The Watchman Watches in Vain

King Mansion, French Hill, Arkham



Hartley King, scion of the once grand Kingewyke family, hobbles into his grand drawing room on a walking stick. He is immaculately dressed in an old fashioned, almost Victorian-style suit. Although only his early 50s, he has the showy-white hair and lined face of an elder.

He thanks his visitors --a motely crew drawn from every stratum of Arkham society-- for attending. They are seated and standing all around the drawing room. Some busy themselves with the canapes and drinks served by King's housekeeper.

All of those present have been invited to the meeting by a hand-written note. Penned in shaky copperplate, the letters requested them to assist Arkham in a time of need. Depending on the recipient, the letter appealed to different motivations: duty, adventure, curiosity or the offer of a decent cash payment.

Some of the guests know that King once led a band of investigators who claimed to defend the old city from occult threats. Whatever the truth of their claims that Arkham was a hotbed of supernatural activity, most of King's society came to sticky ends--madness, illness and death.

King delivers a brief speech. He explains that although he no longer dares to confront Arkham's supernatural enemies face-to-face himself, he is conscious of his duty to keep up the fight. He has gathered those present as they have come to his notice as exceptional Arkhamites. Well able to take on the task that he and old comrades once attempted. He explains that (as his letter has already indicated), he wishes them to carry out an important investigation, exposing a threat that has been brought to his attention by a respectable source.

As they listen, the guests cannot help but look around at the others King has invited.

One of the guests is George Tillinghast, a middle-aged antiquarian who owns a successful antique shop in Arkham's bustling Main Street. He is rather casually dressed in a checked suit with a too-bright yellow pocket square. His raincoat and trilby have been taken by King's butler. Although George is something of a glutton, he barely touches the plate of canapes before him. Instead, he puffs on his large pipe.

Tillinghast came to King's attention after he carried out an evaluation of an old cabinet in King's office. Tillinghast demonstrated exceptionally strong historical and artistic knowledge, identifying the cabinet's maker and even a secret compartment that had been hidden for over a century. King's letter appealed skilfully to the antiquarian's curiosity and interest in business. Should he help with this investigation, the letter promised, King would consult (and pay) him regularly as his exclusive agent in matters of antiques.

King attempts a wan smile as he sits and introduces the investigation.

He relates that a valued friend, a local pilot named Stanley Harrington, sent news two days ago that he had sighted something 'exciting but dreadful' while on a return flight from Kingsport. King telegrammed asking urgently for further details. Harrington replied yesterday: 'DO BETTER THAN EXPLAIN. PHOTOS SOON'. Inevitably Harrington then went missing. When King sent an assistant to the aerodrome this morning, Harrington's mechanic reported that he had gone out on a flight the previous evening but not returned. The mechanic, not known for his powers of mind, had not thought to alert the police.

Most of the investigators know Harrington, a WWI Ace who returned to Arkham as a glamorous hero but struggled to make ends meet running Arkham Airfield, a tiny operation based in some fields south of the city.

Clancy is able to add that his newspaper, The Advertizer, heard reports last night that a plane was seen 'buzzing' houses in the Merchant District, on the western end of the city. Out of respect to Harrington, The Advertizer decided not to publish until they learned whether the former Ace was responsible. An anonymous report--made to the local police but passed to Clancy by a police contact-- was that a plane was later seen floating in the Miskatonic just north of the Old Wooded Graveyard. Few seem to have noticed the crash, if it indeed it took place at all. Indeed Willard Peck, the Gazette's senior reporter, asked Clancy this morning to find time to interview the witness. A local farmer named Wilbur Hare who lives in a farm west of the city, on the north side of the Miskatonic. It is early afternoon. The streets of Arkham are slick with rain and Fall leaves. The expedition crosses over to the north bank of the Miskatonic and heads west out of the city. The track from the western turnpike to Hare's rickety old farm is short but muddy. As they pull up near the farmhouse, some investigators get a vague sense of something amiss.

