CTHULHU THIS! Part III

I’m pleased to bring you part 3 of my free serial project, Cthulhu This! Lovecraft, crime noir and EC gore all mashed together in one tale that I’m having a hell of a lot of fun writing.

If you missed the previous parts, you can grab part one HERE, and part two HERE.

Enjoy!

CTHULHU THIS! (Part III)

The next day, it’s time to get down to business. Forget the dream, the photos; forget it all like a bad case of heartburn. I was given a job to do, and by God I was going to do it. If Deep Pockets wanted me to find his sister, then that’s what was going to happen. No bones about it. While I couldn’t completely ignore the night previous, I had to put it out of my head enough to start digging, so that’s what I did.

My first stop was the Internet. In the old days when I needed to find a place, I would ask around, grab an atlas, or phone directory assistance. These days, the entire world is at your fingertips with the click of a few buttons, and you don’t even have to get dressed to do it. There I was, sitting at my desk with a pair of boxers that were fraying at the waist and a black pair of dress socks on my feet that were sweating too much. I still hadn’t showered so I guess that was okay. Ah fuck, what do I care what you think?
I brought up Google and there it was, Hull’s Landing.
It wasn’t what I was expecting.
It may sound stupid, but based on the dream I had, I thought it would be near the water, on the coast somewhere. I was prepared to drive a great distance for answers, and maybe take a dip in the process. Instead, I found out that it was a quiet little town nestled at the base on the Appalachians in Pennsylvania. Population: 1300.
What the hell would the sister of a millionaire be doing in this place?
Yeah, I jumped in the shower, threw on some clothes, and got myself ready to find out.

The tools of my trade are pretty simple. I have an iPhone, a GPS in my car, a camera with a telephoto lens, and yeah, even a few hidden devices that record sound. I could be recording you right now as you’re reading this and you wouldn’t even know it. That’s the truth.
After punching in Hull’s Landing on Madge, I learned that it was roughly a four and a half hour drive away. Great. Cause you know, that’s what I was in the mood for. Four hours on the road with nothing but my thoughts and maybe some Sinatra to keep me company. After the night I had just went through, it would be tough to stay awake with the hypnotic road laid out before me. The hum of the tires on the pavement droning on like white noise in the background.
I stopped at the drug store and got some caffeine pills, then at Starbucks and grabbed the biggest fucking latte they had. Venti? It that what they call it? Jesus Christ. It’s a large. Friggin’ corporations.

There were a lot of things on my mind as I drove on and on and on. For one, what was this chick, Caroline, doing in Hull’s Landing? How the hell did what Money Bags have in his mansion tie in to all of it? Don’t try and tell me different because I know it did. After that dream, there was no doubt in my mind that this wasn’t my ordinary missing persons case. He obviously had enough information to know where she might be, so why didn’t he just go get her himself? Why me? I told you a while ago that this was the weirdest trip I had ever been on, and I meant it. Too many questions, too many loose ends, not enough information. It just wasn’t my style. The paycheck though, that was the only thing fueling me right now, and I hated it. Like a crack addict desperate for the next hit, I was desperate for that money to get me out of here for good.

Two hours into the trip and my stomach was purring like a pussy. I passed a Jelly Belly restaurant of some sorts and pulled a U on the empty road. A snack shop named after jelly beans? Whatever. Out here in the middle of nowhere anything was possible, including what I was about to be told by the waitress.

Once inside I caught a whiff of homemade lemon meringue and ordered a slice along with a cup of coffee. I popped two more caffeine pills and chowed down like a bull dog, much to the chagrin of…what was on her name tag? Wendy? She walked over to take my empty plate and refill my cup.
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
It took me a second to actually realize she was talking to me. In New York, you don’t get that a lot, so it’s not something I’m used to.
“What gave it away?”
Wendy somehow took my response as an opportunity to take a seat across from me. She was young, maybe mid-twenties, yet she looked like she had been doing this job for about fifty years. The bags under her eyes and unkempt hair told me that she probably had a kid at home, maybe a husband that didn’t treat her very well. I’d seen her before, in a hundred different girls.
“I’m here almost everyday and I’ve never seen you before.”
She didn’t quite have a New York accent and she didn’t quite have a Pennsylvania one. It was some bastardized version of the two and I found myself smiling at it.
“What? Something funny?”
“No,” I said. “It’s just that you’re about as perceptive as a peephole.”
She squirmed in her seat a bit, not sure how to take my comment. Hell, I’m not even sure I knew what I meant. I was so high on pills and coffee.
“Actually,” she went on, “I saw your license plate.”
This was a woman after my own heart.
“So what are you? FBI?”
I couldn’t hold it in any longer and I giggled like the daughter I was now sure she had back at her trailer.
“Would an FBI agent be dressed like this?” I held out my hands, inviting her to look at my jeans, wrinkled dress shirt and loose tie.
“No, I guess not,” she said.
It occurred to me that this girl must get all kinds of people like me who come through here. Strangers just passing through, on their way to nowhere, somewhere, and any destination in between. It also dawned on me that if Wendy was as polite with all of them as she was with me, she just might know something about where I was headed.
I reached into the briefcase I had with me and pulled out the picture of the Welcome sign. I slid it across to her and as she reached to take it, our fingers touched and for a moment I felt a dark cloud pass over head, like the ones in the photograph.
“What can you tell me about that place, Wendy?”
She was smiling when she took the picture, but she wasn’t smiling now. Her hands started to tremble a little and the table was moving as her knee was knocking it from underneath.
“Wha…what do you want to know about that place for?”
“Cause that’s where I’m going, Wendy.”
She let the picture drop to the floor and she stood up, wiping the scum it had left on her hands away on a dish rag she had in her apron.
“You can’t go there, mister. You can’t.”
“Why not, Wendy? What’s wrong with Hull’s La..”
“Shhh. Don’t say it. Please don’t say its name.”
She started walking away, sobbing her apologies.
“Wendy,” I said as I bent over to pick up the photo.
She sensed my movement and turned back around. Her eyes had changed in a matter of moments. There was something behind them that wasn’t there before. Not fear, but rage, as if the picture had sparked something in her memory, much like a scent will bring back thoughts of a lost love. Only Wendy was clearly not in love with Hull’s Landing.
“Evil!” she screamed. “That place is evil!”
Her words rattled the spoon beside my half empty cup and the picture in my hand began to smoke. Little tiny wisps emanating off it like Indian signals. Then it burst in to flames.
“Jesus Christ!”
The commotion had been heard and as one of the cooks came out of the kitchen, I knew that was my time to jet.
“What the hell’s going on out here?” said Brutus. Seriously, he was one big dude that I didn’t want to mess with.
“It’s okay,” said Wendy. “It’s not his fault.”
He stomped on the picture as it disintegrated there on the floor. He must have caught a glimpse of it before it became completely unrecognizable.
“Hull’s Landing? Hey, Wendy. Isn’t that your old stomping ground?”

Before I could say another word, I was back in my car and peeling out of there like a banana in the hands of an Ethiopian. Evil, eh? Well we were going to find out just how evil this pace was, because I still had a few tricks up my sleeve that even the fucking Old Ones didn’t know about.

…to be continued