Strange Eons (5 page)

Keith read the story almost with relief, and it wasn’t until he turned the page that he found the item which really jolted him. Again it was boxed and brief, as befitted a last-minute insertion of late news:

GLENDALE BOOK DEALER SLAIN

Police are investigating the murder of Frederick T. Beckman, 59, who was stabbed to death last night in his home at 1482 Whitsun Drive, Glendale. The body was discovered by sheriff’s deputy Charles McLoy following a neighbor’s call reporting sounds of a disturbance next door. Presumably Beckman’s assailant entered through an open bedroom window and attacked him while he slept. Beckman, a dealer in rare books and manuscripts, kept his large stock on the premises in a wall safe, which was apparently undisturbed.

Keith’s hands shook as he put down the paper; they were still shaking as he dialed Waverly’s number and listened to the echo of repeated rings.

Obviously Waverly had already left home for his early flight to Boston, but there might still be time to catch him at the airport. Keith called L.A. International to have Waverly paged, but the courteous voice on the other end of the line informed him that the Boston flight had departed on schedule half an hour ago.

So now there was nothing to do but wait.

First, however, Keith checked the windows and locked the doors. He felt self-conscious as he did so, in the dazzling morning sunlight of a bright autumn day, yet the solid click of bolts and latches sliding into place was reassuring.

Reassuring—and disturbing. For the sound brought back memories of another click: the click of the receiver in a dream that was not a dream.

Or was it?

Several hours passed before Keith nerved himself to pick up one of the books Waverly had loaned him—the thick, well-thumbed copy of
The Outsider and Others.

He turned the pages until he found the story he remembered only too well:
The Statement of Randolph Carter.
It was a brief account of a midnight trip to an ancient graveyard by the narrator and his friend, Harley Warren. Warren’s purpose was to open an old tomb which, he hinted, contained strange secrets—something to do with corpses that never decayed. It was a typical early tale, written in the florid style that Lovecraft then employed and which certain critics condemned as overblown. And yet the very excesses of its imagery evoked an aura of nightmare; the sense of being in the presence of things larger than life—or larger than death. It was a feeling Keith had experienced last night, and now, recapturing it in broad daylight, he was again apprehensive.

He forced himself to read on, to the point where the huge slab above the sepulcher was removed, disclosing a stone staircase leading down into the black opening beneath. It was then that the narrator’s companion, Warren, descended alone, after first setting up a portable telephone as an instrument of communication. Warren disappeared into the darkness, trailing a reel of wire from his own receiver, while the narrator waited on the surface of the graveyard until a clicking signal summoned him to pick up his two-way phone and listen.

Keith found himself almost unable to read the rest—Warren’s shocked whispers of dreadful discoveries in the pit below; his mounting alarm as he went on; and, then, his frantic warning that commanded the narrator to replace the slab and flee for his life.

Suddenly Warren’s babble was cut off. And as the narrator called out to him there came a clicking on the wire and the sound of another voice—the deep, hollow, unearthly voice that said,
“You fool, Warren is dead.”

Beckman is dead.

That’s what the voice had told Keith, and it hadn’t been a nightmare. The nightmare was here and now, in the realization that he hadn’t dreamed.

The book slid to the tabletop and Keith shuddered.
You fool—

Maybe he
was
a fool after all. There had been such a voice, and presumably it belonged to Beckman’s murderer. But Beckman had died of stab wounds in his own bed, not in an imaginary pit beneath an imaginary tomb, the victim of an imaginary monster.

His killer was human, and his choice of words had not been accidental. Obviously the murderer was someone familiar with Lovecraft’s writing.

But what sort of human could kill a harmless elderly book dealer in cold blood, then calmly answer his telephone and utter a mocking paraphrase from a story? What insane impulse prompted such ghoulish humor?

Ghoulish.
Pickman’s Model.
A world-wide cult, preserving the secrets of ancient monster-gods and dedicated to their return.