As the visitors disembark from the elegant motor, an immense hog charges into the yard. The beast is larger than any pig the investigators have ever seen.

Alex yelps a warning and the investigators leap back to the safety of the motor.

The hog slams into the motor's hood with a clang.

Hare appears at the doorway of his farmstead brandishing a long pole. He shoos away the pig, shouting and whacking the beast so that it retires.

"That damned gate! That hired hand of mine messed up again!"

Hare invites the visitors into the large living room of his old farmstead. He tuts when he learns that Clancy is from the "racy" Advertiser and is generally curmudgeonly, but anyway offers his guests coffee or a bowl of his own pumpkin soup.

Looking about, the investigators notice a tall bookcase, packed with ancient-looking tomes, black-and-white family photos and a table where the farmer has been working on a jigsaw of London's Houses of Parliament. A gramophone is tuned to a local station that plays old timey music.

The windows of the room look south and west over the Miskatonic and the western outskirts of the city. Just across the river, the Old Wooded Graveyard is wreathed in the golden sprays of autumnal trees. Hangman's Hill looms above the trees and graves. Beyond, the steeples of city's countless churches fade into the seasonal mist.

George Tillinghast, the antiquarian, is also eyeing the books hungrily. Hare invites he and Emma to take a look. Whereas Tillinghast focuses on the cash value of the tomes, Emma no doubt looks for works with more esoteric content. She is surprised to see a few books describing Arkham history through a vague occult focus.

Hare feels reassured by Clancy’s professional air, so relates his experience.

Last night, he explains, he saw an airplane circling over the Merchant District, in full view of his living room windows. The pilot seemed interested in the city block right at the edge of the cemetery. Then made a couple of passes over the old cemetery itself. On the last pass it was very quiet, as though the pilot had switched off his engine. It stalled above the cemetery, tried to pull out, but then turned over and dropped slowly into the river. He guesses few city folk saw the crash as their view was blocked by Hangman’s Hill. Or heard anything since the plane was without power.

He called the police, then drove his tractor to the turnpike to spot the crashed plane. By the time he arrived it had sunk or drifted downriver into the city proper. He saw a couple of motor boats come out from the Docks, the warehouse area just east of the Merchant District, as though they may have been picking up something from the river. They were far away, but he noticed the boats were painted rusty red.

Hare nervously pauses for a while, before relating a further detail.

"Just as the pilot was trying to pull out of its final stall I saw the aircraft engulfed in a pale green light. A ghostly light. It caused the pilot to lose control…"

He looks around timidly to see how the guests respond to the strange detail. Seeing that Melody is still shaken by her encounter with the farm’s giant hog, he brings her a blanket.

Emma finds an interesting but unnerving passage in one of Hare’s books. Superstitious locals believe that the old cemetery teems with ghouls, who appear at dusk and roam the place after dark. While everyone gives the unpredictable creatures a wide berth, some Arkham families seem to identify certain ghouls as their beloved ancestors. And expect that those born into certain old Arkham bloodlines might become ghouls after or close to their deaths. Families in the Merchant District in particular hold to this macabre idea.

Alex, having a background in photography and physics, guesses that the pilot stalled his plane to take an aerial photograph. Older aerial cameras still require very slow airspeeds to reduce photographic blur. However, as to why the pilot switched off his engines for the final pass, he can’t guess.

In response to Clancy’s question about the origin of the green light, Hare screws up his face as he attempts to recall the event.

"The whole plane was lit up. You know like you hear the sailors talking about St Elmo’s Fire playing’ on the ships masts? Like it was touched up with….fairy fire!"The two automobiles make their way back down Hare’s farm track. As the machines make the turn onto the main road, the Miskatonic is lightly filmed in mist. Although it is still only mid-afternoon, the Fall sky has turned dreary grey. Across the river, the old cemetery is also hidden in misty gloom. The drivers and their passengers glimpse a figure under the trees, amidst the graves and tombs, ambling in a strange, oddly inhuman manner. The wretched thing turns its head. Though distant, its face seems more bestial than human.

