Arkham Horror- The Deep Gate Read online

  Arkham Horror Fiction

  The Investigators of Arkham Horror

  Hour of the Huntress

  Ire of the Void

  The Dirge of Reason

  To Fight the Black Wind

  This story represents two of my greatest loves: the sea, and fantastical stories. For the former, I thank my father, who taught me that you could love something that occasionally tried to kill you, and the latter, my mother, who taught me that books are better than television.

  Cover illustration by Shane Pierce.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © 2018 Fantasy Flight Games. Fantasy Flight Games and the FFG logo are registered trademarks of Fantasy Flight Games. Arkham Horror is a trademark of Fantasy Flight Games.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

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  v1.0

  Welcome to Arkham

  It is the height of the roaring twenties. Flappers and young fellas dance the Charleston at raucous jazz clubs gleaming bright with electric lights. Beneath this gilded glamour, bloody turf wars rage, funded by gangsters and crooked cops who frequent rival speakeasies and gambling dens.

  Amid these changing times, old New England towns hold their secrets close. Off the Aylesbury pike, in reclusive Dunwich, rolling hills hide decrepit farms and witch-haunted hollows. Past Cape Ann, the remote fishing village of Innsmouth rots from within. At the mouth of the Miskatonic River, mist-shrouded Kingsport lies dreaming. All the while, historic Arkham broods on the upper banks of the Miskatonic, its famed university delving into the world’s darkest, most ancient mysteries.

  Arkham’s citizens insist everything is normal in their sleepy town, but horrific and bizarre events occur with increasing frequency. Strange lights flicker and people disappear in the forest beyond Hangman’s Brook. Misshapen silhouettes prowl graveyards and shorelines, leaving savaged corpses in their wake. Nightmarish artifacts and disturbing tomes have surfaced, chronicling gods and incantations the world has tried to forget. Cavalier scientists have glimpsed far-flung worlds beyond our own that shatter the known laws of reality. Are these events somehow connected? If so, what calamity do they portend?

  Those who dare investigate these incidents witness the inexplicable. Having seen such phenomena, they can never regain their old view of the world. Now that they know the hideous truth, they cannot run or hide from it. Just beneath the reassuring veneer of reality—a veneer that was never meant to be worn away—are forces that can drive the average person to despair. Yet, a rare few try to avert the end of the world, knowing it may well cost them their lives or sanity.

  These investigators must rely on their wits and skills to learn as much as they can before it’s too late. Some may find courage in the grace of a rosary, while others may burn away their fears with a swig of bootleg whiskey. They must try their hand at unpredictable spells that could doom them, or take up rifles and revolvers to combat foul creatures plaguing the night. Will it be enough?

  Chapter One

  Arkham River Docks

  Silas squinted through the rain-slashed pilothouse windows as he maneuvered Sea Change gingerly toward the Arkham quay wall. The rain-gorged Miskatonic River ran like a millrace, eddies and whirlpools wrenching the small boat about and making an otherwise simple operation tricky. With one hand on the wheel and the other on the throttle, he gunned the engine against a surge of current and eased closer to the tall pilings.

  “Come on, dearie, don’t fail me now…”

  The slogging run up from Kingsport against the flow had taxed the small boat’s engine and her captain’s nerves to the limit, but the trial wasn’t over yet. He had to get a bow line secured without allowing the current to push the boat downriver. A glance over his shoulder at the looming river barge docked just behind verified his worry. One mistake and the current would drag Sea Change right under the barge’s sloped bow.

  “Come on, Silas, you’ve done this a hundred times…” Of course, it’d be easier if I could see a damned thing! He leaned out the pilothouse door, squinted his one good eye against the rain, and ducked back to adjust his speed and course. Bow into the current, running just hard enough to keep from drifting backward, he steered her closer. Finally, he felt the gentle nudge of the rub rail meeting a piling. He tied off the wheel and stepped out onto the foredeck.

