Reanimators (11 page)

That night I made a simple dinner of spring vegetables, baby potatoes, and roasted chicken. Afterwards, we spent the evening lounging in the parlor, the men playing cards and talking world affairs, and Jinghua composing a letter to her father in San Francisco. About nine in the evening, Jinghua apologized but said she was tired and needed to retire for the night. She asked if it would be any trouble to include her letter in the morning’s mail. I looked at the envelope briefly to ascertain that it had been properly addressed and sealed. As I did so, I was met with a slight shock, as to the addressee, but I quickly recovered, telling her that it was no trouble at all, and wishing her a good evening.

It was only after she was well up the stairs, and out of earshot, that Mr. Chan spoke. “Does the identity of Jinghua’s father bother you, Dr. Hartwell? Or, perhaps it is his occupation that concerns you?”

I sat down slowly. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

It was Chan’s turn to rise. “Jinghua’s father is Kin Fo, president of the Pan-Oceanic Banking and Insurance Corporation. The same company that insured cargo on the now sunken Titanic cruise liner, cargo owned by your neighbor Nathaniel Peaslee, in whose behalf you filed a claim of insurance.” There was a glimmer in his eye, like a cat stalking its prey.

I jumped from my seat, followed by Muñoz. “Just what are you playing at, Chan? If you’ve come here under false pretenses, taken advantage of my hospitality—”

He lifted his hand in a calming motion. “Please, doctors, no ruse was planned or intended; we are victims of curious coincidence, nothing more. Earlier this evening you demonstrated an impressive ability to deduce the date of my marriage from my wife’s pregnancy. I merely return the favor. I am not unfamiliar with the sensational newspaper stories of Peaslee and his strange loss of personality, which occasionally mention you, Dr. Hartwell as his physician.”

“But how did you know about the insurance?” I begged.

He bobbed his head in that strange parrot-like manner. “As son-in-law to venerable Kin Fo, I also am familiar with various forms and documents of insurance company, many of which sit partially completed on the desk in the corner, along with correspondence and photographs of Peaslee. Would seem a simple deduction that you are still handling some of his affairs while he travels in Europe.”

I settled back into my chair, while Muñoz crossed the room to pour us both a drink. Chan casually sat back down as well.

“Still, I am puzzled by one detail of Peaslee’s correspondence.”

Muñoz handed me a drink and joined us. “What would that be, Mr. Chan?”

Chan rose and quickly crossed the room to the desk where he selected a photograph and brought it back to us. I recognized it as he laid it down on the table. “Photograph is of Peaslee and of a young man on the deck of a ship that is likely the doomed Titanic still being constructed at shipyards in Belfast.”

I recalled the writing on the back of the photo, Harland and Wolff, Belfast. “Perhaps he inspected the ship prior to deciding to use it for his cargo, nothing unusual about that.”

Once more that strange little bob. “Perhaps, but Peaslee is not the most interesting person in photograph, young man more interesting, and currently quite famous, or infamous.”

We peered closer, but I didn’t recognize the man from anywhere in particular. To our embarrassment, Chan soon enlightened us. “Young man is John Coffey, seaman who is currently subject of much scrutiny by the press, legal authorities and insurance companies.”

I sat back. “What did Coffey do, kill someone?”

“John Coffey seaman, suddenly overcome with sense of dreadful foreboding, had a great premonition of impending disaster so strong that he abandoned his post and stowed away on a mail boat heading back to Queenstown.” Chan paused. “The ship Coffey abandoned was the cruise liner Titanic, on which your patient Peaslee consigned much valuable cargo, with much more insurance. What were both Peaslee and Coffey doing on board Titanic before her completion, and why was Coffey so desperate to get off? These are questions that puzzle Chan.”

Chan rose from the table and walked daintily to the door. “Truth is like delicate shell on a rocky beach: hard to find, but worth the time looking for.” He took the stairs, and without looking back wished us a good night.

Muñoz and I were stunned; this apparently simple policeman had deduced something horrifying about our absent benefactor, something that neither of us had even thought of. Could it be true? Did Peaslee consign cargo on board the Titanic, insure it, and then through Coffey, somehow engineer the disaster? It seemed incredible, but I was reminded of my own suspicions regarding Peaslee’s activities near Sicily, and the subsequent earthquake. Could he really have done it? I knew him to be inhumanly unemotional, but this seemed too much. Were thousands of lives traded for millions of dollars?

I said nothing of my suspicions the next morning, and neither did Chan or his wife. After a lovely breakfast the two bade me good day, as they were heading for New York where they would be staying for several weeks. I suggested that they both follow up with Dr. Vollmer, whom I knew from University, and trusted implicitly.

