The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of the Rooksford Glen Horror

Mickey Malloy only gets called in when things are going really wrong. In the small mountain town of Rooksford Glen, they’ve got a pair of missing federal agents, a train sunk into a lake, and mysterious sect worshipping the unknown beyond the stars and the fledgling thing they’ve willed into this world. Things sure ain’t going right.

This story is featured in the anthology Bourbon, Bullets, Broads, and Bourbon, which is now available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, or as a DRM-free ePub.

The Case of the Rooksford Glen Horror follows close on the heels of The Case of the Holy City Head Hunter. If this is your first Billy Club case, we recommend (but don’t require) checking out the Smiling Smuggler, the Candy-Coated Dynamite, and the Holy City Head Hunter first.

Content Warnings: Violence, Mild Gore, Cosmic Horror, Mild Swearing, Alcohol Use, Drug Use, Goats

MONDAY NIGHT, JUNE 15, 1942
SOUTHERN SHORE, CLAYTOR LAKE
ROOKSFORD GLEN, VIRGINIA

“Lords of the further reaches, hear our cry!” the shrouded woman called to the swirling galaxies above. Her coven parroted her screech with ecstatic revelry. Their bonfire roared skyward, spitting embers and little orange stars that reached up to join their celestial brethren but winked out of existence before they could find their place.

The woman with the ragged cloak, face sunken in shadow, called out again:

“Another slave of the unbidden has desecrated our circle!”

The fire illuminated the woman's eyes, bright crystals of manic flame dancing with terror and dread purpose. Her breath fogged the winter air with a shuddering rhythm. Mickey Malloy was struck with the need to struggle against the silken cords they'd bound him with: he knew the look of one intending to commit violence.

“Wailb ab millit, hilf il bahl shlibt,” he slobbered around the tight gag. Cold drool oozed off his chin.

“Even now he speaks in the cant of the shadow source! Cover your ears, sisters, his words are poison!” the woman cried. Her comrades recoiled in horror, clamping their hands against the sides of their heads and moaning.

Mickey shook his head. He couldn't believe these broads had gotten the drop on him. But they made his investigation easy: at least he knew what happened to the federal agents that had disappeared two days ago.

He tried blurting another objection around the spit-soaked rag tied across his mouth, but the shrouded woman stalked right up the him and clobbered him on the side of the head. He flopped over, unable to catch himself with bound hands, and hit the frozen dirt face-first. The women roared into a fervor, dancing around him and the bonfire.

Mick rolled onto his back. The women were all soaked in sweat, wearing shredded dresses despite the cold. Their eyes were white and black, with no color left in them. Their faces were sunken, cheeks hollow. Their hair was wild, twisted into knots or ripped out in clumps, with what was left sticking straight out like they'd been electrocuted. Just days ago they'd been normal housewives, but now...

“Wy-pel, Fed-ki, and Tev-Zad-Zee, kindlers of suns, we beseech you!” the shrouded woman cried. Mick could see now that she had a thick set of curtains draped over her, their lacy tails trailing through the leaves and dirt behind her. Soiled, once-gold locks tumbled out of the hooded curtain, framing a milky-pale face twisted with a fanatic's humorless grin. A blade glistened in her right hand, beneath the fabric.

“I, Hecate of Rooksford Glen, last daughter of the House of Stone Sun, lector of the tongue of Anglia and reciter of the Shaken Spear's words, the holder of your tooth, and heiress to the further reaches, beseech you!”

Hecate lifted her hand high above her head, presenting its contents to the heavens. A translucent dagger, its jagged edges crimson with dripping blood, caught starlight.

“Uhl ehl oh,” Mickey grunted. He kicked around, trying to get himself sitting up again but the women pounced upon him, pressing him back down to the ground. Their faces were plain, but split by the wide grins of maniacs and beaded with hot sweat that steamed in the cold air. Their lips were dry and cracked, with old blood crusting in the fissures. Some sobbed as they dug their claws into him, some laughed.

