The Lurkers & Other Strange Tales Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  THE LURKERS

  1. The Inheritance

  2. The Manor

  3. The Oubliette

  4. The Thrall

  5. The Warning

  6. The Lighthouse

  7. The Cabal

  TWITCH

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE

  I

  II

  III

  GHOST IN THE MACHINE

  1. Inception

  2. Infiltration

  3. Infection

  TRAVELER

  1. Six Souls

  2. Redeemed

  Interact

  Afterword

  About the Author

  The Lurkers

  &

  Other Strange Tales

  S. Lee Benedict

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places or incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The Lurkers & Other Strange Tales

  Published by S. Lee Benedict

  First Edition: December 2014

  Version: 1.0

  Copyright © 2014 S. Lee Benedict

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  For all the dream-questers.

  We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

  —H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

  THE LURKERS

  1. The Inheritance

  Penny stared into the space beyond the car’s dashboard, lost in the syncopated rhythm of the windshield wipers. It took her a few moments to realize the car had come to a stop. Richard was staring at her. She got the distinct impression he’d asked her something, and she’d missed it.

  “Huh?”

  Richard smirked. “Is this the place?”

  Penny consulted the piece of legal stationary gripped in her pale hands and then looked out the window at the sign on the building outside. It read

  MORTEL, BLACK & BLACK

  ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW

  Penny sighed. “Looks like the place.”

  She glanced at the illuminated clock in the car’s center console. 9:58 p.m. Right on time.

  Richard put the car in park and shut off the engine. He took Penny’s hand and smiled.

  “Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” he said. “We’ll just see what they have to say and go from there. Together.”

  Penny smiled at her husband. “All the way and back again?”

  He laughed. “Yup. All the way and back again.”

  They’d been saying it to each other for years, ever since that Mediterranean cruise, their honeymoon. They’d gazed out at the vast sea one night, and Penny had seemed pensive to her new husband.

  “What are you thinking about?” Richard had said.

  “I was just wondering what you would do if I fell overboard. Would you jump in after me?”

  Richard didn’t hesitate in his reply. “You bet. You’re not going anywhere without me. I’m in this thing for the long haul. For better or worse and all that, remember? All the way to the end of our days.”

  “All the way, huh?”

  “And back again.”

  Richard had been true to his word and had proved his devotion time and time again, despite Penny’s many struggles. And she loved him all the more for it.

  Penny stared out the car window, trying to coax herself to exit the vehicle.

  “What’s bothering you?” said Richard.

  Penny thought about it and then said, “Oh, it’s nothing. Just this new medication, making me wonky. Just give me a sec. I’ll be okay.”

  “Hey, if you’d rather not—”

  “No, I’m good. Really. Let’s get this over with. ’Kay?”

  Richard got out of the car and opened his umbrella. Penny stepped out onto the sidewalk and huddled in next to him. Together, they hurried to the door and pushed inside, out of the rain.

  The couple found themselves in a stately foyer. Mahogany paneling covered all four walls, floor to ceiling. A matching receptionist’s desk was positioned against the far wall in front of a solid-looking, wooden door. A brass plaque designated the area beyond the door as the lawyers’ inner offices.

  An exquisitely made grandfather clock stood against the wall to their left. Penny, who had an eye for antiques, noted it was quite valuable. Opposite the clock hung a large, hand-painted portrait of two somber-looking gentlemen wearing Victorian-era attire. The plaque on the frame read

  SIMON MORTEL AND BARTHOLOMEW BLACK

  FOUNDERS, 1856

  No one was there to receive them, but that didn’t strike Penny as unusual. The hour was late, and the Messrs. Mortel and Black, attorneys-at-law, had no doubt sent their assistants home for the evening. What was unusual, Penny considered, was the attorneys’ request that she and her husband arrive at the office so late in the first place.

  “Maybe we should knock,” said Richard.

  Before Penny could reply, the grandfather clock began to sound the hour. It was then exactly ten o’clock. Penny and Richard stood silently as the clock chimed. On the final toll, the office door swung open to reveal a well-dressed, middle-aged man with black, slicked-back hair and hard, angular features.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Cadeau, I presume?”

  The couple nodded, and the man grinned in a way that made Penny think of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.

  “Welcome. And thank you for being so punctual. I am Lucius Mortel. Please step this way.”

  Penny and Richard followed Mr. Mortel through the portal and down a long hallway to the very end, where a door with a brass plaque bearing the lawyer’s name stood ajar. As they entered, Penny noted the room was decorated in similar antique fashion as the foyer. Two full walls—the far wall as well as the one to its left—were lined with leather-bound tomes Penny assumed were legal reference books and the like. A third wall contained a large cabinet made of some kind of dark wood. Penny couldn’t place the kind of wood or the specific era from which the cabinet originated, but she was certain it was old, very old, more than five hundred years at least. The cabinet was inlaid with designs fashioned in what looked like black onyx. The designs defied description, and Penny was at a loss as to their possible cultural origin; they seemed to her … alien.

