Pyrate Cthulhu: Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Volume 1 (4.0) Read online

  Pyrate Cthulhu:

  Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (Vol.1)

  (version 4.0)

  ***

  Contents

  The Swelling by David Conyers

  The Disciple by David Barr Kirtley

  A Colder War by Charles Stross

  The Ghoulish Wife by Kevin L. O’Brien

  The Last Horror Out of Arkham by Darrel Schweitzer

  Harold’s Blues by Glen Singer

  Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley by Richard A. Lupoff

  The Plague Jar by Allen Mackey

  The Dead Man’s Hand by Jason Andrew

  A Little Job in Arkham by John Sunseri

  In His Daughter’s Darkling Womb by Tina L. Jens

  The Swelling

  by David Conyers

  For five violent days, the unrelenting storm battered the Daintree, threatening to submerge her at any moment, but it was the unraveling of Greg Wright’s mind that disturbed Tracy more than any elemental assault.

  As the weather worsened, so did his delusions. First, he claimed to see mermaids then fish-demons. Both, he said, were plaguing the angry waves, clawing at their yacht. Tracy never witnessed these fanciful creatures herself, even when he pointed them out. After his fifth day of peculiar behavior, Greg calmly explained to Tracy that he’d finally read the truth in a book. It told him what to do and he had done what he was told. He had just murdered their daughter Matilda. How? A revolver pressed against her temple had splattered her brains all over the cabin walls.

  Unwilling to witness his wife’s shock and grief, Greg threw himself into the crashing waves, becoming lost within seconds. Perhaps this was his only appeasement.

  Not long after, the weather finally beat her. Tracy knew she had lost her mind, and then didn’t know who or what she was.

  That was the beginning.

  As for the end, she didn’t know when that day might come, and if it did, would she even recognize it….

  ***

  The Vestibule churned over the swelling ocean. Salty foam broke at its bow as the steamer fought back and ploughed towards its unknown destination. Overcast and grey, the clouds above filled the sky, never relenting in spitting rain. The chill captured in the wind ran straight from Antarctica itself.

  Wrapped in a blanket while the tears on her cheeks vanished in the spray, she lost her thoughts towards the horizon where the water and clouds merged into one. Their unnamed destination was somewhere out there and it seemed to her to be so far away, unreachable, as if it did not exist except inside her mind.

  She understood that her current emotional state was shaky and weak. Her thoughts had been disjointed these last days or weeks - exactly how long she could not remember.

  To compensate, she tried to recall pleasant memories and found that she had lost all that she might once have known. A loss which served only to catapult her into deeper depression.

  No birds in the sky, no fish in the sea, and the colour of the water always a decisive grey, textured like spoilt meat. What survived in this place? Herself, obviously, and the crew, but what the crew were was not exactly what she would call “living”.

  Despite her misgivings, the fresh air did somewhat relieve her nausea. In the last few hours, the swelling had grown worse, and she wasn’t sure why. So, she had slipped outside, hoping to escape her sickness. With the fresh air came the cold and wet which, in minutes, became a worse misery. Yet again, there was no simple solution.

  In the end, she returned to her cabin, found her daughter wrapped in blankets as she had left her. The little girl’s smile was faint and grey. Her face pasty and dry like cardboard.

  “Where are we?” her daughter asked somberly.

  “Safe,” she answered. A mother’s response, spoken while she ran her fingers gently through the young girl’s auburn hair. Ever since the accident, the strands had tangled in knots and stayed that way. Neither mother nor daughter had been able to straighten them again, even with persistence and their only comb.

  “Where’s Daddy?”

  “Daddy’s gone away for a while.”

  “When’s he coming back?”

  “Soon,” she whispered. “We’ll be with him soon.”

  One day, she’d have to tell her daughter the truth, but to do so, she would first have to be honest with herself.

  Running out of time, she didn’t know if that day would ever come.

  ***

  During the passing weeks, her daughter had become infected with a lasting illness that was more than just a cold or flu. Confined to her bunk and this cabin, her little girl had remained here since their rescue. All fates considered, it had been a miracle that they had been discovered at all. Floating alone, thousands of kilometers off the east coast of Australia, fighting to stay alive in a cold, frigid and tumultuous ocean. What had begun as a luxury yachting cruise from Sydney to the tropical Pacific atolls had ended in nightmare. She wasn’t sure that her torment would ever end.

  Always, they were hungry. Always, the food was unpalatable, its taste nothing more than wet cardboard or soggy paper. Yet, they must eat, especially her little girl, whose health was not improving. As a mother, she instinctively knew that she must again seek medical help. Unfortunately, she didn’t trust any of the crew, so again, she was forced to take on the role of examining doctor herself. The cause was easy: they needed to eat proper food and to find proper food, she would have to overcome her loathing towards venturing beyond their cabin. She would once more have to explore the interior of the Vestibule in hope of discovering the elusive kitchens.