  Rain plastered his hair flat and ran in rivulets down his bare chest, but Silas barely noticed. Born and raised on the New England shore, he’d swam in the Atlantic in late fall and early spring as a boy. This September nor’easter was certainly blowing like a banshee, but it wasn’t promising snow. Besides, people weren’t far off when they said he had enough hair on his chest to make a wool sweater blush in shame. He looped a dock line twice around the piling, secured it to the bow cleat, and stepped back into the pilothouse. Wiping the water from his face, Silas pulled the throttle lever all the way back and jerked the gear shift into neutral. The engine all but sighed in relief as it settled to a slow, soothing idle.

  “Good girl.” He patted the wheel, stepped aft down into the boat’s main cabin, and bent to open a hatch in the deck.

  Silas blinked through the wave of heat rising up from the thrumming engine. A veteran of both sail and steam, he considered internal combustion engines to be cantankerous beasts prone to unpredictable failure. He’d come to rely on Sea Change’s sturdy Knox Model-G with few reservations, but if an engine died at sea or in the turbulent flow of the Miskatonic, he couldn’t simply walk to the nearest service station. Consequently, every mariner worth his salt was also a mechanic.

  “Hot as a two-dollar pistol,” Silas muttered. He left the hatch open to let it cool off before shutting down, happy with the boat’s performance if little else. He hadn’t wanted to make the trip up to Arkham, but the opportunity to get some answers dragged at him like a sea anchor. He’d returned to New England to find someone who could tell him if his recurrent nightmares were some kind of family malady—like dropsy or ulcers often were—but there seemed to be a pall of silence hanging over everyone he talked to. Every cousin or childhood friend he asked told him they didn’t know what he was talking about, or warned him not to let on that he was plagued by nightmares lest he risk getting locked up in the loony bin. A few days ago, however, he’d contacted another relative by telephone and had been encouraged.

  Maybe this time I’ll finally understand…

  Silas strode through the small cabin and out to the aft deck, and then finished securing Sea Change to the quay. After decades at sea, serving aboard every manner of vessel from coal-fired steamers to Singapore junks, he knew ships like he knew the scars on his hands. In the few months he’d owned Sea Change, he’d come to love the little boat. She was sturdy, comfortable enough to live aboard, and equipped to serve his many needs. The familiar tasks of tending her lines and tidying up the deck settled his nerves, but as he turned back to the cabin to shut down the engine, a booming voice from the pier drew his attention from his chores.

  “Silas Marsh, you old sea dog, don’t you ever wear a shirt?”

  Shielding his eye from the rain, Silas squinted up at the figure there. Swathed in
slicker and sou’wester, the man’s face was cast in shadow, but he recognized the voice easily enough. “Why wear somethin’ that’s just gonna get soaked through anyway?” He smiled up at his cousin, although the expression felt forced. Too many sleepless nights, and too many nightmares. “Come aboard, Martin! I’ve got a pot of java on the stove.”

  “Best offer I’ve had all day!” Martin stepped down onto the deck with practiced ease. The man had been a stevedore, a deck hand, and a longshoreman all over New England, and had only recently settled down in Arkham. “Wicked nor’easter brewin’!”

  “They come earlier every year.” Silas shook his cousin’s hand firmly and waved him into the cabin. “Watch your step. Engine room’s open.”

  Martin and Silas had grown up together in Innsmouth, but that seemed a lifetime ago. Silas left that dismal place for a life at sea when he was but a boy, so Martin undoubtedly knew the oddities of the Marsh family better than he. News of Silas’s parents passing two years ago, and now these recurring dreams, had called him inexorably back here. Martin would surely know if Silas’s incessant nightmares and the constant yearning he felt to be at sea were some kind of family madness or just guilt for abandoning his parents.

  Martin stepped inside, shook out his slicker, and doffed his hat, which he hung on a peg in the wet locker. “Ah, the warm’s a welcome, ain’t it?”