  Mortel’s massive desk was also an antique and made of dark wood, though not nearly as old as the cabinet. Penny mused that the desk might be a family heirloom; perhaps it had belonged to the lawyer’s ancestor, Simon Mortel. A single lamp on the desk’s surface was the room’s only source of light.

  An aged man sat in a velvet-lined chair in the corner near the desk. Shadows, cast by the bookshelf and the cabinet on either side of him, concealed his face, but Penny could still see the man’s visage was full of wrinkles. He looked to be about a hundred years old. A transparent breathing tube wound under his nose and behind his ears and was connected to an oxygen canister in a wheeled carrier on the floor. The old man was sucking air in deep, wheezing breaths.

  The unidentified stranger was well-dressed, like Mortel, and clutched a can
e with a silver handle in his palsied and liver-spotted hands. The cane’s handle was shaped in the form of some kind of animal resembling an octopus. Penny was thinking how odd the handle looked—alien, like the black designs on the cabinet—when Mr. Mortel beckoned the couple to sit in a pair of chairs facing the desk. As Penny and Richard complied, Penny found herself unable to take her eyes off the old man. He stared back from his place in the shadows and said nothing.

  A chill ran down Penny’s spine.

  As if in answer to her unasked question, Mr. Mortel said, “Mr. and Mrs. Cadeau, this is Damon Black, one of our senior partners along with myself and Mr. Black’s grandson, Caleb Black.”

  “Hello.” Richard nodded to the inscrutable Mr. Black. The man said nothing in response. He just sat there and wheezed in the corner, and Penny could swear that, without even moving, his face recessed even deeper into the shadows, which made his features then impossible to discern.

  “Anyway, I don’t want to waste any more time keeping you in suspense,” said Mortel.

  Penny finally managed to pull her gaze away from Mr. Black. “Your letter was rather cryptic. In it, you said I was entitled to some kind of inheritance?”

  “Quite right,” said Mortel.

  “But how can that be?”

  “Are you sure you’ve got the right person?” said Richard. “Penny doesn’t have any living relatives.”

  “Actually, that is—or was, rather—not at all true,” said Mortel. “Allow me to explain, though I’m afraid I’m to be the bearer of both good and bad news in that regard … and then, I suppose, some good news once again. The first good news being that Mrs. Cadeau did have one relative left in the world, and the bad news being it was, sadly, only until just recently. Her name was Eugenia Mallow of Perry’s Landing up on the Maine coast, and she was your cousin, thrice removed.” Mortel held up three bony fingers to punctuate the word “thrice.”

  Penny was skeptical. “I–I’ve never heard of a cousin Eugenia.”

  “Not surprising, dear. Your parents both died when you were very young, true? So sorry to hear that, by the way. After which, you were placed in the foster system and had no contact with any other scattered members of the extended family.”

  “How did you know that?” Richard sounded like he was offended on Penny’s behalf. In fact, both of them were brought up in the foster system. It was one of the things they bonded over when they first met at Miskatonic U., but they rarely talked about it with anyone else.

  “It’s all a matter of public record,” said the lawyer. “We here at Mortel, Black and Black have the best investigators on retainer. Even so, they had to turn over quite a few stones to locate you. We’ve actually acquired quite a great deal of knowledge pertaining to you, Mrs. Cadeau, maybe even more than you yourself possess, considering you were completely unaware of Ms. Mallow’s existence until now.”

  Penny mulled this over for a few quiet moments and then said, “So … I was named in her will or something?”

  “That’s the second piece of good news, so to speak, considering the morose nature of our business. She left nearly her entire estate to you, an estate that includes a rather large house.”

  “A house?” said Richard, aghast.

  “And an island,” said Mortel.

  Penny’s jaw dropped to the floor.

  Mortel opened a file folder on his desk and consulted the documents inside. “Blackwater Manor on Askuwheteau Island. It’s roughly ten thousand acres of forested land about a mile off the coast of Maine.” He removed several photographs from the folder and handed them across the desk to Penny.

  She perused the photographs with Richard leaning in next to her, his mouth still agape in disbelief. The first photo was of the house, Blackwater Manor. It was enormous, a mansion to put it mildly. Penny was an out-of-work real estate agent and knew a bit about architectural styles, but she couldn’t place Blackwater. Some kind of pseudo-gothic, maybe. It looked only a tad worse for wear, and she guessed it was worth millions.

  The next picture showed the island from a distance. She could make out Blackwater Manor, perched near the edge of a cliff, high above the water. The rest of the island was covered by a dense forest. The final photo showed a quaint, traditional New England lighthouse, also atop a seaside cliff.

