The C.J. Henderson MEGAPACK ®. C.J. Henderson
something.
The footfalls had been conveniently made, slivers of space left between each of the patterns, just right for a human of average height, spaced just so, placed directly where the average human eye would see them, would pride itself on being able to take advantage of them.
Galvez’s arm stretched out, positioning the cane for its next strike. And, as it did so, the inspector’s memory superimposed another image on the scene. He thought back to voodoo rituals he had witnessed, to the foul priest he and his men had stopped only months earlier, all of them, scratching patterns in the sand or the mud, making their magic gestures with their totem sticks—
“I’m going to take a look in the back rooms.”
The lieutenant pulled his hand back, even as Legrasse’s mind raced. What if Claro had not set the traps, or even if he had, if after his death, something else had moved them? Changed their positions, moved them into patterns…
Galvez’s hand began to descend—
Into the same patterns it carved into Claro’s cane, the cane left at the front door, where the traps were not so thickly spread, so that one could enter, and pick up the cane!
“No!”
Legrasse screamed at Galvez, even as he threw himself at the lieutenant. The lieutenant shouted as well, raising his free hand in response, trying to bring up the one wielding the cane, but it was too late. Both men went down painfully, rolling over and over in the flesh-tearing maze.
* * * *
Most of their pains had long subsided, but Galvez was still not certain of Legrasse’s reasons. Yes, he understood about the traps being laid out in the same patterns as those on the cane. He understood about the interconnected manner of most magics, and how, yes, perhaps he had been maneuvered into striking each of the patterns in turn with what could very well be thought of as a wand. And, yes again, considering the detail in which Claro had written in his journal, the fact he did not mention patterning the traps was an odd omission. Still…
“You could have just told me not to hit the traps again,” he muttered, his dignity still as sore as his flesh.
Legrasse sighed. His hands and legs and arms and face had been snapped and gouged in just as many places as had Galvez. He had lost as much blood, had pulled one of the crushing things off his nose and one off an ear. He did not answer the lieutenant, however. There was no point.
As they stood on the edge of the swamp, watching the old house burn, he did not see where it mattered. When the conflagration was finished, the officers waiting nearby would dynamite the spring Claro had written of, the one they had found with so many sinister gouges roping up through the mud surrounding it. Afterward, the entire area would be salted, then forgotten.
Holding the cane for a moment longer, Legrasse wondered if what he had seen in his mind were even possible. Could the blind lengths have carved the patterns, planted the wand, arranged the room to be discovered just so, waiting for some unsuspecting wretches to trigger the ritual?
And to what end?
“Just to take advantage of the fact that a storm somehow opened a random portal that some bug just happened to accidentally poke its way through?”
At that point, Legrasse did not care if he were right or not. Better sore ribs and a swollen ear than some foul horror flopping about loose. One poor dead bastard was enough.
But, maybe Claro was not the only one that had gotten too near the edge. The inspector wondered if, perhaps, he too might not have seen more than he could bear at this point. Maybe he was growing overly paranoid over the unspeakables he had encountered. Perhaps he was weakening, assigning them too much credit, too much ability. But then, how could one ascribe such beings with too much ability?
He might’ve been wrong, he snorted, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible.
Muttering a curse in Hector Claro’s honor, Legrasse threw the cane as hard as he could into the blazing cremation before him. Then he turned and walked back toward the police wagon parked well back from the swamp and the burning house. Like the snorting horses waiting there, he had grown tired of the smell.
INTRODUCTION TO “THE IDEA OF FEAR”
One of my newest series revolves around a group of New York City cops who, upon reaching twenty years of service, all retire together to start a quiet little business in a sleepy little village in New England. In a town named…what was that again…oh right, Arkham.
THE IDEA OF FEAR
“We are terrified by the idea of being terrified.”
—Nietzsche
He looked the house over from the street. Dark and old and tall and musty, like every other dilapidated dump in town, he knew. They were all the same, all creaking, all spongy—alive with mosses and spores and gas leaks—all filled with a thousand crinkling noises. The man stared out the window of his car and despaired dragging himself out onto the sidewalk.
Some detective, he thought. You sure aren’t going to give Phil Marlowe a run for his money anytime soon in this town.
Franklin Nardi had left New York City after its police force had used up his strongest, bravest days. Many envied the life—work a job for a mere twenty years and retire with benefits beyond the dreams of most. With only the slightest of salaries on top of such a retirement package, it was said, a man could support a family in style.
Yeah, he thought, taking another long drag on his cigarette, and all it takes to earn those fine benefits is walking out the door with a target on your back. Every day. Every stinking, miserable day. For twenty goddamned years.
Frankie Nardi had no family. He did not lose them tragically, except in the sense that it was tragic they had never existed at all. Nardi did not by nature enjoy the company of women. He had witnessed the eternal grinding down of his father and his uncles, all men to be proud of, except when they ventured into the presence of women and their guts turned to cheese. He listened to them complain, watched them live their lives afraid to speak, afraid to contradict, afraid of what they might do to these women they loved if they ever stopped reining themselves in.
The detective was not afraid of women. He went out with them and played their games to the extent those rounds gave him what he wanted—flesh and momentary contact free from the rock-heavy drag of commitment.
“Ahhh, fuck,” he snorted. He took another long look at his assignment for the night and then crushed his smoke out on the roof of his car, adding, “no one ever said life was easy.”
Window up, bags grabbed from the back seat, car locked, up to the front door. Nardi assessed the ring of keys he had been given and with his usual skill picked the correct one on the first try. Throwing open the old door he threw his bags inside and surveyed his home for the evening. With a crunch of muscles he stretched his arms out, flexing his back and shoulders unconsciously. Even though he expected nothing more than a night’s sleep, he was still a man who did his job.
After twenty years of not blinking, of watching over his shoulder, behind his back, of sizing up each and every human being that came near him, figuring their angle, investigating their souls in the split-second before contact, moving to Arkham was supposed to have been a breeze. The town was known for importing New York’s finest. One supposed the New English hamlet would have preferred Bostonian coppers, but as the mayor of Arkham had put it to Nardi when he asked:
“This town has enough drunks with their hands out. We need real men. Manhattan is the attitude that goes over well here when people want protection.”
It was true. New Yorkers took charge. Taking charge of his life, Nardi had left the city he simply could not stand any more and turned his back on it for trees and fields and runaway dogs. His idea was to open his own detective/security agency in Arkham with three other New York cops—one that had retired a year earlier, Tony Balnco, and two others, Sammy Galtoni and Mark Berkenwald, who were right behind him on the escape track. They had all agreed instantly—the one already retired