  “If you say so.” Silas preferred a cool breeze on the open sea. He waved a hand to the tiny chart table and two bench seats. Atop the adjacent potbelly Franklin stove, a coffee pot secured by fiddles bubbled merrily. “Pour yourself a cup and have a seat while I shut this noisy beast down.”

  “Thanks!”

  Martin pulled two tin cups down from their hooks and filled them while Silas stepped past him, knelt to shut down the engine, and closed the hatch. The rain drumming on the cabin top seemed to amplify in the sudden quiet.

  “Can’t say I wasn’t surprised to get your call, Silas. Haven’t seen you since you were barely old enough to shave!” Martin raised his cup and sipped. “Heard you finally gave up the high-seas trade and came home.”

  “I’ve been living down in Kingsport for about half a year.” Silas sat and sipped his coffee, the bitter brew scalding a line down his throat.

  “Looks like you gained some tattoos and lost an eye on your adventures.”

  “Lost the eye to a fellow with broken bottle and a temper in Bangkok, and I don’t rightly remember where I got all the tattoos.”

  Martin laughed and grinned again. “And now you’re back and you bought this little tub? With your experience, you could captain one of those big trawlers scooping up haddock off Stellwagen Bank and make a fortune!”

  “Oh, that’s not for me.” Silas shook his head with a rueful smile. “I’d rather be my own boss and run my own boat.” He patted the cabin side with real affection. “Sea Change is a stout little ship. I can hand-line cod and haddock by myself, and run pots year around.”

  “Lobster?” Martin made a disdainful face. “You’ll go broke. Didn’t know there were any left!”

  “A few if you know where to look.” Silas shrugged. “I pick up other jobs, too. I’ve got a diving rig and do some deep-sea salvage work that pays pretty good.”

  Martin’s face blanched. “You mean you go underwater in one of them hard-hat contraptions?”

  “Sure.” Silas grinned at his cousin’s reaction. “It’s not all that dangerous.”

  Martin snorted in disgust. “You couldn’t pay me enough!”

  “Well, I may not get rich, but I don’t have anyone but myself to answer to.”

  “And what brings you up to Arkham in this weather? More work?” Martin looked honestly curious.

  “Can’t go to sea in this blow, so I took a job from Old Man McIntire to haul a load of lobster pots down to Kingsport in the morning.” Silas sighed and wiped the water from his brow. He’d come to Arkham to talk to Martin, but couldn’t say that was the main reason he’d come. He had to ease into this. Just like bringing his boat into the dock, these waters were turbulent. “Truth be told, Martin, I wanted to talk to you about some things, too. Part of the reason I came back to New England.”

  “And what reason’s that, besides drivin’ all the young ladies to distraction by walkin’ around shirtless in the middle of a nor’easter?” Martin laughed at first, but he sobered when Silas didn’t respond. “What is it, Silas? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing’s really happened, but…” He rubbed his eye and tried to think of how to put it into words. “I went to sea to get away from Innsmouth. You know what the town’s like. No place for a kid to grow up. But the sea felt right, too. I always felt better on the ocean, but the last couple of years, I just…”

  “Just what?”

  “I can’t say exactly, Martin.” Not without sounding completely insane. “You heard my parents passed away, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. A shame, too. They weren’t that old.”

  “Thanks.” He sipped his coffee and searched for words. As usual, he came up short. “After I got the news, I felt this need to come back.”

  “Well, that’s natural.”

  “I thought so too, at first, but…” He sighed in frustration and blundered on. “Do you ever dream of the sea, Martin?”

  “Sometimes.” Martin looked perplexed at the sudden change of subject. “Doesn’t everyone who’s been a sailor?”

  “Not like mine.” Silas stared down into his coffee. “I have nightmares, Martin. They were just a few at first, and I thought it was guilt for my parents, but now they come every time I sleep. They’re so vivid… I dream of the sea, but not like I did when I was a kid, not with the feeling like I wanted to be a sailor.”

  “How then?” All humor had fled Martin’s voice, and his lips were set in a hard line.

