The Innsmouth Syndrome (9 page)

Gary stared at her in the mirror.  “Church?”

“Yes, the Evangelical Order of David?  I thought you could take me to meet the minister there.”

Behind her, the boy threw his hands up demonstratively, and lunged for the door handle.  “Stop the car!”

“I can’t stop here.”

“Stop the fucking car, lady!”  He was screaming now.

“Oh, stop acting like a baby!” snapped Carla.  “I’m not stopping here and that’s that.”

“Lady, I’m not going back to that fuckin’ church, and if you –“

“It’s not “lady”, it’s `doctor’”, she corrected him.  “And if you really don’t want to go to the church then fine, I’ll drop you off.”

“Fine!  Good!”

“Provided you tell me why.”

“Why what?”

“Why you don’t want to go.”

Gary stared at her in the mirror for long seconds before slumping back in his seat and turning to stare out of the window, arms folded.  The silent treatment.  Great.  Carla wondered if she’d been this obnoxious when she was in her teens.  She persisted with the interrogation, keeping an eye on him in the mirror.

“Is it that you’re afraid of the place?”  No response.  “Or of the people?  Is it something to do with your friends’ suicides?”  He grimaced involuntarily.  “Is there a connection between their deaths and the church?  Gary!  Tell me, or we’re going back and I’m asking your mother.”

He rounded on her.  “Jesus, fuck lady!  Doctor!  Whatever!  Just drop it, OK?  You’re doing my head in.”

“Answer the question then!  Why the big problem with the church?”

“Because they’re fucking psychos, that’s why!”

“What do you mean, “psychos”?” 

“I mean they’re fucking psycho assholes!  And stop calling it a church.  `S not even a proper church.”

Carla pushed home her advantage.  “What is it then?”

“It’s a madhouse!  It’s a – a ... it’s wrong, OK?”

“A cult?”  Carla guessed, based on what she’d found online.

“Yeah, whatever.  They fuck people up.  They fucked this whole town up – or hadn’t you noticed?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter, just leave them alone.  Now, can I get out of this fucking car,
please
?”

Carla sighed and pulled over to the side of the road.  “I can’t leave them alone, I have to find out what they’re doing.”

“Yeah, well, good luck with that.  Your funeral.”  He opened the door but paused before getting out and half-turned back to her.  “Don’t eat anything.  Or drink anything.  While you’re there.”  Then he was gone, jogging back the way they’d come.  Carla called after him -  “Why not?  While I’m where?” – but he didn’t look  back.      

*****

Carla tried to bury her misgivings as she buzzed the intercom by the front door of the E.O.D. for the third time.  She was wishing that she’d tried asking Dr Khalil to accompany her, but it was too late for that now.  It was silly anyway.  It was just a church.  Probably no kookier than any of the strange brotherhoods, sects and congregations that her mother had dragged her around when she was a child.  Revivalists, evangelists, muscular Christians, Pentecostal snake-handlers, conmen, prophets and perverts, her mother had followed them all at one point or another. 

Fed up, she pressed the buzzer again and held it, staring defiantly up at the security camera.  Finally, after a full minute of electronic clanging, the speaker came to life with an angry, sibilant “Yes?”  She introduced herself and was told to wait.  She waited.  Another few minutes passed and she was ready to resume her attack on the bell when locks began to turn and the door was slowly eased open.  Just a few inches.  A pungent stink of fish leaked from within.

“What do you want here, Doctor?”  It was the same voice she had heard over the intercom, but she could not make out its owner in the interior gloom. 

“I’m here on a public health matter.  I want to talk to you.  Or whoever is in charge here.  Please can you open the door?”

“Come back tomorrow.”

Carla rolled her eyes.  “No.  Today.  It won’t take long, I promise.”

There was a long, bubbling sigh from the darkness, but then the door began to open properly.  Carla paused to savour a last lungful of relatively fresh air before crossing the threshold.

As she entered, fluorescent strip lights in the ceiling began flickering to life, filling the warehouse with pale, sterile light.  The floor was bare, dusty concrete painted an aquatic shade of green.  Crude representations of sea creatures were daubed all over it, like so many telephone doodles.  Sharks, squids, starfish, crustaceans – Carla instantly recognised the imagery from the graffiti she’d seen a few corners from here. 

A quote from the Bible had been stencilled around the wall in a blocky, Teutonic font.  Carla recognised it from Ezekiel, verse something-or-other. 

