Chapter One: Out from Arkham
Three learned men stood somber and shaken in the long enclave around the thing that had been a man mere moments before which now lay framed in remnants of broken glass. One of them crouched to try and steady the frantic motions of the guard dog to keep its baying cries and whines from filling the audible void from whence a cacophony of birdsong had ceased suddenly and hauntingly, and to avoid the animal sundering the remains any further. The library reading room and its usual smell of aged paper, leather and wood was choked from their nostrils by the ichorous and brontide aroma from the thing that had once lain prostrate before them.
The eldest moved to the window, looking over the grounds as the drone of police sirens grew closer while drawing the thick curtains and gesturing in the direction of the heavy wooden doors. A crowd had already gathered before the vestibule doors were opened to allow them entry with a protest from Dr. Morgan who was now struggling to keep the inquisitive mass from pushing through.
"Henry, we shouldn’t let anyone enter until the medical examiner arrives..."
"Fifteen... Fifteen years old."
"Henry. Henry, we have to keep these people back. We can’t allow anyone else to see this, this thing..."
The gaunt grey face turned and examined the twisted cadaver once more before speaking in a haggard voice. "This... thing, this boy, was fifteen years old, Morgan," drawing in a breath and turning to the other who was struggling to manage the animal in his arms. "Rice, take that dog out of here and bring something to cover this body."
"Yes, Professor."
"And Rice..."
"Henry?"
"Wire my nephew. Tell him I was wrong. I was wrong about all of it. Tell him we’ll begin immediately."
---
I arrived in Arkham, Massachusetts in June of the year 1929, at the age of fifteen. It had been three days living out of my overfull valise on that train headed north from Louisiana where I had since the age of six been a ward of the state. I was glad to be free of that southern heat and damp. Our layover in Newburyport had afforded me a few hours in their library with the purpose to acclimate myself with the area of my upcoming surroundings at Arkham. It was only then I realized I would not be boarding in that witch-legend haunted city at all, but the nearby town of Bolton.
This news struck me with a bit of enthusiastic novelty, as the few worsted suits I had among my meager and favored possessions were the work of tailors adjacent to the mills there. Still, Arkham held a gruesome reputation even as far South as New Orleans for their particular and peculiar course of academia. It was decided when I received the letter of admission to their preparatory school that the opportunity to develop at such a prodigious bastion of higher education was not one to be passed up. Others would say I would benefit from the chance to socialize with others of my own age, to which I personally saw little benefit.
Due to a condition of the blood, I found my solace indoors, and the company of books to be preferable to the company of others. Strenuous activity or undue stress would bring on lightheaded spells, and a casual bruise might mark my paler skin for months at time. I had no patience for sport, neither the outdoors. Most boys around my own age tended to be particularly rough, finding me at best to be a little queer.
It was for these reasons I preferred books. Books were a good fit for my particular interests. They did not require a great deal of energy or hold the danger of exertion or injury. Books were steadfast, consistent, and more honest and insightful than most people. I had spend a good majority of my youth behind closed doors under the protective gaze of indifferent yet charitable strangers and their varied and sundry collections of books. The classics of antiquity had given me a keener perspective of the modern world, while Grey’s Anatomy taught me more than I needed to know about the minute intricacies of both men and women.
Having found time to myself now in Arkham, that city of no little local renown, that I realized I might remain for a few days. My expected arrival so delayed as I had planned the trip using an outdated guidebook. I found for myself some modest lodgings above a small family shop, the owners of which seemed to take me as something of an odd young man, but my meager recompense was accepted without much trouble, and I found myself in a real bed for a few nights’ stay. I would not be missed, I rationalized, because my initial travel plans included that further stop in Newburyport, where I had planned to transfer to a bus to save a bit of money despite adding time to the journey. However, I was informed that with the recent military interest and occupation in the former harbor town of Innsmouth, that my transfer point would be unavailable for an indiscernible amount of time while that unfortunate business was settled. I couldn’t help but notice that hint of relief in the tone of the ticket agent in breaking the news.
It would be the last day of my stay in Arkham when I had spent much of my time huddled reading in the cot of my lodgings that I decided to attend to some final errands before the train’s departure to Bolton. Packing a simple meal for myself of crusted bread and a hard cheese, as I did not do well while removed from food for any extended period. I planned to spend the last of my time unsupervised by peers or faculty surrounded in my own adopted element. I had managed to save a considerable amount in concern for the day when the charity of others might run short. As such with the travel, I was a voracious seeker of thrift. Instead of simply buying a pair of new suits which I had coveted in a shop window on my arrival, I managed to trade some of the lightly worn pieces among my collection for those I desired, paying only for the cost of their alteration. I ignored the odd looks as the waistcoats and particularly the trousers were fitted, as I was unsure how to answer the nervous elderly tailor when asked whether I dressed to the right or left. The subject was soon dropped, perhaps by his being put off by my oblivious reaction and admittedly odd choice of preferred style for someone my age.