George Tillinghast, the antiquarian, also sees the distant figure and is visibly shaken. He tells the investigators that he will need to retire awhile and 'take care of business in my shop'. When they return to the city, he asks to be dropped off at his antique store, on West Main street, only a block south of the Docks. He suggests places where the investigators may safely park their cars, advising against the waterfront itself. It is the last service he performs in the investigation.

The Docks are dark and rotting. Once prosperous, the goods once handled here are now carried by road and train. The road, River Street, is filled with rubbish. Decaying old jetties and boathouses line the river side of the street, empty warehouses stand on the other. Hoboes have made temporary homes here and several groups can be seen warming themselves around drum fires.

A few old boats are moored at rickety jetties, but the phantom motor boats are either not here or locked safely away.

Professor though she may be, Emma clambers dexterously onto the roof of a boathouse. Through its filthy skylight, she sees a sleek, powerful-looking motorboat drawn up on a ramp. Leaning against the wall inside is a sign that reads ‘‘Lucky Carter Cartage Co.’ It has been taken down from the outside of the boathouse and (hidden?) within.

Clancy knows this name as the ‘front’ for Arkham’s biggest bootlegging operation. It is run by local mob boss Danny O’Bannion, operating out of the Lucky Carter Cartage Company garage. The rear entrance to the garage building is nearby, in plain sight of the investigators. Clancy has heard that O’Bannion is approachable by those (like Melody) with high society connections. As long as the subject of O’Bannion’s real business stays out of any conversation.

The hobos are reluctant to report anything they saw the previous evening. They seem fearful of repercussions by the bootleggers, who also seem to pay them to keep silent. But Melody’s hints of payment work like a charm on one grizzled fellow. He explains what happened.

The bootleggers saw the wreck of the plane drifting past in the river’s powerful current. Their motorboats were already in the water, getting ready for their night’s work. One of the boats drove out and hauled the pilot out of his plane. They brought him back to the boathouse where they called their bosses on a special ‘phone. O’Bannion himself appeared from the rear of the Lucky Carter garage. He ordered the pilot to be taken to St Mary’s hospital. Before he was taken away in an unmarked automobile, O’Bannion carefully removed the pilot’s goggles, headwear and pistol.

As the investigators complete their discussion, a vagrant arrives from a filthy alley, muttering curses. He combines biblical phrases that condemn the rich and promise vengeance upon them.

The fellow picks up a chair leg and assaults, of all people, redwood Clancy. Although he does not seem to pose much of a threat in physical terms, the fellow seems deranged.

The crazed fellow stumbles back, clutching at his bruised temple.

"The wicked have drawn their swords, cutting down the poor and needy... "

He staggers back into his alley, calling on prophesy to execute justice. Meanwhile, just a block away, Alex is tending to Tillinghast in a room behind his antique shop. The wretched fellow is slumped in his office chair, trembling.

"That passage that Professor Warren [=Emma] found in the farmhouse. I did not know that copies of that damnable book were extant. Well, I tell you it's true that certain families are linked to the...creatures... in the Old Graveyard. My family, too. We are from this old part of the city, this wretched, decaying old merchant district. I fear... I fear that myself or my brother...I don't want to become one of them!"

St Mary's is only a few blocks further south of the river, next to the University campus. It is staffed by Misk U teachers and student doctors. Patients take their chances as to whether they will be treated by a venerable surgeon or a Ragtime- or ‘Jazz’-crazed medical student. The desk nurse has no record of a patient named Harrington, or even heard of a recently rescued pilot. But a passing student doctor suggests they may be asking after "the crazy egg" who was dropped off anonymously the previous evening.

"He's a pilot!" the nurse is surprised. "We thought he was some kind of motorcyclist. Harrington, you say, from Arkham Airfield? At least now we can contact his next of kin."" Harrington has been isolated in a small ward on the top floor of the hospital. He is pale, greenish and seems barely able to move. He responds to the visitors’ questions in a hoarse whisper. His responses generally peter out, or do not seem to be relevant to the questions posed.

