Arkham Horror- The Deep Gate Read online

  “And here!” She turned to the page with the impossible city he’d seen both in his nightmares and through the portal within the wreck.

  The entire page was blank.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” A weight lifted off Silas’s aching shoulders.

  “You see? We really did win.” She closed the book and put it on the console. “As improbable as it sounds, we saved the world. Cheer up, sourpuss!”

  “Sorry.” He smiled at her, but it felt forced and his lip hurt. “I hit my head pretty hard. I guess I’m still not thinking straight.”

  “Oh, you really should sit and put your leg up.” She nodded to the wheel. “I can steer. I’m getting pretty good at it! You’ve made a sailor out of a librarian, Silas!”

  That brought a more genuine smile. “Okay, Able Seaman Foreman, steer about ten degrees to port of the lighthouse until you see the Annisquam sea buoy, then give me a yell.”

  “Aye aye, Captain!” She sketched a snappy salute and slipped past him to take the wheel. “And I would take a cup of that coffee, if you can manage it.”

  “Be a few minutes.” Silas limped back into the cabin, sat at the chart table and put his leg up. The swelling had increased again with all the walking. He watched the pot on the stove, willing it to boil.

  “So, what do you plan to do now?” Abigail asked over her shoulder.

  “Do?” He frowned and considered the question seriously. Could he go back to just fishing, running lobster pots, doing salvage and deliveries to the islands? Yes, fishing and running his boat…that he could do, but he’d probably sell his dive gear. “Get Sea Change fixed up, buy a new anchor, and keep doing what I’ve always done, I guess.”

  “You don’t think your family will press charges for stealing the mine and damaging their boat?”

  “Oh, the Marsh family doesn’t go in much for calling the coppers, and I’ll never set foot in Innsmouth again. If they come looking for me in Kingsport, well…” He shrugged and rubbed his eye, wondering if time would make him a liar. “What about you, Abigail? You’re going back to the library, right?”

  “Oh, of course!”

  “No more magical tomes or adventures?”

  “Ha! Not on your life, Silas Marsh!” She grinned back at him. “I think I’ll stick to reading novels from now on, go see a picture show now and then, or maybe a play. There’s a new production in town, you know. The King in Yellow. It’s supposed to be quite scandalous! Maybe when you get out of the hospital, you’d go see it with me?”

  Surprised at her forward question, he thought about it, about Abigail. A sailor and a university librarian? Silas shook his head with a smile; he admired Abigail’s spunk, but they were too different. Their lives would mix like oil and water. “Sorry, but picture shows and plays aren’t really my cup of java.”

  “Suit yourself.” She turned back to the wheel. “There’s more to life than fishing and boats, you know.”

  “Perhaps, but…” Silas looked out over the turbulent ocean. His mother’s call echoed faintly in his mind, and he knew he couldn’t resist it forever. “I belong to the sea. It’s in my blood.”

  About the Author

  The Deep Gate represents two firsts in Chris A. Jackson’s writing career: it is his first contemporary sea story, as well as his first work of horror. The former wasn’t a difficult venture, for as the son of a commercial fisherman with more than forty years of sea experience, writing about it came naturally. The only difficulty was holding back on the nautical jargon, which can be as alien to the nautically uninitiated as Prophesiae Profana was to Silas Marsh. As for the horror elements, Chris had the advantage of playing and enjoying the Arkham Horror game, but also relied heavily upon input from his wife Anne, a life-long fan of the genre and Lovecraft’s Mythos to boot. Chris and his wife have co-authored several novels together, so joining forces on this novella also came naturally, with little added marital stress.

  Chris’s other works include award-winning novels of nautical fantasy, high fantasy, and contemporary fantasy. He has also written numerous RPG tie-in stories for several different gaming companies and third-party publishers, including Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder Tales, Catalyst Game Labs’ Shadowrun anthologies, and Privateer Press’s Iron Kingdoms.

  Chris and Anne currently spend their summers in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and winters aboard their beloved sailboat, Mr. Mac, in the Caribbean. For more about Chris’s writing, including free sample chapters of much of his work, visit jaxbooks.com. If you want to see what sailing the Caribbean is really like, visit their sailing blog at www.sailmrmac.blogspot.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Welcome to Arkham

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Epilogue

  About the Author