Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (64 page)

After passing a number of cabins, they finally arrived at what appeared to be the last one in the group, where it stood close by the water’s edge, or at least where the water had once lapped. Only a trail of wooden planks leading into the tangle of swamp grasses indicated that some open water still remained somewhere out of sight.

A couple wooden steps led up to the cabin’s front door, where Cummings used the key to get inside. There, the interior was only dimly lit by a single window and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Bowditch noticed that he stood before a stone fireplace that still held the charred remains of a fire in its grate. Some old kitchen furniture filled the rest of the little room and in the back, a second room held some bunk beds. A second door led from the bunkroom to the rear of the cabin.

“How many did you say were in this group?” asked Bowditch.

“Five, six — I’m not exactly sure,” admitted Cummings. “I don’t think I ever saw them all together at the same time. But I got the feeling there were at least a half-dozen of ‘em.”

“Must have been pretty crowded in here.”

“Tell me about it!” chuckled Cummings.

They looked around a bit before Zarnak focused his attentions on the fireplace. There, he began poking in the ashes with a metal rod until some charred pieces of paper that had escaped the flames came to light. Reaching in, he took the papers out for a closer look.

“Find anything?” asked Bowditch coming to his side.

“I’m not sure,” said Zarnak holding the unburned papers up to the light.

“What are they from?”

“It looks like part of a brochure…” guessed Zarnak. “Mr. Cummings, let’s go back to your office a moment. I’d like to check something out.”

Together, the group exited the cabin and Cummings locked the door. Moments later, they were once again in the office as Zarnak scanned the various brochures on display there. Finally, he plucked one from a rack and began comparing its pages with the scrap of scorched paper he had found in the cabin.

At last, he beckoned Bowditch for a closer look and showed him where the two items matched. Glancing at the brochure’s heading, Bowditch saw that it was one that dealt in local tourist sights, in particular, Dunwich’s “Indian Mound” upon which nothing would grow.

Suddenly, a feeling like a cold hand closing about his heart came over Bowditch, as he recalled his dream of the night before. It was to just such a mound that the strange group had taken Prof. Pondwaithe.

“Are the directions in this brochure accurate?” Zarnak was asking Cummings.

“Nothing’s changed much in town, leastways not how the roads are set up,” said Cummings. “But I’ll give you a shortcut: just keep following the road out here ‘till it empties on old Route 12, take a left and follow the highway for about 2 miles until you see signs directing the way to the mound. From there, you should be able to find it easy.”

“Thank you for all your help, Mr. Cummings,” said Zarnak as he led the way out the door.

Back in the car again, Bowditch turned on the ignition and pulled slowly away from the house until regaining the dirt road out front. Cautiously, he picked up speed and followed the road into a dark tunnel of old-growth forest.

“The description of that so-called Indian mound sounds like the one I dreamed about last night,” ventured Bowditch.

“The subconscious has been known to make connections that the conscious mind may have failed to realize,” observed Zarnak. “In your case, it’s obvious that the story of Misquamacus and the mound he mentions made a strong impression on you.”

“But there was no suggestion that such a place ever existed or, at least, that it still existed after so many years,” protested Bowditch. “If the mound in the brochure is the same as that mentioned by Misquamacus, the place where old Billington got himself eaten by some creature he was supposed to have called out of the void…”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Recall the conversation we had yesterday, about studying ancient beliefs for what they can tell us about a culture regardless whether they’re true or not?” asked Bowditch.

Zarnak nodded.

“Then whether it’s true or not, could the group of Japanese who had stayed at Wampanoag Vista themselves have given credence to the worship of this Tsathoggua creature, and did something to Pondwaithe the way I had seen them do in my dream?”

“I cannot lie to you, Sam,” said Zarnak. “I have grave concerns that that is exactly what happened.”

Zarnak’s bold confirmation of his suspicions brought Bowditch up short, and an unaccountable fear of what they might find on the mound quickly took hold of him. He was still wrestling with his thoughts when they reached the highway and took a left as Cummings had advised. A few miles along the cracked and crumbling roadway, they came upon the first marker indicating that the Indian mound was only 1.3 miles ahead.

As they proceeded the surrounding forest began to thin, and down dusty side roads lonely farmsteads stood isolated amid cultivated fields. Although many seemed well maintained, others looked less so. For those, homes and barns were composed of weather-beaten wood and, in places, only a pile of debris marked the spot where a silo may once have stood.

At last, another marker included an arrow pointing in the direction of the Indian mound, and Bowditch slowed to take the next side road when it appeared. Spotting it, he left the highway and proceeded up a narrow two-lane access road that debouched into a parking area that was fenced off from the surrounding forest by stout beams of pressurized wood. A break in the fencing showed where a little-used path meandered into the brush.

“Guess that’s the way we go,” said Bowditch, pointing.

A little ways down the trail, the path seemed almost to disappear from not being tended often enough, and Bowditch was uncomfortably reminded of the scene in his dream where Pondwaith had been hauled by his captors through the brush. As he and Zarnak continued to make their way forward, more open sky began to appear up ahead, and presently they broke through into the clear where a great earthen mound rose up nearly to the tops of the surrounding trees. On it nothing grew, not even the stray weed. Only years of accumulated leaves matted its slopes.