During the conversation, Harrington raises a shaking hand , attempting but failing to point out of the hospital window.

A medical chart hangs on the end of his bed. The student doctor does not seem to mind if the investigators look at the extensive notes scribbled over the chart.

Emma cannot rule out the crash itself being the main contributor to his present state. But she is also reminded of some obscure accounts, collected in a volume of esoteric Jungian lore. These dealt with travellers in remote Austrian locations who encountered otherworldly beings --fairies, witches, but sometimes confusingly vampiry--and were befuddled. In one recent (post-war) story, in the Austrian Alps, a wanderer was found mute, semi-paralyzed and also turned green. The pilot understands Melody's strategy and is able to answer with shaky nods. He was taking a photo. The rescuers did take his camera. O'Bannion now has it.

"Show ....King...." he manages to whisper.

Clancy is not able to make sense of the medical notes--neither is the sleepy med student able to enlighten him much. Some of words are legible and self-explanatory. Biofluorescence. Paralysis, fading [scribble in Latin] temporary. Electromagnetic or electrochemical trauma... Clancy looks through the box where Harrington's clothes have been stowed. His battered leather coat and boots are clearly those of a wartime USAS pilot. Motorcyclist, indeed! But without the flying hat and goggles, Clancy guesses, most folk would not make the connection. In the coat pocket he finds a sodden mess of paper. Carefully laying this out on a nearby medical table, he is able to extricate several pages--a letter, a bill and a map that has been crudely traced onto thin paper. The words 'LOS on mystery light' are written on the back.

The letter is from a firm of attorneys demanding payment to debtors. Harrington's business is not going well.

King receives Melody's call with interest. He is relieved that the investigators have found Harrington. He knows who O'Bannion is (far from common knowledge). He offers no advice as to whether the photographs are a priority, asking Melody to trust in her own intuition.

Only the description of the phenomenon of the green light seems unexpected to him.

When Melody and Alex drop in on the wife of an important local dealer in photographic equipment, the lady mentions Jack Hall. He is a young photographer who has recently spent a small fortune buying silver nitrate, even though his position as a junior photographer for the Advertiser would seem to make this expense unnecessary.
"Sure. Maybe I did do something for O'Bannion. The guy's a local businessman, appreciates my talent. Yeah, I developed some pictures using my own silver nite. O'Bannion's guys snatched them away before I got much of a look. Weren't too polite about it either..."
...

"I'm not going over this again! Pictures showed blurry aerial stuff. Looked like the weirdoville blocks out on the west edge of town. Pics of some guys running around in the western cemetery. A kind of round blotch near the dairy there. Maybe the film was damaged? Do you know those duds at the dairy still use a horse and cart? They were staring up at the camera the whole time, the washouts!" Emma's work in the city archives and Misk U library starts out well, but runs into frustrating dead ends. She has occasionally come across pages before that have been removed with a note "removed for restoration" (followed with a cryptic symbol) attached. Usually this is blamed on mold, carried by the dampness of the Miskatonic. But this search always seems to end with such a find.

Nevertheless, she is able to identify the names of local Merchant District families buried in the graveyard. Most older families have some ancestors resting there. One short list includes the Cowley / 'Cowlee' name. Emma also finds a few translated pages from a work known as Les Cult des Ghoules (full copy also removed for 'restoration' ). Different theories are offered as to the necrogenesis of ghouls. One that it is a congenital curse, carried by some family lines as a recessive but persistent "gene". Though the tome does not use this fashionable new term.

There is no mention anywhere of green light.

At around 11 o'clock in the evening, Melody gets a call from King. King apologizes for the late call but asks her to attend an incident in West Arkham, on W Main St, near the cemetery. There has been a report of 'vandals' running down the street from the cemetery.

The Arkham police used to call in King and his defunct Society to attend such unexplained incidents. King's Society would offer advice and help to keep a discreet handle on events. King has suggested that Melody and her new colleagues may wish to attend and offer similar assistance.