The rest of my time would be spent at the public library, so I made a quick sojourn to the adjacent moss-hung gardens and ate hurriedly while thumbing through those indecipherable notes which were replete in that treasured volume I kept tucked at my ribs. The pages were loose, and despite the number of times my fingers had traced each roughhewn letter, if those odd sigils which met my eyes with wonder and concern could be referred to as such, the ink had simply refused to run over the yellowing paper. Once the last of that repast had been consumed, I prepared to lose myself in the usual comfort of a ration of words.
It was as I poured over a few stacks of newspapers while researching my new residence that I gleaned the location of the academy grounds at the end of Pond Street had begun with the destruction of a number of troubled properties left abandoned nearly a decade previous. Records did not betray the source of the trouble, and looking further a number of incidents over the last several years shew disparate misfortunes through most of Massachusetts’ Essex County; a government siege and then subsequent apparent destruction of Innsmouth, farms and locals shaken by bizarre happenings in Dunwich, and a very public novelty argument in the press over rumors of creatures of unknown origin living in the hills of Vermont. I did not have the opportunity to read much further, as the train whistle would announce the imminent departure of my transportation.
Having hastily tucked some assembled notes into the back of my aged leather journal, running the full four blocks back to the nearly departed cabin, I almost collapsed into my assigned stall. Trying to steady myself, hands shook as I undid the bronze latch and laid the contents of that inherited treasure on the makeshift workspace. Eyes slid closed a moment, feeling a bead of sweat drip from my temple to the back of my hand. The school papers I left in place, rising again and clutching the journal to my chest with one hand and fiddling in the pocket of my waistcoat. I stumbled moving past the conductor, whose arm made an attempt to inhibit my progress to the washroom, tapping the brass plate warning against its use before leaving the station. My pallor seemed to convince him otherwise and I crowded myself within that narrow space.
Shaking fingers unbound the small brown paper bundle of savory gumdrops which I slid one by one between parched lips, gathering some water from the tap which I drank from the cup of my palm, using the remainder to pat the cheek of my normally boyish visage to draw out another color than pale. I reflected then on more than just my careworn face in the mirror.
My father left me with the things I held in this claustrophobic moment. The journal in my grip was one of a half dozen indecipherable texts furtively written in his penscratch, this sudden weakness was most likely hereditary according to the correspondence I’d kept with the doctor who provided me the diagnosis and tenuous treatment, and these eyes that it took effort to keep from blurring during these spells. One of the few things I remember of my mother was her assertion that my eyes reminded her of his particular hue, but that was before she was committed at Fenwick. The only feature I could claim for myself was my peculiar choice of attire and the solid streak of oddly pure white hair at my temple just over my left ear which no amount of combing or pomade-based subterfuge could camouflage.
I chewed a bit, masticating slowly and trying to focus on the hints of spice in that otherwise sweet bit of confection and waiting for the dizzy spell to pass. I took one more cautious glance in the mirror before smoothing back my hair again and making myself presentable. Little did I know presentable to whom, as the stall I previously settled into, in the formerly empty car, now shew another resident.
"Laying it on rather thick, aern’t they?" the unexpected brogue interrupted my train of reason as I nervously resumed pouring over the stacks of information that cluttered the makeshift workspace before me. My hand raised to slide the tips of my fingers up the bridge of my nose, another peculiar habit I’d developed before engaging in the practice of regular study.
The speaker was a stocky well-built boy roughly my own age, though still somewhat lean in mass and stature. It was the shock of orange hair and freckled if slightly worn visage as he huddled enthusiastically into the bench of the train stall opposite me as he pulled a few of the bundled papers in front of himself.
"Pardon me." It was less of a question as a reaction to the sudden and unexpected interruption from this ginger intruder.
"Look at this curriculum, mate. I maen see here," as a timetable was tapped with two fingers. "Geometry? Specifically non-Euclidian geometry, mind yae. Introduction to metaphysics? Rural folklore? A handful of arts classes, some darms and a few professors moonlightin’ to educate a few dozen aristocrats’ daughters and farmers’ kids? Ain’t buyin’ it."
I remained silent, however my expression must have spoken volumes because unabated by a lack of reaction he continued speaking at me while I examined which of my behaviors might have spurned him to continue speaking.