Mrs. Chan bowed in thanks while her husband presented us with a small token of his appreciation. It was a small book, bound in red leather with gold stamping. I flipped it open to reveal the title The Quotations of Kin Fo compiled by H. Chertok and M. Torge, and published by Golden Goblin Press in 1907. “Jinghua’s father is a most remarkable man. You may know of the biography of his early life, Tribulations of Chinaman in China. This is his fifth book, a collection of Confucian aphorisms. I have studied it for years, and it has brought me much wisdom. Perhaps it can do the same for you?”

I thanked the man for his gift and bade him farewell. As their taxi pulled away, Muñoz joined me as I came back into the house. “What do you think?” I asked him. “Our first success or simply a delayed failure?”

“How can we know such things, my friend? He is a faceless man, one of the masses, and we shall never hear from him again. If he died tomorrow, or lived a hundred years, or a thousand, how would we ever know? What happens to Officer Chan in the future will always remain unknown to us.”

Such musings brought on a melancholy, and that afternoon I pored through the stacks of newspaper back issues that had accumulated in the days since the accident, scouring the articles for all possible information on the sinking of the Titanic. It did not take me long to find the evidence I needed to condemn Peaslee and myself through association, for it was just days after the accident that a British photographer rudely snapped a photograph of J. P. Morgan and his retinue of advisors. Morgan, who had been booked on the Titanic, had cancelled at the last minute, citing issues of business that needed to be attended to. The majority of the photo was of the camera-shy Morgan sneering and raising his cane in the general direction of the reporter. I am sure that few people in the world could identify the man behind and to the left of Morgan, but I could. The image is blurry, slightly out of focus, but I am positive that one of the men walking with Morgan was none other than the inhuman thing that masqueraded as Professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee.

Chapter 11.

A VISIT TO DUNWICH

The road that follows the Miskatonic River west out of Arkham, past Billington’s Woods and into the wilds of central and northern Massachusetts, is not one I am particularly fond of, and my adventures along the route have never taken me beyond the turn off for Misty Valley, where I and my friends spent many fall days hunting small game and fishing the wider, slower expanses of the river. Yet it was without trepidation that I abandoned the hustle and bustle of Arkham and with a minimal amount of baggage boarded the bus that ran the length of that desolate winding road to the distant town of Aylesbury.

The events of April wore heavily upon my mind, and after some discussion with Muñoz and Wilson, I decided that a brief holiday was in order, a week out of the city; in the wilds seemed appropriate. It had been many years since I had spent time with friends in the country, and though I had not seen him in years, William Houghton, whose practice was in the sleepy little town of Aylesbury, seemed eager to have me out to his family’s hunting cabin in the nearby Round Mountains. The morning air was chilled that last Monday in April, but I boarded the bus with a great sense of relief and the expectation that a rest would do much to relieve me of my troubles, or at least lessen them.

The old bus that served the meager travelers along the rural route made only a single round trip each day, and supplemented its fares by carrying mail and other non-perishables back and forth between the two destinations. It was also not unknown for the driver to pick up packets and individuals from many of the farms or isolated communities along the road such as Dean’s Corners or Dunwich. Indeed, within an hour of leaving the outskirts of Arkham we came upon a rugged-looking man carrying a bird gun over one shoulder, and a covey of freshly shot doves over the other. Without any sign or negotiation the bus slowed to a near stop, and the man with a practiced hop and jump swung himself onto the driver’s side running board. He did not attempt to open a door or take a seat but rather stood there for a good three or four miles conversing with the driver about the weather, local gossip, and the like. As we came to a crossroad the driver gave the local a small package wrapped in oilskin which the man tucked into his coveralls. Then without a word, the hunter hooked his string of doves to the side of the car and, in a move that I thought was too daring for one of his age, jumped from the moving car onto the road and dashed into the wood. The dark, thick trees swallowed him up like a blanket, and in seconds I had lost all sight of him.

Hours later, as noon approached, the driver steered the clunky vehicle to a spot on the side of the road that had been covered with gravel. There was a clearing with several rough tables and benches beneath a spreading oak. It was an idyllic setting, including the dirt path that led up a hill to a quaint farmhouse. In the distance I could hear the faint sounds of the river rushing by. The driver shut the engine off, and announced a thirty-minute rest for lunch and whatnot. Several of the men traveling with me sprinted for the woods, while the two women strolled slowly off in the opposite direction. I wandered over to the table and removed from my satchel a small thermos of tea, and a cheese and mustard sandwich wrapped in wax paper. As I settled into my lunch I became aware of why the driver had stopped in this particular location.