Waverly seemed to believe it, and he was nobody’s fool. Did he know more than he’d already told? And did Beckman have such knowledge too, knowledge that could only be erased by his death?

If so, if someone suspected Beckman’s awareness and destroyed him, then perhaps Waverly was in danger. What would he find in Boston—or what in Boston would find him?

There were no answers to these questions; only silence. Silence in an empty house, silence that Keith eventually drowned out with the mindless chatter of television soap operas and the artificial frenzy of afternoon game shows. The early evening news offered no further enlightenment on the earthquake and no mention at all of Beckman’s death.

For this Keith was oddly grateful, just as he was grateful for the mere sound of the newscasters’ voices portentously proclaiming the posturings of politicians and sports figures. The very banality of their statements was somehow reassuring; a reminder that in the real world life was proceeding in its usual pattern—three minutes of actual events followed by three minutes of commercials.

Time ticked by and darkness deepened. Keith switched off the TV set and switched on the lights. Suddenly he realized that he’d eaten nothing all day; he went into the kitchen and prepared a breakfast in place of his dinner meal.

He was just finishing up when the phone rang.

“Keith, are you all right?”

Something lifted from Keith’s shoulders as Simon Waverly spoke. “Of course. What about you?”

“A bit tired—been running all day, but I’m back at the hotel now. Good thing I got here when I did, because Oliphant tells me they’re starting actual demolition tomorrow.”

“Oliphant?”

“Fellow who owns the warehouse. Inherited it from his uncle and he doesn’t seem to know too much about the business. Acted pretty cagey until I identified myself, but then he cooperated. Took me all through the place this afternoon.”

“Did you find anything?”

“According to the inventory listings, Santiago bought up the entire consignment of Upton material. But just on a hunch I asked to see the area where the stuff had been stored. You wouldn’t believe how filthy it was—the old man, the uncle, let everything run down over the years. And, of course, the rats had gotten in. Apparently they’d been carrying off papers and using them to make nests. That’s where I found it—in a corner—and if it hadn’t been wrapped in oilskin, they’d probably have destroyed it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll see. I just sent it off to you, special delivery, registered. You should have it in the morning.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me what it is? Why all the mystery?”

Waverly’s soft voice slurred into a whisper. “I have my reasons. Oliphant said he had several phonecalls from unidentified parties inquiring about Upton’s material, wanting to know who’d purchased it. Naturally he didn’t give them any information, but in view of what we know, someone must have found out.”

“You told him what you suspect?”

“Not all of it—just enough so that he’d realize my motives were legitimate. He says he thinks whoever called tried to break into the warehouse afterwards, but the security patrol came by and scared them off. And he’s noticed strangers hanging around the parking lot on several occasions, as though they were keeping an eye on the place. Of course, he may just be imagining things, but you never know. So just in case someone may have spotted me, I thought it best to mail the item off to you immediately rather than risk carrying it myself.”

Keith hesitated a moment, then took a deep breath. “Maybe it’s a good idea, after what happened to your friend Beckman.”

“Beckman?”

“He was killed last night.” Keith told him about the murder, and his own experience.

When he finished there was a long silence at the other end of the line until at last Waverly found his voice. “We must talk about this further, just as soon as I get in. I booked a return flight for noon tomorrow, so I’ll be home by evening. I’ll call you then.”

“Good enough.”

“Meanwhile, I want you to promise me two things. First of all, stay put until you hear from me.”

“Okay, will do. What else?”

“That item I’m sending you. Sign for it when it arrives, but don’t open the envelope until we’re together.”

“Any particular reason?”

“I’ll explain when I see you; then you’ll understand. And Keith—”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

Keith was very careful; careful about double-checking the doors and windows, careful to listen for any unusual sound in the night. But all seemed safe and silent, and when finally fatigue forced him to retire he slept surprisingly well, without disturbing dreams.

In the morning he maintained his vigilance, opening the front door only once, at noon, in response to the postman’s ring.