"Aye, not a native I see. Well you’re in for a real traet then." He looked over me with that discerning gaze and continued to eye my sundry collection of forms with a little half smile which set the hairs on the back of my neck on end for a moment.
"How did you know I’m not from around here exactly?" I asked trying to some of the more personal and conspicuous notes away from those prying eyes. There was less than an hour left until our arrival at Bolton Station, so I was hoping my fumbling concern might be taken as merely preparedness and not anxiety.
"Oh I din’t. But I suppose I do nae. It’s the eyes mostly." And for a moment I diverted my gaze before I realized he was referring to his own. "Can’t say anyone gets much sleep around here and ye look well rested enough. Name’s Finnegan, so ye know. S’my first yaer tae at Arkham. Then again I suppose it’s everyone’s. Funneh, I suppose to be in the first class of a new school, especially one bein’ so rushed as this one."
"Rushed?" When they speak of a word one gets in edgewise, at this moment "rushed" was mine.
"Aye, only set the foundations last winter. Meh cousins on the initial construction said it were the oddest thing setting cement in the cold. Narmally that’s a summer job, but what Miskatonic wants, yae know. Some fellas from the government came with the surveyors tae. Oddest thing that, but then the school’s got some lofty federal grant, so maybe we’ll see some kids from Innsmouth also. Just dynamited that place last yaer, and I haerd a bunch o’ those kids are refugees, what with parents kept in odd camps and the like. But what Miskatonic wants, yae know."
And again, Miskatonic University, a name I had seen a number of times on the forms that sat half stuffed into the now overfull binding of my journal. Miskatonic had a reputation as a fine institution, but unlike the other Ancient Eight schools which occupied this area of New England, also held a connotation of dread and concern in any with whom I’d made an inquiry. It seems the college and Arkham, and now perhaps Bolton also, shared a common burden of reputation.
---
The sound of the train whistle marked our arrival with a shrill drone, while the residents of the factory town bustled and hurried busily without taking much notice. Routine appeared to have a firm hold on Bolton, which meant the influx of cars on the cobbled streets and outpouring of foot traffic was visibly considered an inconvenience to most.
According to my limited research Bolton, Massachusetts had been somewhat fortunate following the Great War, seen as one of the more prosperous cities in the Greater Miskatonic Valley for a time. When the textile factories resumed their previous schedule and demand grew leaner, the college had been gracious enough to maintain a presence. What my study had failed to mention was the number of specialty storefronts that seemed to have sprung up to cater to students past which modest crowds of tittering youth were trodding in the light drizzle that accompanied the later summer season.
A parcel of young men stumbled awkwardly from the bus that had travelled most of the morning from Ipswitch, while the first passengers from another arriving train turned the corner of a slat of brick row houses that comprised this funneling area, carrying great steamer trunks between them or clutching the occasional valise or canvas duffel. All were heading in the same direction, to the same destination...
Stopping briefly to examine the contents of my open bag on a bench outside the station, making sure each of my personal things were still accounted for, I heard that familiar lilt of my erstwhile temporary companion explaining something to another group of approaching students, something about the street gas lamps. I kept my distance, while remaining within earshot. He seemed quite fervent in the notion of some conspiracy involving the city of Boston’s recent transition to electric lighting, and how resistant the surrounding towns had been to do the same.
Trodding on, all sloping under the weight of our luggage, a few very modern cars passed at speed the occasional horse-driven cart or buggy. Boughs of the trees on either side framed the journey with the tenebrous shifting of leaves. Past the point of residential properties, the school itself came further into view with each passing step.
To match the local aesthetic, the surrounding wall had used brick from the demolition, while the interior buildings made an effort to mimic the same gambrel roofs of aged farmhouses for the dormitories and common buildings. The administration buildings in contrast stood monolithic as a backdrop at the edge of a wooded clearing that divided the grounds proper from the potter’s field behind. Over the rough-hewn road stood a wrought-iron sign that declared the property for what it was: Arkham Akademy.
---
There are few things that can provide such a stark contrast to the eagerness and excitement felt by those I observed heading toward the campus, which seemed to invigorate anyone matching that pace toward the onset spirit of newfound freedom and responsibility, as the morose gathering of a crowd in a common area, or the hysterical wailing of a girl younger than oneself clutching furtively at the cross around her neck. Those things alone did not send the sudden shiver up my spine, nor the cause of everyone growing inert and cautious with blank expressions crossing their features before stepping to either side of the cobbled path. No, that which had a terrible, palpable effect on the tone of that morning was the slow steady crunch of tires on the road leading back toward town, and the lights devoid of motion atop that graven and otherwise silent ambulance...