From the farmhouse, making her way down the hill, came a young woman of not more than twenty-five, who was followed by a girl of perhaps ten. The woman carried a large pot from which a thick steam emanated, while the girl carried two gallon pails, one in each hand. The spring breeze caught them from behind and carried the aroma of the pot to me, and I thrilled at the smell of stewed vegetables, cloves and what I thought would likely be rabbit. As the pair came closer the driver rose from the table and greeted his wife and daughter.

A bowl of stew and a cup of fresh milk were a quarter, a bargain by Arkham standards, and as the passengers wandered back to the tables I was soon surrounded by the sounds and smells of a half dozen bowls of stew being devoured hungrily. Overcome, I dug deep into my pocket for a quarter and gladly handed it over. The stew was rich and thick, with chunks of potatoes, carrots, onions, celery and tomato as well as ample chunks of rabbit. The milk was warm and soothing and brought back memories of my mother’s kitchen, while the gamy texture of the meat reminded me of my father’s butcher shop.

I was roused from my daydream by a sudden clatter and then the wailing cry of a child in pain, followed by the concerned cries of her mother. The young girl had stumbled on the path and fallen on the handle hinge of one of her buckets. Blood was gushing down her leg, turning her sock a vibrant red. Always prepared, I dashed over, introduced myself as a doctor, and pried the girl’s hands away from her knee. There was a deep puncture wound that looked worse than it actually was. It needed one or two stitches at the most, as well as something to prevent infection. I sent her father scurrying to the bus to fetch my medical bag.

When he returned, I knew immediately that something was amiss. Inside my suitcase I had not noticed it, but now as I held it in my hand my medical bag felt oddly heavy. Something had been added, and I had a dread suspicion that I not only knew who had added it but what it was as well. Undeterred, I undid the clasp and opened it up. My suspicions were confirmed, and I took the offending item, which was wrapped in a felt cloth and paper, and deftly slipped it into my pocket. Then I cleaned the wound with alcohol; the girl jumped but her father steadied her. I applied a mild topical anesthetic and then, using a needle and some silk, quickly stitched the girl up. The whole incident took no more than ten minutes, and once some pleasantries were exchanged we were all back on the road.

The rest of the trip went by without incident. The two ladies and two men left the bus at Dean’s Corners, leaving just myself and one other as passengers for the last leg of our journey. Under these somewhat private conditions I carefully took the item from my medical bag that I had slipped into my pocket out for review. Inside the protective felt cloth I found a small vial of glowing green fluid and a note written in Muñoz’s distinctive handwriting:

Stuart,

Hopefully you will not need this, but it never hurts to be prepared

M

I sighed and replaced the small offensive thing in my medical bag. I had no desire to even contemplate such things over my holiday.

It was after three o’clock, a quarter hour behind schedule, when we rolled into Aylesbury, and I could see my friend Houghton waiting for me in his car. I quickly gathered up my things and was hurrying through the door when the driver reached over and grabbed me by my sleeve. He thanked me for what I had done for his daughter, in his own way; his language revealed him to be uneducated, but his thanks was sincere. I proffered that I was only doing what any doctor would have done, but he was having none of it. He reached beneath the seat and brought forth another one of those odd wrapped packages and handed it to me. It was hard and heavy, and the weight shifted as I tucked it into my coat pocket; a bottle of liquid of some sort. I thanked him and went to join Houghton.

William Houghton had aged little since I had seen him at Miskatonic, and as we drove back on to the road that I had just come in on, it was as if the years since University had never happened. As we trundled past the last outpost of Aylesbury Houghton turned the conversation to the furtive exchange at the bus. “What did young Corey give you?”

“Not a clue,” I responded, digging into my coat and extracting the cloth-wrapped package. It was a clear glass pint bottle containing a clear liquid, which for all I knew could have been water. I unscrewed the top and took a whiff; my senses reacted violently as the aroma burned through my sinuses and into my throat. My eyes were watering and soon I was coughing almost uncontrollably.

Houghton laughed. “Dunwich Wood Goat, Corey’s specialty. His family has been brewing that since before the Revolution. Seems you’ve made a friend; he doesn’t hand that stuff out to just anyone.”

I twisted the cap back on and tucked it away. “I would hate to see what he gives out to people he doesn’t like.”

“More often than not, that would be a back full of bird shot. Dunwich is a wild area, Stuart, filled with wild characters and no real law. Nearest sheriff is in Aylesbury, only real authority is Squire Whateley, but he’s not much when it comes to keeping folks in line. More than one man has been the victim of a country mob out this way.”

I stared at him with a sense of incredulity. “Hell of a place for a cabin, Will. If I wanted to mingle with a town full of ignorant hicks, I could have gone to Innsmouth.”