  Like a memory that was a dream turned inside out, she recalled their third day when the mother first wandered into the lower levels on a similar quest. In no time at all, she became hopelessly lost in the labyrinthine turns and dead ends that made no sense. There had been no doors or portals down there either, only stairs and corridors that echoed endlessly. As she foolishly descended to each successive level, they progressively became darker and colder than the one above, and the half-heard noises muffled through the walls became harder to disbelieve. A part of her knew that if she descended too far, she might actually hear what they were saying, and what they had to say would not be pleasant.

  The one location on this ship that she could easily find at any time was the bridge.

  From all points on the decks, it could be seen, high and lofty like a lighthouse upon a cliff, a beacon of rationality. At night, when the ocean was pitch-black and restless, it seemed that the bridge and her cabin held the only light in the entire world, that everyone elsewhere on this ship did not require electricity. After this realization, she ceased to venture out at night.

  It was the middle of the day now, not that the sun was ever seen. Climbing the metal stairs, drenched by the incessant salty spray and convinced that she was always wet, the mother stumbled inside the bridge. She sensed the pronounced effects of the swelling now that she was up high, looking down on the Vestibule as if it were a map. The nausea returned, but if she threw up again, her subconscious reminded her that she would probably drown by doing so.

  At the wheel stood the Captain, positioned in the only place she had ever seen him. He was staring forward, towards the vanishing point that was a never-ending merger of a violent ocean and a tumultuous sky. He turned when she sealed the porthole behind her, and nodded delicately to acknowledge her presence. Wrapped in a dark grey coat, his feet and hands were covered in their entire
ty by leather boots and gloves. The woolen scarf about his neck was wound tight, and that large pirate hat on his head didn’t really seem all that odd, despite

  “Ma’am,” he nodded ever so slightly. His voice was lyrical, even familiar, and disturbingly feminine. He was her height exactly, so she didn’t need to chink her neck to look up at him, as she had to do when conversing with any of the strange crew.

  “Captain,” she shivered then dripped. Now that she had joined him on the bridge, words were lost to her. He said nothing in response. He would wait indefinitely until she had a question to ask of him.

  Concluding that she had not come here to talk, the Captain returned to the wheel. Feeling awkward, she glanced at the charts pinned to the back wall, hoping to discover a topic of conversation. She quickly found one, when she was surprised that the charts displayed no continents or even islands, as if the sea was all there ever was and ever could be. “What’s our destination?” she asked, knowing that she had asked before, only she could never fully remember his previous answers, and that she would forget again what he was about to tell her now. Still, he never seemed to mind her repetition.

  “Carcosa,” his words were soft.

  Whimsically, she said, “I’ve heard of that place, but just can’t seem to remember where?” She searched for it on the map and failed to find it. “Will I find what I’m looking for there?”

  The Captain nodded slowly. “If you can create happiness, Carcosa is the one place that I know of that can manifest it in you.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  “That is the normal state of affairs, for most that arrive there. That is how it will be.”

  “So, then, why is that our destination?”

  He did not answer. A part of her knew she didn’t want to hear the answer, anyway. It was as if the Captain understood her very mind, had probed the very insanity festering inside, and knew what must not be said to keep the insanity locked inside.

  “Is it far? I can’t see it anywhere.” She pointed to the blank charts.

  The Captain appeared unconcerned and shook his head. “Not far.” His reflective goggles turned to the swelling seas while a gloved hand pointed toward the horizon. “I’ve seen the signs.”

  She followed his finger and saw nothing out of the unusual. “What signs?”

  Doing what she was told, she spied nothing out of the ordinary, or what passed as ordinary in this place. Then the sign appeared, as if the distance to the horizon had suddenly shrunk, as if the circumference of the earth had diminished to almost nothing. A moment later, the horror of what she witnessed overcame her, and she understood that it was neither of these things. Rather, it was a wall of water, a tidal wave a hundred meters high, rolling straight for them.

  “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. There was nowhere to escape, for it grew from every horizon, roaring like the thunder that follows impressive lightning.

  The Captain turned to her. She saw her fear reflected in his goggles. “There is no concern,” he spoke calmly. She expected his lips to move behind the scarf when he explained such things to her, but they never did. “This is the eighth tidal wave today. It will pass without effect.”

  “Eighth?” He was so calm she almost believed him.

  Almost.

  What was she to do? The crest was advancing so rapidly it would be upon them in minutes. Not even enough time to run back to her daughter, to be with her at the end. Dumbfounded, she could only stand calmly by the Captain, tasting sea water in her mouth, ready to drown again.

  But when the wall of water finally caught their vessel, she saw that it was wide, and they rode right over the top without incident. She compared it to the rising and falling of her daughter on a swing, and suddenly, an explanation for today’s peculiar nausea was revealed.

  “See,” said the captain once the ocean settled again. “No danger.”

  “No…?”

  Even to herself, her voice sounded distant. Unreal.

  She knew she should have been worried about the wave. But she just wasn’t, couldn’t afford to be, not while she was still pretending.

  Still hungry, always hungry, her drive for food again overcame her distrust of the ship’s interior, and she ventured into the one place she dreaded more than any other. She told herself to trust her instincts and that her nose would smell the food, lead her to the kitchen and then all would be right in the world again. They both needed to eat. If they did not eat, then her daughter would never recover.

