As the trolley squeaked its way
into the distance, I stepped into the room and closed the door. The Gilman House,
despite its size, has never really been the sort of place that gets packed to
the gills, but even so, there was a chance that someone might have heard the
shots and not mistaken them for thunder.
I didn’t know how much time I
would have to myself and I desperately needed a moment to think and to work out
my next move. Madame Klopp might fail to mention me to the Management - she
might even have forgotten about my existence entirely - but I wouldn’t put it
past her to sell me out if the opportunity arose... I stopped suddenly and
patted my coat. Damn! My gun wasn’t the only thing she’d lifted from me in the
stairwell. My 25K was currently riding down to the fourth floor on her trolley.
Growling, I decided to toss the room and try to get a handle on what the Bug
had been up to.
Room 664 was light on luxuries
and strong on Spartan reserve. Its recent occupant, who I prodded carefully
into the centre of the space with a cautious toe, had spread some kind of
fungal bloom over every surface and spores erupted into the atmosphere with
each move I made. I dragged out my handkerchief and made myself a bandana to try
and avoid breathing them in. The bed was unused: I guess “John Smith” either
didn’t sleep or else he hung from the ceiling after hours. The only pieces of
luggage were a suitcase, the leather a dusty riot of fungal rot, and one of
those calfskin cylinders that architects carry blueprints around in. I moved
both of these onto the bed and was instantly struck by the immense weight of
the tube. I popped open the cap on one end and saw, neatly arranged inside, 19
long metal rods, hexagonal in cross-section, about an inch in diameter and three
feet in length. A youth spent stripping the metal deposits out of decrepit
buildings to sell for scrap, told me that these were not steel or lead, and
that they were too heavy to be aluminium. Sliding one out, I bit gently on one
end: the impression left by my teeth told me that they were not of any use in
construction. I filed them away in the ‘Mysteries’ folder in my brain and
turned to the suitcase.
Within were the clothes that the
creature had been wearing around in public, along with the Lionel Ritchie
headgear. Along with these were a set of five incredibly thin hexagonal metal
plates about five inches across - engraved all over with some type of writing
that I didn’t recognise - and two oddly-shaped lumps of metal. One of these
fitted pleasingly into my hand and the slight gaps between its fitted plates
glowed faintly blue as I moved it around. There was a round protuberance on one
side that looked kind of like an eye. The other object was a slightly curved
short rod, pointed at one end and flat on the other. It too seemed to be made
of many interlocking pieces, but it did nothing when I fiddled with it. I
dropped all of these into my pockets with a grunt: now was not the time to
investigate them further.
The mouldy stench in the room was
getting overpowering, so I stepped to the window – the glass completely
obliterated by an aggressive slime mould – and threw it open. Wind and rain
blew in like a sweet balm. Immediately, the corpse on the carpet began to make
odd popping noises and I turned quickly, raising the Desert Eagle:
Before my eyes, the Bug slowly
disintegrated, dissolving into the floorboards like an ice sculpture at a surf
safari in August. In no time at all, the only thing left of him was a
disquietingly sticky puddle. I moved around the mess and snatched the rubber
mask off the floor. Tossing this inside the suitcase along with the clothes, I
slammed the lid shut and then heaved the lot out through the window, into the
rainy night. With no body to speak of and no reliable witnesses as to what had
happened to him, the Knights of Y’ha-nthlei would be scratching their heads
about their mysterious Stranger for quite awhile.
I hefted the leather cylinder and
quietly opened the door to the corridor. Nothing was moving out there, so I stealthily
retraced my steps back to the stairwell and let myself in. Returning to the
window I’d come in by, I sat down on the bottom step nearby and lit a cigarette
– I had some thinking to do.
My brain was sluggish and
unresponsive. Too much of this night had passed without any down time and I was
beginning to feel the after-effects. Even the nicotine wasn’t cutting it. I was
in a jam with no way out. Everyone thought that I’d murdered Abner Gilman, the
pillar of the community, and consequently, I had E.O.D. grunts and their
assassins on my tail. Getting out of Innsmouth without my car was problematic
as it was still parked (I hoped!) outside of the Gilman mansion, and most
likely watched by those unlikely to hand over the keys. It was a lead pipe
cinch that anywhere I went that was any kind of refuge would also be watched,
so I needed to find some place unique and cunning to go to earth. On top of it
all, I was running out of dark. I looked across to the window to gauge the time
and noticed something peculiar:
A ruddy red-and-orange glow was
flickering off the pane of glass and shimmering in the raindrops that pelted on
the other side. Most alarmingly, the light seemed to be coming from somewhere
inside. I stood up slowly and stepped over to the window. As I did so, I
noticed that the stairs leading down from here to the next level had changed: not
only were they no longer nested tidily beneath the stairs leading up, they were
made from stone and spiralling downwards. The fiery luminescence pulsed angrily
up from somewhere way down below.