A single police vehicle will be stationed to meet them when they arrive.

The investigators are surprised to find a patrol vehicle parked in W Main St, close to the cemetery. Detective Ray Stuckey is standing in the street with an elderly local. Alex, a 'Merchant' man himself, recognises the elder as a stone cutter called Elijah Potts.

The auto's lights are on full beam, illuminating the graves and tombs of the wooded graveyard at the end of the street. A chill autumn fog hangs over the eerie scene.

The detective nods politely as the investigators approach. Stucky gets rid of the young patrolman, sending him to check on houses at the other end of the street.

"Ain't that the berries! Clancy Bleasdale got roped into this? Taking over from King and his Spook Crew? I'd stick to reporting on flower shows if I were you."

Stuckey turns to Elijah.

"Mr Potts, everyone here is safe now--these are Mr King's colleagues. Arkham people, good people. Do you want to tell us all the real story of what happened?"

The old stonecutter looks sadly at the arrivals.

"You're King's new folk? I hope things work out for you. Anyway, I'll try to help you like I helped King's crew in the old times..."

"Well, the "Old Citizens", paid a visit. Not just one or two like usual. A whole pack of them. Like ...hyenas, leaping and hopping. They've been roused for days, even coming out in the daytime. Outsiders being seeing them. Not good. Something has got them all restless."

"They ran into the yard behind the Public Schools building there. Halfway down the road on the right there. There was a fearful noise like a battle, a fight between devils. Then they came back carryin' --something, I fear a person--between them. But I hid when they got close. Their blood was roused. Couldn't make out who or what it was they were carryin' ... "

Potts winces and looks over his shoulder at the graveyard, as though its denizens are likely to hear.

"We don’t use that ‘g’ word round here. The Old Citizens. The Neighbours, especially if you live in this block. And no, it’s not common knowledge except for those who need to know. Real old timers like me. A few in the city government and law. King’s operators. A handful more."

"But it’s true. If you were born hereabouts there’s some chance you have the Yard Curse. I thank the Lord that I have grown old without showing signs of it. But you are never safe. Some can ‘turn’ even after their apparent death. Mrs Chaplin told me that. She was one of King’s old team…"

"You think all this is smoke and mirrors, Bleasdale? I hope you are right."

Potts shows interest in Melody’s mention of a dairy.

"It’s right over there on River. Arkham Dairy. You say there was a blotch close to it on a photo? Can you show me?""Seems like we only have a second hand account of a photo of something. But a splotch on an aerial photo would be something big. A building say. I’d put my money on the abandoned church on the corner there. If there’s anything in this area with enough spook energy to show up in a photo, it’s that’s place.""Now look, that young patrolman grew up in Beantown, not Arkham. I don’t want him catching on that there’s something amiss here. Let’s go up to the yard behind the Schools building where Mr Potts said the ghouls — Applesauce! Sorry Mr Potts, Neighbours — had some sort of fight. "

"Then we’ll have to take off and leave it to you specialists."

Emma knows the established lore about the church. Built in 1801, abandoned in 1878 when moaning sounds came from the coffin of a co-founder suspected of wizardry.

Emma knows several further legends about the old place. Only those born in the sound of the church bells can be considered true Old Arkhamites. There is a secret ‘observation cell’ in the steeple’s internal scaffolding. It was used in the age of sail to sight ships coming up the Miskatonic. Later, by astronomers (and perhaps magicians) to perform observations. The church bells are lined with silver but have never been removed or damaged. Witches, flying over the Commonwealth on Samhain night, we’re believed to use the church as a landmark. And so on…

"Ok, let’s take a look. Bleasdale? Mr Cowley? Are you going to come with us?"

Stuckey notes that Emma is hanging back and nods, acknowledging her decision.

He orders the patrolman away, asking him to ‘phone a report from the police call box on River Street. Once the young man is out of sight, he draws and readies two police .45s, sticking one in his belt.

