“Perhaps the Taub boy?  Maybe he would be willing to talk to you more.  I do not think that anyone else at the E.O.D. is likely to speak to you.”

“Maybe.  Maybe.  On the other hand, my boss wants me back in Atlanta ASAP.  I can recommend in my report that further investigation take place, though where we’d find anyone available to do that, I don’t know.”

“You are leaving?”  Khalil’s tone was accusatory.

“I don’t like it any more than you do, Doctor, but I’ve been ordered to wrap things up here – and if I stay, and the church bring in Senator Dalton, then you can bet the farm that this will be the last bit of investigating that anyone federal does here for a long time.  If I send it back to the EPA and they have to send someone down, maybe they’ll get further.  Or maybe someone in the genetics department at Miskatonic would be interested enough to come out, do a broader study.”

“I see.  Well, maybe we should be flattered that the CDC sent anyone at all.  Clearly you are a very busy agency.”

“Get yourself a Senator, Dr Khalil.  That’s all you can do.”

“Well.  I wish you the best of luck with your report, Dr Edwards.  Do let me know if I can be of any further assistance.”

Carla didn’t try to mollify him any further.  She couldn’t blame him for being frustrated - she felt the same way herself.  Though, secretly, she was looking forward to getting out of this gloomy, sick little town, with its squalid problems and vulgar, secretive people.  The memory of Gary Taub squatting in the rain, grieving and bleeding, returned to her.  OK, she felt bad for the boy, and the other kids, but there was nothing she could do about that.  She’d seen poverty elsewhere.  She’d grown up with it.  As an adult, she dreaded it, but there wasn’t a great deal she could actually do about it.  Especially not in Innsmouth.

*****

Carla spent the rest of the evening in her room, drafting a report that she hoped would sound authoritative despite its lack of conclusions.  The Epidemiological Investigation Summary (Part 1) report was not meant to be definitive anyway.  Descriptions of the index cases, the symptoms seen in Gary Taub and the likelihood of additional cases in the area were all included, as were the causes that she had ruled out.  She proofread it, making a few minor changes and then considered the final section.

There were two checkboxes.  Check the first and further, more detailed investigation would be considered, resulting in a fully comprehensive Part 2 report.  Check the second and no further action would be taken by CDC.  Carla stared at the two boxes for five minutes, debating which to tick.  In the end she decided to leave the decision until morning, and closed her laptop.

Half an hour later she was in bed, listening to the rain battering against the window and the mournful droning of the telephone wires.  It was probably as well she hadn’t driven back to Boston tonight.  There would be no flights leaving in these conditions anyway.  Maybe it would be over by the morning.  She could be back in Atlanta tomorrow afternoon.

She woke so abruptly that she wasn’t even sure she’d been asleep, until a glance at the clock showed that it was after one in the morning.  Had she been dreaming?  There had been a noise.  Wind and rain howled around the hotel, stronger now than earlier.  That had probably been it.  The storm must have woken her up.  Apart from the pulsing red display of her alarm clock, and the faint grey rectangle of the curtains, the room was in blackness.

A heavy, metallic creaking made her sit up.  The noise was familiar but she couldn’t quite place it.  There it was again.  And again, a slow steady rhythm now, getting louder, getting closer.  And – was that a voice she could hear?

Carla rubbed the sleep from her eyes and tried to concentrate.  Whatever the sound was, it was coming from the direction of the window.  It was coming from outside. 

She flicked the bedside lamp on, shielding her eyes against the sudden glare.  Exec Lodge hotels didn’t provide robes, but her coat was on the back of the bathroom door.  As she moved to get up, and put it on over the long t-shirt she habitually slept in, a sudden, loud crunching noise made her jump and then freeze, senses suddenly wide awake and straining to take in as much information as possible.

It came again, from the direction of the window -the sound of splintering wood.  Carla stared at the curtains.  Above the wind and the rain – and a third grinding impact against the window frame – an unearthly, chanting voice was now unmistakeable.  It, too, came from the window.  Was it … singing?