  Progressing into the depths, the interior seemed to grow darker at every turn. Grey walls, fashioned from old timber supported by heavy iron struts, vanished into the shadows. The swell seemed more pronounced without portholes to watch the ocean, and the taste and wetness of sea water in her hair and clothes would not leave her. The corridors carried dampness. It was no better than standing on the deck, and she wondered if the Vestibule were not rotting from the inside out.

  Again, despite the whispering voices in the walls and the distant sounds of portals opening and closing, she failed to find any doors apart from the one that had led her down here.

  Vestibule…. The thought occurred that this was a strange name and that maybe it held meaning. A clue perhaps which might reveal her purpose in her being in this place, this nightmare. All this time, she had been thinking “vestibule” was a French word, and it probably was, but it was also commonly used in English. “Vestibule” meant an entrance hall, a reception area, somewhere to wait. Were they waiting to get somewhere? Was the Captain waiting for something to happen? Did a decision need to be made first? But to get where they wanted to go, well, they’d have to first step outside of the “vestibule” to get there. She wondered how to do that.

  She remembered bobbing in the ocean, crests threatening to crash down upon her time and time again, while the reciprocal troughs promised to drag her into the depths at any moment. The nightmare never seemed to end. The sea spray kept her cold and filled her mouth with the salty water taste that lingered with her today. Her only hope was rescue…. For a moment, she was back, really in the ocean, really drowning.

  For a moment, she scared herself half to death.

  “Ma’am?”

  A steward had found her, dressed in his fine, three-piece suit cut entirely from paper. His face was hidden behind one of the paper masquerade masks that all the crew insisted upon wearing at all times. He was stuffing something into his sleeve, and she noticed it was more paper, crunching into tiny balls. Memories came back to her, of a scarecrow on her parent’s farm in Adelaide, an effigy fashioned from her old clothes, filled with yellow straw.

  “Hello,” she stuttered, surprised that the servant managed to sneak up on her unannounced, even unheard. “I’m looking for the kitchens. I’m lost.”

  “I’m sure you are.” Like the Captain, his answer was matter-the-fact and useless.

  Annoyed that he had not properly answered her, she straightened her back and raised her pitch. “Well, then, would you be able to show me where they are?”

  He said nothing. Did nothing. The silence grew more uncomfortable as each second passed, but only for her.

  “Are you going to answer me?”

  As if snapping out of a hypnotic trance, the crewmember’s head flicked towards her, the motion reminiscent

  of a mechanical doll controlled by external powers. “Sorry, Ma’am, I cannot. It is not possible to reach the lower decks from the upper decks.”

  “What do you mean? I mean, that’s ridiculous.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said, without modifying his pitch or tone. “But I can arrange to have food brought to your cabin, if you like.”

  She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or angered further. In the end, her daughter’s wellbeing had to be her first priority. She could never take any course of action that would harm her daughter. Besides, picking a fight just to win a point didn’t seem worthwhile, not if there was any chance they could eat again. “Yes, for me and my daughter, both. And please b
e hasty about it; my daughter is not at all well.”

  “Certainly, Ma’am.” He gave a curt bow, spun on his toes and vanished down a corridor as if he were gliding on wheels.

  ***

  The yacht was lost and so was her family. Tracy cried, giving to the ocean more water than it would ever need or even notice. Moments before, the Daintree splintered and crumbled, she had dared to peer inside the cabin. Tracy was sure she had, for the image of the blood and skull fragments splattered on the wall was too powerful a nightmare to easily forget, burning into her mind and tearing apart her soul. Her only child…. For the life of her, Tracy could not recall why her husband chose to murder their only creation together.

  Much later, while the crashing waves and the storm’s unrelenting downpour threatened to drown her again at any moment, she heard a ship, its foghorn reverberating through the sleeting rain. They might all still be rescued, she hoped. They might all become a family again. All she had to do was believe.

  Anything was better than believing she’d lost everything and that the only path lying ahead was a lonely death at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

  So, she clung to Greg’s book, his sole purchase on their last port stop at Rarotonga. It was the King in Yellow, with its waterlogged pages and disintegrating cover. What did it say about that place on the shores of the Lake of Hali? What did that book mention about hope and the futility of it all? What did it say about distant, fabled Carcosa, where one could lose one’s mind and, in doing so, perhaps rediscover happiness.

  She didn’t know, but she knew her husband had discovered the truth. She recalled that it said something about them all being together again, perhaps.

  So, she kept reading.

  ***

  Somehow, she found her way back from the endless corridors and up onto the deck, again. Here, her nausea lessened and so, she took a moment to study the waves, all the time ensuring that she didn’t drown from vomiting. The massive surges of water were like big angry slugs shaken inside a bowl, fighting each other to crawl to the top of the chaotic collection of their own kind. The ocean was rising higher and higher by the minute. The spray was hard on her face, tasted again in her mouth, and stung at her eyes. She fought against the salt water sloshing inside her stomach, expecting at any moment that the Vestibule would be overrun with breakwaters.