Stuckey advances into the alley that leads to the rear of the Schools Building. He clicks on a police flashlight but its beam seems ineffective in the unlighted space.

Emma watches the unlikely company advance into the inky darkness of the alley.

As they turn into the yard at the building’s rear, Stuckey’s flashlight flickers over a dreadful tableau. Three ghouls perch on a brick wall at the yard’s rear. Bald pated, yet shaggy and hoofed like goats. As Arkhamites, the investigations have heard tales of these creatures since their childhood. The sight of the three monsters feels like a impossible scene from a nightmare. Yet also oddly familiar.

Long tongues lolling, the creatures draw themselves up on their powerful haunches as if to leap at the intruders. They hiss a warning.

"They are right there," gasps Stuckey.

The flashlight trembles in his grasp, casting a quavering beam. He aims his pistol directly at the creatures , but refrains from shooting, clearly doubting the party’s odds of survival if they engage.

The ghouls snarl when Melody refuses to back away. One of the creatures makes a guttural snarl. Then points a bony finger upwards , towards the spire of the old church.

The three horrors scramble from the wall and head westward into the darkness , scrambling yard to yard in the direction of the graveyard.

Stuckey gives an audible sigh.

"You stood your ground, lady? I don’t know whether that makes you brave or crazy. Mr Cowley? Professor? How about you come and join us in here? No medals for you, though."

Once the ghouls have departed, the yard presents a grisly scene. The ground is thick with wet autumn leaves. Yet a severed hand, gnarled and greenish like a cartoon witch’s , is clearly visible in Stuckey’s torchlight. Blood spatters the wall on which the ghouls were resting.

As they search the scene, the investigators also become aware of a low but persistent hum coming from the direction of the church.

Stuckey sees that Melody has been struck with terror and disgust.

He approaches her gingerly and considers offering a her steadying swig from his hip flask. But he looks at the elegant woman and thinks better of it.

"I’m sorry, " he says. " I’d like to say it gets better but it doesn’t."

Ghoul against ghoul? Clancy doubts it. The hand is rubbery and inhuman. Even more so than a ghoul’s bony manus. Turning it over, he sees that horrid suckers pucker in its palm and near its fingertips. The hand of a devil? Or something more alien still?!

Emma also considers the severed hand. Her guess is that the member has been torn from its socket through sheer force. The spillage of dark green blood nearby confirms this. The hand is dull green, rather than brightly luminous like the light that enveloped Harrington.

Green like a toad…suddenly the horrible otherness of the thing strikes her…

Alex and Emma swap notes on the steeple. The old structure soars into the blackness of the autumnal New England sky. Emma knows much already about its structure and the lookout platform within. One odd thing that strikes her is the weather vane at its tip. Perhaps it is a trick of the light, but the distant vane seems to faintly tremble. As though viewed through a shimmer of heat or cold.

Alex also stares and slowly confirms Emma’s impression. Some kind of force—a magnetic field perhaps— is operating around or in front of the steeple’s tip!

"I'm going to have to take this."

Grimacing, the detective unfolds an evidence bag and gingerly pushes the hand inside using his flashlight.

"I have to go. Shows over, I guess. Mr Potts said there was a fight here. Turns out the 'locals' took exception to this guy, whoever or whatever it was. And now they've gone home. I hope you fellas agree and take yourselves home, too..."

He looks around at the investigators.

"You're not going home are you? Bunch of crazy eggs. That's why King chose you."

Stuckey goes looking for the patrolman, leaving the 'crazy eggs' to the darkness of the yard.

It is a relief to walk eastwards, away from the unlit west of town and the fog-filled cemetery. The church at the end of the block is a spooky, derelict looking place. But at least it offers the adventurers a view of the Main Street shopping district with its brightly lit stores and billboards. There's even a drugstore open, where a clerk busies himself with boxes of soap powder. A cheerful scene.

