Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (59 page)
Read Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois Online
Authors: Pierre V. Comtois,Charlie Krank,Nick Nacario
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Horror, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Supernatural, #Suspense, #Paranormal
The new academic year had begun only a few weeks before; any visitor to the campus of Miskatonic University could tell that by the number of students who crowded the walkways between classes and from the colors of the trees as their leaves turned from summer green to the autumn yellows, oranges, and reds that New England was noted for.
As usual, no matter how much work he’d put in during the summer months in preparation for the new semester, much of it never survived contact with his students. And frankly, it was the problem of how to rearrange his class on the Indonesian diaspora, so that its main points would not be lost on a particularly dense group of freshmen, that occupied his thoughts the morning he received word that the department head wanted to see him.
There was nothing urgent about the summons; just a note from the pool secretary saying that Prof. Paxton would like to see him as soon as his schedule permitted. He had time that morning before his first class on prehistoric rituals among South Sea islanders, so he had decided not waste any time in getting the meeting over with.
A summons from the department head was nothing unusual and as he had no reason to believe that his job performance had been lacking, he never even considered the possibility that the meeting could involve anything of a disciplinary nature.
Although still early when he entered the administration building, he expected to find Paxton in his office. Reaching the door labeled “Prof. J. Johnstone Paxton,” he stepped through and was recognized by the man’s secretary.
“Oh, good morning Dr. Bowditch,” she said, looking up from a steno pad. “The professor will be happy to see that you’ve come so soon.”
Getting up, she opened a door leading to an inner office and informed Paxton of his arrival.
“Go on in,” she said brightly, holding the door open for him.
“Sam!” said Paxton familiarly. “Glad you could make it before classes started. Take a seat. Want some coffee?”
“No, thanks John. Had some earlier and one cup’s enough for me.”
Shrugging, Paxton reseated himself and leaned back a bit in his big leather chair. Behind him, the early morning sunlight streamed in from a triptych of tall windows that gave onto a view of the quad. In the distance, the school’s nineteenth-century chapel cast a shadow across the old campus and beyond the church, receding rooftops suggested the city of Arkham that spread out below the hill upon which the grounds of the university were located.
“Well then,” said Paxton. “I’ll get right to the point. You know about the situation with Prof. Pondwaithe?”
“Only from what I’ve read in the papers and office gossip,” Bowditch replied.
“And that is…?”
“That George…I mean Prof. Pondwaithe…disappeared a few weeks ago apparently stealing an artifact apparently made of human tissue belonging to the Peabody Museum’s Asian collection.”
“Exactly. Pretty horrible as historic artifacts go. But the situation, as you may have guessed, is quite embarrassing for the university as Pondwaithe was a tenured faculty member doing research at the Peabody. His disappearance along with property belonging the museum has reflected badly on Miskatonic’s reputation, and I can assure you that the Board of Regents is very interested in retrieving the artifact and restoring the university’s professional reputation.
“Unfortunately, the police have made little progress in finding Pondwaithe or the artifact, and have informed me that they have placed their investigation aside pending any new development. I suppose I can’t blame them if they have nothing to work with, but I decided that was no reason the university could not pursue the case on its own. Thus, I’ve received permission from the board of regents to hire a specialist in this area, a fellow by the name of Anton Zarnak; ever heard of him?”
Bowditch shook his head.
“I’m not surprised as his name most often comes up in those trashy tabloids one finds around the checkouts at the supermarket,” chuckled Paxton. “But I assure you, that is simply sensationalism intended to sell papers. The real man is quite accomplished in the field of psychology, and holds a number of degrees in anthropology. In fact, he has lectured here at the university in the past but that may have been before your time.”
“It must have been.”
“Well, in any case, I contacted Zarnak and he agreed to look into the case,” continued Paxton. “It was on his advice that I also assign one of the faculty’s anthropologists familiar with Pondwaithe’s area of study to work with him. It was Zarnak’s feeling that someone who knew Pondwaithe and his work might find something that the police had overlooked.”
“It’s true that I’ve followed Pondwaithe’s recent work with interest, especially his discovery of that pre-
Nihongi
mask,” said Bowditch. “But I’m not sure how his research could shed light on what happened to him.”
“Nevertheless, you’ll work with Zarnak on the case and present me with a final report of your findings no matter how the issue turns out,” said Paxton with an air of
“All right. So, when is this Mr. Zarnak supposed to arrive in Arkham?”
“He’s driving up from New York tomorrow so I expect him to be here sometime in the afternoon,” guessed Paxton. “I’ve arranged for Lossner and Phillips to take over your classes for the time being so after Zarnak arrives, you’ll have all the time you need to conduct your investigation.”
“Well, seeing as things have all been arranged, I guess there’s nothing more to say than that I’ll do the best I can,” said Bowditch.