He was relieved to sign for and receive the number-ten manilla envelope Waverly had sent him from Boston, and immediately placed it in his jacket pocket for safe-keeping, despite the temptation to break the seal and examine its contents. Waverly must have had good reasons for wanting him to wait, and in just a few hours they’d be together.

There were many questions he wanted to ask, and the thoughts that prompted them were unsettling. It seemed to Keith as though he himself had been living in some sort of envelope all these years, moving through life with the special handling accorded the fortunate few whose means insulate them from unpleasant contacts and conditions. Then, a week ago, the seal had somehow been broken and he’d suddenly been exposed to—what?

Certainly not reality. For recent events coincided with no concept of reality as he understood it. But perhaps most people, rich and poor alike, lived in sealed envelopes; narrow, almost two-dimensional confines that constricted their vision and afforded no glimpse of the world outside or what was actually happening to them. Sped through life by mechanical means they couldn’t imagine or comprehend, sorted and handled by entities whose very existence was undreamt of, they traveled through space and time to unguessed destinations.

But now, outside the protection of the envelope, the narrow view widened, revealing limitless vistas, and the paper-thin sheet on which sanity is lettered was exposed to great winds blowing from gulfs beyond the stars.

Keith shook his head. This kind of thinking would get him nowhere; it was time to rely on common sense. There had to be a logical explanation for what happened and he hoped Waverly could provide it; if not, he’d go to the police.

Once he made the decision he felt relieved. He spent the afternoon picking up the threads of everyday existence, calling his broker, checking his bank statements, making an appointment to bring the Volvo in for a tune-up, phoning an agency for domestic help to come in and clean the house on Friday. Then he inventoried his refrigerator and freezer and made out a shopping list.

The prosaic nature of such activities was in itself a calming influence, and by evening Keith was his own man again. He prepared and ate dinner, cleared the table, put plates and utensils in the dishwasher. Then he rewarded himself with a drink and settled down in the den to await Waverly’s call.

Here in the dim lamplight the ivory and jade figurines leered silently, the tribal masks grimaced, and the shrunken head dangled; its lips seemed sewn into a grin that mocked his pretensions of ordinary tastes and interests.

But not necessarily. After all, didn’t everyone respond to the weird and fanciful aspects of existence? The sophisticated artists who fashioned these grotesque figures, the primitive craftsmen who carved the masks, even the debased savages responsible for shrinking a human head—all were motivated by imaginative impulses that sought an outlet for expression. Just as he, in collecting such bizarre artifacts, fulfilled his own urge toward the fantastic.

And such urges weren’t confined to artists, craftsmen or collectors. All humanity shared a need to indulge in flights of imagination—though their vehicles of escape were merely motion pictures, television, or comic books. Even the illiterate knew the lure of the unknown; no one who shares the human condition, however humbly, is insensitive to the eternal enigma of life and death. There is something in all of us that seeks the strange, the abnormal, the inexplicable. And in so doing, propitiates its power over our minds. It’s the hard-headed realist, the self-professed skeptic and scoffer at all mystery, who is most vulnerable to madness.

Keith stared at his collection with new awareness. These objects he’d accumulated were not just an expression of an eccentric taste; they represented a need to surround himself with fearsome symbols until the frightening became familiar. Once accepted as commonplace, they no longer disturbed him. It was, in a way, magic; a means of overcoming inner dreads. Just as Waverly exorcised his personal demons by reading fantasy, and Lovecraft—the realization came clearly—had done so by writing.

Keith was just freshening his drink when the phone jangled. He picked up the extension and smiled, reassured by the sound of Waverly’s voice.

“Good evening. Did the package arrive?”

“The envelope? Yes, it’s here.”

“Fine. You haven’t opened it?”

“No.”

“Good man. Sorry I’m late in calling—I ran into problems.”

“You sound like you have a cold.”

“It was raining in Boston, and like a fool I didn’t bring a coat. But that’s not important. It’s my damned foot—”

“What happened?”

“I tripped coming down the ramp after we landed here. Broke my bloody ankle.”