Cautiously, I moved towards the
first step. Had some kind of panelling slid away to reveal this bizarre
construction? From what I could see, it seemed to have just appeared in place,
taking over the original building like a benign tumour, lodging itself
comfortably within the existing fabric. I touched the stonework and it felt
warm and distinctly real, so I scratched ‘illusion’ of my list of hypotheses.
I took a step down onto the first
flagstone: it remained there, so I took another step. Soon I was tiptoeing my
way ever downwards. I had gone around several spirals when I realised that I
ought to be counting how many steps there were, to avoid getting lost. I
estimated that I’d walked about fifteen steps and I continued onwards, counting
under my breath as I went.
Very soon, I began to discern a
roaring noise coming from up ahead. The light intensified along with the heat
and periodic explosions shook the blistering air. As a precaution, I pulled out
the Desert Eagle and crouched down as I moved ahead. In a short while, the
outer wall of the stairway opened up, revealing that the steps led to a
gigantic chamber, along the outer edge of which I was proceeding. In the centre
of the chamber, an enormous pillar composed all of flame roared upwards from a
worked-stone pit in the middle of the floor and disappeared through a fissure
in the ceiling high overhead. Every now and again a burst of explosive flame
shook the column dramatically, making it roil convulsively, and fire flickered
through the air. I was so intent on this spectacle that I stumbled over the
last step.
‘69,’ I muttered, dazed.
I stood up from the floor, noting
as I did so that it was paved with massive flags, decorated with a worn and
ancient-looking design. As I dusted-off my trousers, I noticed two pairs of
sandaled feet standing right in front of me. I jumped, startled, and raised my
gun. A giant hand grabbed me by the shirtfront and another one glommed the
weapon away from me. Then I was slowly lowered to the pavement once more.
‘Tsk, tsk,’ said the man before
me.
I say “man” but I’m not sure that
he was even human. He certainly looked like it but, at an easy twelve foot in
height, he was definitely out on the far edge of the spectrum. He was
Middle-eastern in appearance and dressed as an Egyptian pharaoh, complete with
the natty hat and the enamelled beard. He had jewelled armbands and criss-cross
sashes across his torso resembling feathered wings. In one hand he held a
blue-and-gold striped hooked stick and a golden flail-like thing; in the other he
held my gun, which looked ridiculously small, and offered it back to me, holding
it by the barrel. I took it from him and dropped it back into my pocket.
‘Sorry,’ I said, abashed, ‘you
startled me.’
He nodded and the other guy
stepped forward to look at me quizzically. He was identical to the first fellow,
but of different stock, looking like he had originated somewhere north of Oslo.
Piercing ice-blue eyes looked down upon me, so pale as to be almost transparent,
and regarded me over a flowing coppery-coloured full beard. He stuck his hooked
stick under my chin and lifted my face up for examination.
‘What is it doing here?’ he said,
possibly to me, I don’t know.
‘Why do they all come here? He is
seeking answers.’ I felt inclined towards the first fellow; he, at least,
offered me personal pronouns.
‘It cannot proceed,’ said Blondie,
sticking out his bottom lip.
‘Well, obviously,’ said the first
guy, smiling wryly, a twinkle in his eye, ‘but we can at least allow him a
question, no?’
Blondie looked inclined to
disagree, but then he waved his stick and turned away dismissively.
‘As you wish,’ he said, ‘waste
your time as you see fit...’ He slapped away across the floor in his
flip-flops.
‘Never mind him,’ said Good Cop,
patting me on the shoulder, ‘he’s in a mood. Now, you’re allowed a question, what’ll
it be?’
‘What...?’ I stammered.
‘Excellent question!’ he said,
cutting me off. He propelled me over to the bottom of the stairs once more. ‘I
have an agent in your local place of interment. Go there and he will ensure
that you get the response you need. Alright?’ I nodded dumbly and he gently
pushed me onto the first step.
‘Up you go!’ he jollied me along,
‘and just FYI - there’re 70 steps, not 69.’
The column of flame belched
incendiarily once more and a spark lit on the back of my hand. I jerked awake,
sitting on the step in the hotel stairwell: my cigarette had burnt right down,
sticking to my lip, and the ash had fallen and singed my hand.
I jumped up and looked around in
shock. All was normal: no mysterious stairs; no pillar of flame; no giants. The
only thing that caused me alarm was the pale light illuminating the window and
spilling inside. Dawn was near.
I made it down to the foyer in
double time and barged my way across to the entrance, pulling my hat down and
my collar up. Ned Pierce was having a smoke outside on guard duty, so I pasted
him in the kisser with the leather cylinder. I stalked off into the rainy
morning leaving him an inky blot on the front steps...
To Be Continued...
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