  “That’s the lighthouse on the opposite side of the island from the manor house,” Mortel said. “It and everything else on Askuwheteau belong to you now.” He paused. “But … there are some minor conditions.”

  Richard leaned back in his chair. “I guess we saw that coming.”

  Mortel continued as if he hadn’t heard the comment. “In order to take possession of the property, Ms. Mallow stipulated in her will that you may not sell any part of it for a period of one year. Furthermore, you will also be required to actually reside in the house for the entirety of that period. The deed will remain in the possession of the offices of Mortel, Black and Black until that time.”

  Penny sat in silence. She let the idea sink in and peered again at the old man, still wheezing in the darkened corner. He’d hardly moved a muscle the entire time. Though his face was shrouded in shadow, the light from the desk lamp glinted off the silver octopus handle of his cane.

  Finally, Richard broke the silence and chuckled. “That’s a pretty big commitment.” He looked at Penny with uncertainty. “I just don’t know if we’d be able to do something like that.”

  “I understand it’s a big decision,” said Mortel. “You’re a novelist. Am I right, Mr. Cadeau?”

  “Uh … yeah,” said Richard. “Crime novels.”

  “And moderately successful crime novels at that,” said Mortel. It felt like he was pandering. “In fact, you are currently under contract with Marlowe Press for a follow-up to your last book, which sold decently if I’m not mistaken.”

  Richard looked incredulous.

  “Investigators.” Mortel shrugged, his palms pointing toward the ceiling. “It seems to me you could do that job anywhere. Why not here?” He tapped the photographs. “And I understand, Mrs. Cadeau, you’ve been out of the real estate game since the housing market went belly-up a few years back. Let me ask you this. What’s stopping you?”

  Penny still had a mountain of doubts. She was always a firm believer in that if it sounded to good to be true …

  “What will happen to the property if we decline the inheritance?” she said. “I mean, there’s no way we could pay the taxes on this place.”

  Mortel grinned. “That shouldn’t be a problem. Even more good news! The inheritance also consists of a cash sum of several million dollars, more than enough to pay Uncle Sam, I assure you.”

  “Several million?” said Richard. “How much exactly?”

  “Nearly fifteen million, I think. Ms. Mallow was extremely wealthy, as I’m sure you’ve begun to ascertain. I believe her grandfather was some kind of shipping tycoon. He built the house back in the 1800s. Your cousin was actually worth quite a bit more than fifteen million, but I’m afraid the balance of her wealth is to be donated to a private, er … charitable organization. And to answer your question, your share of the inheritance will also be donated should you fail to meet the conditions of the will.”

  As Mortel was speaking, Penny began to hyperventilate. “I can’t believe this.”

  “We’ll do it!” Richard said.

  Penny whirled around to face her husband. “What?”

  “Penny, this is a great opportunity for us. We’d be crazy not to take it.” Richard’s eyes gleamed in the light of the desk lamp. “Unless this is some kind of a joke.” He looked back and forth between Mortel and the enigmatic Mr. Black, who remained motionless in the corner.

  Mortel reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a large ring of keys, some of which, Penny could see, were skeletons. The lawyer placed the keys on the desk in front of them.

  “It’s all yours for the taking,” he said. “I ask you, what have you got to lose?”

  Over the next several min
utes, Richard and Penny went over the details with Mr. Mortel.

  “Well, that’s that with that,” the lawyer said when they were done, sounding almost comical. He stood up (Mr. Black, of course, remained where he was) and ushered the couple out the office door and down the hall to the foyer.

  As they were about to leave, Penny turned back to the attorney. “I still can’t believe I never knew about Eugenia,” she said. “Mr. Mortel, how did she die?”

  Mortel smiled in a way that made the hairs on the back of Penny’s neck stand at attention.

  “I believe she fell down some stairs and broke her neck.”

  2. The Manor

  Perry’s Landing was a small fishing town—little more than a village, really—located on the coast of Maine, quite off the beaten path. It was home to no more than two hundred souls, and most of the residents were either involved directly in the fishing trade or in one of the supporting businesses that lined the main drag, a single thoroughfare that was the town’s only connection to the outside world. The hamlet was as remote as they come, and no other incorporated area could be found within an hour’s drive.

  Perry’s Landing wasn’t even close to any major highway; it was located inside a pocket of land where U.S. Highway One veered away to the west for several miles before it curved back toward the seaboard areas. It was almost as if the designers of the federal highway system purposely wanted to avoid the three hundred year-old burg.

  Richard and Penny loaded their meager possessions into a moving truck, hitched their little Toyota to the back, and drove across three states to get there, getting lost twice along the way. But eventually the couple arrived, safe and sound, in the sleepy town and made their way to the dock where a modest ferry (operated by appointment for those with cause to visit Askuwheteau Island) carried them across the narrow passage of water—known as King’s Strait—to their new home.