I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit

Beneath it, around the edges of the room, were stacked an assortment of chairs that would presumably be set out for the congregation at service time.  At the far end of the room a small wooden stage had been constructed in front of a broad altar decked with candles.

To her right, flicking on the last of the light switches, was a hunched, tracksuited figure.  He was shorter than she was, and several decades older, his pallid skin mottled like that of a trout.  Even the simple act of flicking a switch seemed to require great concentration as he fought against a Parkinsonian trembling in his arm.  Finally accomplishing it, he let out another long, hissing sigh and turned to face Carla.

“Well, Doctor Edwards.  I am Reverend Esgrith.” 

His eyes were so cloudy with cataracts that Carla wondered if he could see anything at all.  Between his nylon tracksuit and bulky white trainers she could see rather grimy compression stockings on his feet.  Circulatory problems then, or a clotting disorder maybe.  She forced her eyes back to meet his rheumy stare.

“Reverend.  A reverend of the Evangelical Order of David?”

Esgrith tilted his head in acknowledgement.  “We are a small church here, but with many fellows ... elsewhere.  Throughout the world.”

“It seems slightly odd that an `evangelical order’ would have a verse from Ezekiel displayed so prominently in church.”  She waved a hand at the stencil on the wall behind her. 

Esgrith gave a sickly, leering smile, the tip of his tongue protruding momentarily between his teeth.  “God’s threats towards mighty Babylon.  I see you know your scripture, Doctor Edwards.  `
I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again
’.  The wrath of our Lord to those who will not serve Him is infinite.  I would have my congregation heed this, in expectation of the imminence of His return.  But I am sure you did not come here to discuss Bible verses, Doctor Edwards.  Perhaps we should go to my office.”

He moved painfully slowly, his feet barely leaving the ground as he shuffled towards a flight of wooden stairs that led up to the old warehouse foreman’s office.  It took even longer for him to lever his body up them, relying heavily on the handrail and wheezing with every step.  Carla forced herself to be patient.  Was Esgrith another victim of the syndrome she was trying to characterise?  The hunched back and visual problems, she had seen in some other individuals around town.  Were circulatory problems and spasms another feature of the disease?

The office was undecorated, with one cheap desk, a telephone and a couple of chairs.  There was no sign of a heater, so Carla kept her coat on.  Esgrith bade her sit down and lowered himself slowly into the chair opposite.

“So, doctor” he began, “what interest can the Centers for Disease Control possibly have in our quiet little part of Massachusetts? “

Carla had prepared for this moment.  “Well, Reverend, I’m hoping you can help me actually.” - bright voice, engaging smile - “I’m investigating the deaths of four youths from this area – Wayne and Ramone Ramsgate, Shaznay Parker, Kara Ellis – maybe you knew them.”

Esgrith squinted, regarding her suspiciously through creamy pupils.  “Yes, I knew them.  They died in a car accident, Doctor Edwards.”

“Absolutely.  However the autopsies turned up some unusual findings. Findings that seem to indicate a degenerative process that pre-dates their deaths.”

“I see.”

“I’ve also seen similar symptoms in the Taub family, whom I believe you also know.”

“Karen and Saul, and young Gary.  Indeed I do.”

“That is what I am investigating.”

“I see.  And have you been successful, doctor?” 

Esgrith produced a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his desk drawer and reached for a lighter.  It took him the use of both hands to guide the quivering flame to his mouth.

“Somewhat, yes.  Reverend, it seems to be possible that your church is significant.  Epidemiologically speaking.”

“What?”  Esgrith spat the word around his cigarette.

Carla was damned if she was going to start speculating about the priest’s congregation, their potential for consanguinity or their lifestyles to his face.  It was enough that he know she had to search the church.  He didn’t need the details of her investigation.

“It’s one of the places that all four of the children were exposed to regularly, somewhere they could have acquired their condition.  With your permission, I’d like to search the premises for possible vectors or contamina-“

“The hell you do!”  Esgrith rose from his chair, the cigarette falling from his fingers.  “This is a place of worship!”

“I know that, Reverend, but –“

“D’you even know what you’re searching for?”

“Not precisely, but –“

“Then you can get the hell out!  Now!”

Carla cursed inwardly.  She’d been expecting indignation and obstruction, but hoping to be surprised.  She tried a new tack.

“Look, if need be I can come back with an entire team of investigators and the State police.  Probably the media as well.  Wouldn’t you prefer to handle this quietly between the two of us?”

“The hell I would!” sneered Esgrith.  “You think you can threaten me, Doctor?  There’s such a thing as freedom of religion in this country!”