The church's main gate has been locked and bolted from within. A side door seems to be locked. At the west end of the church, steps lead down into the crypt. The gate has been forced open, allowing access to the utterly dark space beneath the church.

The side door admits the investigators to the rear of church nave, behind rows of wrecked pews. The church's interior is dusty and cobwebbed, fetid with rot and the musty stink of bats.

To the party's left is the empty rear of the church, with doors to some abandoned offices and a dismal side-chapel. To their right, rows of pews face the altar , a raised pulpit and carved doors leading to the bell tower steps and larger (Main Street) entrance .

A creature crouches in the aisle, staring at the investigators over the pews. It is utterly alien and nightmarish in appearance. Spindly, long-limbed like a toad , yet with shaggy white fur covering its torso. Its eyes are hidden in deep folds and a tubular mouth sports needle-like teeth. Its right hand is missing. Its raises its left, remaining hand which clasps a twisted metallic tube.

The beast utters an alien bleat as the bullets wing and stagger it. But it manages at last to operate the sinister device.

A wide beam of baleful green light floods the space occupied by the shooters.

Alex pauses a heartbeat too long. Enveloped in the beam of sickly light, he is at once immobilised. He stands stiffly, enveloped in a green glowing film, too rigid even to topple against a pew.

The monster utters another alien noise of distress. It staggers further along the aisle, leaving a trail of blue-green ichor. Its beam weapon trembles in its loosening grip but it seems to be preparing to launch a second filthy ray.

The creature’s device smashes as Emma’s bullet passes through it, causing it to detonate in a pulse of bright heat. The creature is incinerated, filling the old building with an alien stench!

There is another horror to discover in the abandoned old church. Between the pews, the investigators find three human corpses. They have been grotesquely emptied of fluids. From their clothes, two appear to have been vagrants, but the third husk of a cadaver is dressed in the garb of a Misk U student. All bear the marks of terrible wounds. Sucker and puncture marks that reveal that the monster was a form of esoteric vampire, feeding on the fluids and organs of living prey!

Yet this revelation, which would sent the investigators reeling a day or so earlier, barely registers after the horror of their battle.

There are two further avenues of terror to explore. The bell tower above, from which the humming noise still emits. And the crypt, reachable by a chill stairway at the rear of the church.

Somehow, Melodies bandages absorb the glow that films Alex’s skin. By stages, he is able to blink, move his fingers, then take a decent breath. Within a few minutes he is able walk, if rather stiffly. His voice is feeble and hoarse, though his confusion has abated…

Emma scales the creaking boards to the bell tower. Those behind her cannot follow too closely, lest the staircase collapse under the combined weight. So she is the first to reach the deck where the church’s bronze bells once pealed. To the east and south stretch the city’s nocturnal streets. To the north, she glimpses the old Miskatonic, reflecting Arkham’s lights.

But there is something else there. Something impossible…

Above, a dozen yards above her head, an object hovers weightlessly. Leaden grey and and shaped like a crooked bomb or torpedo, it turns slowly in the air high above the Main Street corner. Emma guesses that it is a starship, a vehicle that navigates the endless void of space. Docked weightlessly with the church’s steeple acting as a kind of anchor. But whereas the heaven ships she had seen in comics are sleek and modern, the object she now glimpses is ugly and misshapen. The only feature that breaks its lumpen form is a crude, heavy-looking porthole from which another of the vampire creatures peers through sunken eyes. It watches for a split second…

The ship’s engines detonate, casting it rapidly into the darkness of the sky. Deafened by their din and fearful that the steeple will collapse at it shakes from their impact, Emma watches as the crooked object rises and is quickly hidden in cloud.

…..

"We’ll done, you’ve done very well. Another brandy? I recommend it for settling the nerves…"

King looks at the four adventurers with concern. He is disappointed that Tillinghast left the group so quickly, but seems surprised and pleased that those remaining handled the perils successfully.

"So ghouls… but then an alien visitor of some sort. What do you think happened? I mean, what was the connection? And why could Harrington see the object, presumably, before he promised to make a photograph?"