Hesitating for a moment at the bottom, Bowditch took the time to notice only that the day had grown suddenly overcast as featureless gray clouds covered the landscape. Then, following Zarnak’s lead, he hauled himself up the side of the mound to discover that the crest was blown free of leaves and other forest detritus, and the earth lay bare and open. A small, flat space occupied the crest and in the center, there was a ring of stones containing the charred remnants of what had been a substantial fire.

“I don’t like the looks of this,” Bowditch said, looking at the pile of ashes. “It all looks like what I dreamed about: the trackless forest, the steep slope, the mound where nothing grows, the fire…”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” soothed Zarnak. “Remember, what you read last night could have easily supplied your subconscious with all the information it needed to create a really vivid dream.”

“Just the same, if we find anything resembling that device placed over poor Pondwaithe’s head, I think I’ll scream.”

“Then it looks as if you’re doomed to retain your sanity,” quipped Zarnak looking about. “There’s nothing here.”

“Maybe, but someone had a fire going here and, by the looks of it, not a small one either.”

“Whether or not what took place here involved Pondwaithe, the presence of the brochure dealing with this mound in their cabin does seem to make it likely that Cummings’ Japanese visitors took in some of the local sights…including this one.”

“But why? What interest could they have had in them?”

“Isn’t it obvious? They initially contacted Pondwaithe because of the mask he discovered; about the same time Pondwaithe displays an unusual interest in the Misquamacus legend dealing with Ossadagowah or Tsathoggua; and right across the pond from his cottage, this group of mysterious Japanese tourists with an interest in sites dealing with a creature that devours its acolytes just happen to move in. All of it adds up to a pre-historic cult involving a god worshipped by peoples as widely scattered as Japanese fishermen and American Indians that still exists, and whose followers do not like meddlesome unbelievers.”

“My God, Zarnak! Are you suggesting that Pondwaithe was murdered by these followers, as you call them, because he stumbled across something they wanted to keep secret?”

“It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”

“Yes, but in bad movies, man, not in real life!”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

That brought Bowditch up short. He didn’t want to believe Zarnak’s theory, but he was a man of science and he had to draw conclusions solely from the facts and not refuse to consider those conclusions just because they went against what he wanted to believe.

All the way back to the cottage, Bowditch hardly noticed as the car jounced along the uneven Dunwich roads as he and Zarnak again reviewed all that they had learned. By the time they had finished going over the facts in a coldly analytical way, it seemed inescapable that Pondwaithe had been kidnapped by a group of Japanese that, unbelievably, continued to practice a prehistoric religion dedicated to some toad-god called Tsathoggua or Ossadagowah (apparently the god was identified by a number of different names by different groups of worshippers suiting its mutable nature). Somehow, by identifying the mask he found at the museum and by exposing it to a wider public through his writings, Pondwaithe had perhaps revealed hidden knowledge or insulted the thing’s worshipers such that they felt compelled to remove him from the scene. But did such things happen in the 21st century? Zarnak apparently believed that they did, and determined to follow the trail left by the group of Japanese visitors to the Wampanoag Vista cabins all the way back to its origins.

“To Japan?” Bowditch asked in surprise.

“Yes,” replied a grim Zarnak. “You need not come. Remain here and wait for word from me, then include it in your final report to Paxton. I’m afraid that I’ll be leaving you somewhat in the lurch in regards to filling-in the police on what we’ve learned however.”

“I don’t look forward to another interview with Chief DiFriggio,” Bowditch admitted. “Especially on such a fantastic subject!”

“I know the town from which the Japanese group came from, and I’m sure some contacts I have in the country will be enough to track them down,” continued Zarnak as they drove along Route 128 back toward Arkham.

“Then what? Do you think you’ll be able to rescue Pondwaithe before he can come to harm?”

Despite their conclusions, Bowditch still could not relinquish the hope that Pondwaithe still lived; that the disturbing events depicted in his dream had been merely nightmare after all.

Zarnak, however, was silent a moment before answering.

“I hope that will be the case,” was all he said.

Later, upon thinking back to that moment, Bowditch was surprised at his capacity for self-deception. Why hadn’t he heeded the warnings in his nightmare? Why couldn’t he have left well-enough alone? He could have gone back to his classes, his condominium, his familiar, comfortable life and gone on as if the world was still a sane and ordered place. But no, he had to wait for that report from Zarnak; he had to have stood-by as that damned fax machine gave off its warning buzz of an incoming message. And warning it was, but he had still been too naïve to recognize it for what it was!

Abruptly, his thoughts returned to the present as he was being told by Paxton’s secretary that it was all right to go into the office. At that moment it became clear to him: he would not…
could not
…tell Paxton the whole story. It was just too unbelievable. He was not sure he believed it himself. After all, how could he tell the head of his department that when he looked at that fax from Japan, the toad-like figure shown in the grainy photograph was real, and that the objects covering the ends of its arms for all the world like children’s hand puppets, were a pair of masks: the missing mask from the Peabody Museum and the other, one that
possessed the empty, gaping likeness of George Pondwaithe?