“I knew I could count on you, Sam,” said Paxton familiarly. “Good luck.”
Bowditch rose and took Paxton’s hand. Outside the administration building again, he wondered what his first move should be. Should he wait until Zarnak arrived from New York the next day, or begin the investigation on his own? In the end, he decided to spend the day refreshing his memory about the work Pondwaithe had been doing just prior to his disappearance.
It felt strange to be home in the middle of a school day, but after delivering his lesson plans to Lossner and Phillips and making sure they had everything they needed to properly cover his classes, Bowditch returned to the old campus and the new Albert Wilmarth Wing of the university library. There, he settled himself in the periodicals section pulling out scholarly magazines that Pondwaithe had used to publish his findings regarding the pre-
Nihongi
mask he had found.
The story of its discovery was summarized in an early article written by Pondwaithe for the
Archeological Review
of March, 20--:
I was in the midst of a larger project to identify the uncategorized pieces in the Peabody Museum’s Far Eastern collection when I first laid eyes on the mask. Now, anyone uninitiated in Japanese pre-history would be justified in their surprise as the mask and its use in religious ritual is not a well known fact. The earliest reference to it is in an obscure passage from the
Nihongi
, admittedly a late period history of Japan written about the 8th century but which purportedly describes events as early as 660 BC, a time of turmoil when city-states struggled with one another for control of the countryside. That said, I have reason to believe that the mask was used chiefly in rights practiced among coastal peoples along the northern shores of Kyushu. I say that due to circumstantial evidence indicating that use of such masks seems to have crossed the Korean Strait during the Chou Dynasty. The cult to which the mask belonged, however, is much older than that with stray mention of it in the writings of Confucius who speaks of it being present in China even before 2,000 BC. Thus, the reader can imagination my excitement when I pulled an unidentified item from its padded crate there in the basement of the Peabody Museum…
Putting down the
Review
, Bowditch took up a copy of
Far Eastern Studies
dated May, 20--; sort of a chatty space where scholars “let their hair down” in rambling exchanges among themselves. Relatively free of jargon, the magazine had a very small, one might say even elite, circulation. It was in an email received by the magazine that Pondwaithe seemed to pick up his tale where the
Review
piece let off:
Oh, yes, I immediately recognized the mask for what it was: a very rare item. Besides never having been itemized by the museum (a fact I verified over several days searching through the institution’s records), it appeared to fit no known cultural practice. However, its preservation was superb, having suffered little of the ravages of time. And yet, holding it my hands, I couldn’t help but shudder at its origin and wonder to what horrid rites it had been attached. Certainly, aspects of its features suggested a victim who had been of Chinese origin and I was sure that DNA analysis would place it at the time of the T’ang Dynasty.
It was getting late by the time Bowditch reached the final publication in the pile he had retrieved from the periodical files. Picking up the July issue of
Cahier de Nippon
, he was relieved to find that Pondwaithe’s definitive paper on the subject of the mask had been printed in both French and English.
Given that Shinto soon became the national religion of Japan, the movement had its beginnings in pre-recorded times when the natives lived a primarily sea-faring existence sustaining themselves on raw fish, vegetables, and rice. With their lives depending so heavily on the vagaries of the weather, it was only natural that some early peoples would develop a notion of fate; a belief system positing that events were out of the hands of humans who were powerless to influence them. However, if a force could be found powerful enough to control at least key aspects of their daily lives, protection from inland tribes for instance, such a deity could be quite useful. Such was the case, I believe, with the “puppet lord,” whose two limbs are commonly shown as being covered by hand puppets of the sort that children sometimes play with today. In them, the deity symbolically controls the lives of human beings and, as it was hoped by its worshippers, in doing so protect them from their enemies. The worship of the puppet lord was not altogether in contravention with Shinto that would evolve out of an amorphous polytheism in which the various kami or spirits such as Amaterasu the sun goddess or even Mount Fuji itself, were amalgamated into a single belief system.
Bowditch threw the magazine atop the others and sighed heavily. Outside, night had fallen and the lights along the paths that crisscrossed the campus were blazing brightly. In the farther corners of the parking lots, the distinctive blue glare of emergency phones glowed like eerie ghosts risen from the graves of nearby Alumni’s Rest.
Although he had learned much more about Pondwaithe’s last project, Bowditch was disappointed that there appeared to be no clue as to why his colleague would steal the artifact and disappear with it. There was no mention anywhere of its possible value and even if it was worth something, how would a scholar like Pondwaithe know the connections needed to sell such an item on the black market?
Shrugging, Bowditch hoped that something would turn up at police headquarters on the next day. Outside, he turned his collar up against the cold wind and followed drifting leaves to where he had parked his car. Pulling away from the curb, he wondered vaguely about Anton Zarnak and decided to run a brief google on him before turning in for the night.