  “I dream under the sea, and I see faces, bloated faces with bulging eyes. They remind me of people I knew as a boy, half-drowned, but not dead.” Silas shivered, but not from the chill gusts blowing through the open door. Pointed teeth grinned, webbed hands reaching for him, glowing eyes in the darkness… He couldn’t tell Martin those details, of course. Some things you couldn’t say aloud if you wanted to stay out of the madhouse. “I wanted to know whether you ever had dreams like that. Dreams of people you knew turned into…something horrible. Voices calling you to join them. We both know the Marsh family’s an odd lot. I need to know if this is some family affliction, if I’m going crazy, or if you’ve ever had any—”

  “No.” Martin downed his coffee and stood so abruptly his leg jostled the table. “Nope, I never dreamed any such thing, Silas, and you best forget you ever did, too!”

  Martin turned for the door and grabbed his slicker, but Silas clutched his arm before he donned it. “Martin, wait! I just want to ask you—”

  “Don’t ask me anything, Silas.” Martin glared at the hand gripping his arm. “I got no answers for you.”

  Silas didn’t release his grip. “You don’t have answers, or you just won’t give me any?”

  “I don’t have any.” Martin jerked away and pulled on his slicker. “You want answers to questions like that, you go talk to the main family in Innsmouth. I made my peace with them years ago. I don’t bother them, and they don’t bother me.”

  Martin stomped out the door into the weather.

  “Martin, wait!” Silas gritted his teeth, then spied his cousin’s sou’wester hanging on a peg. He snatched it up and stepped out onto the deck. “Martin, your hat!”

  Martin was already up on the quay, but stopped and turned back. Silas stepped up onto the boat’s gunnel and held up the hat. When Martin reached down to take it, Silas refused to let go.

  “Don’t just run off, Martin. You’re the last person I can talk to.”

  “No, I’m not.” He jerked the sou’wester out of Silas’s hand and put it on, his face set in a hard scowl. “You talk to the old family. Get your answers there. But I’ll warn you, Silas, you may not like what they have to te
ll you. You’ve been gone a long time, and you know how they feel about strangers, even ones who share their name!” Martin whirled away and strode off down the quay.

  Silas stood in the rain glaring at his cousin’s receding back. Answers…why is it always so hard to just get a simple answer? His cousin knew something about the nightmares that plagued him, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t speak about it. Why? The main family of Marshes harbored many secrets—everyone from Innsmouth knew that—but were they also hiding some hereditary malady of madness or delusion?

  Silas suppressed a shiver of revulsion. He’d visited Innsmouth briefly upon his return from abroad, but the pallid faces and watery eyes of his cousins there gave him chills deeper than any nor’easter that ever blew. He’d left without speaking to anyone, feeling as if he’d rather walk into the sea and never return than face the Marshes of Innsmouth.

  Better to untie Sea Change and head downriver, sail out to sea and never come back. But that wasn’t an option. Only a fool went to sea with a nor’easter brewing, and yet, only at sea did he feel at peace. No wonder people think I’m strange…a sailor who only ever wants to go back to sea. He looked up into the weeping sky and knew in his bones the weather wouldn’t clear for at least three days. Three days sitting on a dock, listening to the siren call of the sea echoing in his head.

  “Nothing to do but keep busy,” he grumbled, bending to shift some of the deck gear to make room for Old Man McIntire’s lobster pots.

  As he bent to that task, however, a piercing whistle and call from up the pier drew his attention. Did Martin change his mind? But when looked up, what he saw stopped him cold. “What in the name of…”

  A woman walked down the quay, but a woman unlike the usual sort seen on the waterfront. Ramrod straight, wearing a gray dress buttoned up tightly from throat to waist, but no coat, she walked with quick, stiff steps that reminded him of a partridge. She clutched a black umbrella in one hand to fend off the rain, and, of all things, a thick book in the other. The latter she held close, as if it could shield her from the three men who had stepped off a barge to block her path.