“Careful, Stuart,” he shot back. “The people of Dunwich aren’t ignorant, far from it. There’s some in these parts that could teach our professors back at MU a thing or two, if they were so inclined. Problem is they simply aren’t that inclined. They’re a self-reliant bunch that prefers to keep to themselves. They have their own ways, and they aren’t particularly fond of outsiders, especially those from Arkham.”

“I’ve always wondered about that.”

“The early history of Dunwich, or New Dunnich, is pretty poorly documented. Everything I’ve ever read suggests that the founders were an early group of freethinkers living amongst the rest of the more traditional Arkhamites. As the fires of the witch hunt were getting started, the group realized that such things didn’t bode well for them, and a slow exodus from Arkham began, some of which ended up settling in what would become Dunwich. There are a whole slew of variations on that theme, some of which talk about a divine vision, others mention a supply of lost gold. There’s even a rumor that the notorious witch Goody Watkins was the leader of the exodus. All of this is humorous when you consider that not long after, when John and Prudence Doten of Duxbury produced a significantly disfigured child, the High Sheriff was so repulsed he charged them with witchcraft and burned them alive.”

“What happened to the child?”

“No one knows. There’s no record of it ever being killed or dying or anything like that. There’s a sermon given by a Reverend Hoadley at their execution, condemning the demon offspring of the Dotens to the dark of the wood, but beyond that nothing else is ever mentioned.”

The countryside crawled past; ramshackle farmhouses and barns surrounded by overgrown fields with a few sickly-looking cattle dominated my view. There were people, drab women and children mostly, an occasional man. Someone in Dunwich must have cornered the market on grey cloth, for that was the dominant color for pants, shirts and dresses. Even overalls, normally universally blue, were nothing more than faded gray. As we pulled into what passed as the village center of Dunwich, I was not surprised to discover that the buildings all suffered from the same affliction. Some of the structures still bore remnants of paint, peeling and flaking off, but underneath was that same monotonous sickly grey.

We stopped at Osborne’s General Store for some supplies, and inside I was confronted by more of the same drab grayness that permeated the exterior. Two men were playing checkers on the head of an old barrel, while another sat rocking in an old chair. The proprietor, distinguishable by his apron, greeted Will and acknowledged my presence with a nod. Will rambled through some pleasantries and then started listing off the things he needed, which the shopkeeper began gathering from the dusty shelves around the shop.

While our order was put together Will paid his regards to the men playing checkers, two septuagenarians who were apparently relatives, brothers or maybe cousins. Given what I knew about the habits of Dunwich families, they could have been both.

“Yer otta be carfuwl ouat thar in them wuds, Doc,” said one of them, flashing a mouthful of missing teeth and a tongue missing a good chunk out of it. “Ol Whateley, he’s all rild up, and his albinny darwter too. She’s inna right awfool state.”

Osborne stepped into the conversation. “Don’t you be minding them two, Doc Houghton. The mountains have been trembling somewhat for the last week, and its nothing we ain’t use to out here. Noah’s just a little bit more excitable than most folks; sees the rumblings as evidence of spiritual forces. That’s what the folks in 1663 and 1755 thought, and that branch of the Whateleys ain’t progressed much since them times.”

“Progressed!” scoffed one of the brothers. “Iffin you awsk me they dun gone in te opposite direction. Noah’s crazier than his father Ezekiel ever was. Sure the man had some right odd notions abaout things. But he kept em to himself. Noah goes around talkin abaout spirits, things invisible in the air and the earth. It ain’t normal. And its only gotten worse since his wife Vesta died, what 12 years gone by now. That girl Lavinia ain’t right in the head neither, she got no proper schooling ta boot. Spends her days wandering the hills and fields chasin after things that only she and her darn fool father can see.”

The other one nodded. “Been ouat te Sentnal Hill evry night fer a week. Settin fires biggun enuff to see fer a good ways. Burnin sumthin gawd awful by the smell offit.”

“That there is the smell of goat burning,” the old man in the rocking chair croaked. “Noah’s been making sacrifices like the Philistines done in the old days. Says that the end days is near and we should all be making ourselves ready for the return of angels and spirits to the earth.”

Osborne finished packing our boxes and hustled us out the door. “Fellers, Old Whateley ain’t nothing to worry yourselves about. He stays mostly on his own farm down there in the glen, and up on Sentinel Hill, and in the fields between. You stay out of there, ye ain’t gonna run into him. Iffin ye do, and you’ll recognize him cause of that crazy old Indian blanket he wears, just walk away fast as you can. He ain’t one to go looking fer trouble. Same goes for Lavinia, you’ll know her cause she’s an albino, all white skin and hair with pink eyes. She’s tetched in the head, but she don’t mean no harm. But you both take my advice and be leavin them Whateleys and their lands well alone.”