“The slave is a fighter, lords. Does his spirit please you?” Hecate screeched to the sky.

A cloud drifted south, unveiling the northern edge of the sky. The women let Mick go and scuttled away, gasping at the sight. He rolled himself over to catch a glimpse of what they were seeing on the northern horizon. There, hugging the distant mountaintops, reflected in the still lake, he could see a bright comet, burning white against the black sky.

“Sisters! The lords of the further reaches have spoken!” Hecate shouted. She pointed her transparent blade at the celestial body. Blood ran down her arm from the blade, dripping off her elbow. “Take him to the temple. This slave's flesh shall nourish our waxing god.”

Mick was helpless as the coven descended on him again, silken ropes twisting around him. He felt like a fly, bound by wild-eyed spiders. They wrapped a rag around his eyes, and the world went dark. A dozen hands hooked beneath him and lifted him off the ground.

They sang as they walked, strange choruses in nonsense languages that turned the ear and churned the stomach with their tunelessness. Each of the women seemed to know the chant by heart, but it was different for every one of them. The discordant cacophony was grating. Mick almost thanked them when they dropped him bodily into the trunk of an old sedan. He pulled his hands and feet close to his body so they couldn't slam the lid on him.

The car rumbled and bounced, and they hit enough potholes that banged his head against metal that Mick lost track of time. These backwoods Virginia roads were murder on a bound old man's back. He could still hear the muffled singing, though, even over the beater's rattling engine. In the stifling darkness, he had time to kick himself for letting these maniacs get the drop on him.

He had rolled into a damn ghost town. Rooksford Glen had barely counted as post-office-worthy even after the two communities of Rook's Ford and Berryman Glen were consolidated in 1928. A 'hamlet' sounded too European, and a 'village' too quaint. The only thing that kept the whole place going was the fancy church school down the way. What was left wasn't anything other than a dirt-farming, backwater rust hole, barely holding on while the kids of muckity-muck carpet baggers learned algebra and cow-tipping just a mile down the valley. It would have stayed a rust hole if not for the National Guard armory opening up across the lake in '37.

Rooksford Glen had, according to the census bureau, become something of an R-and-R boom town since then. The armory brought new jobs, new construction, and a brand-new combination railroad-automobile bridge across the river. The town was fitted for electricity, and for running water. Though many still drank from their mountain wells, everyone on the main drag and in all the new buildings could sip from the crystal clear waters of Claytor Lake whenever they so desired. Bars, drive-ins, and music halls had all opened up in the last year, just to cater to the couple hundred and a handful soldiers stationed nearby, and all of the doctors, chemists, and pharmacists who managed the armory's strange inventory.

When Mick had shown up, Rooksford Glen was empty and quiet. Not a tune playing or movie running. The bars were cleared out, along with all the booze. He'd made his way through deserted stores and dark homes for the better part of an afternoon before he'd about given up. It wasn't 'til the sun went down that he saw the orange bonfire glow coming from the lake shore.

He thought he'd been stealthy, but he had a set of worn smoker's lungs and weighed in at two-and-a-half bills. He'd been about as quiet as a train wreck. He'd leave the fact that one of those gibbering madwomen laid a two-by-four across the side of melon without him getting wise to her out of his report.

It could have been five minutes or an hour that he was stuffed in that trunk. The car ground to a halt on grass. Mick could hear the low murmur of a dozen voices to second the engine cut out.

“Shlibt,” he tried to curse. He kicked and squirmed around until the heels of his steel-toe boots were pointed at the trunk, ready to brain whoever popped it. The singing started again, and the latch popped. Mick snapped his body like a bullwhip, throwing his tied feet out as hard as he could. All he hit was cold air. He body flopped across the sedan tailgate, half in the trunk, half out. A throng of cackling women descended upon him and dragged him to his feet.

He fought against them, thrashing and swinging his elbows, but there were too many. They forced him to his knees. One latched onto his forehead and pulled his head back. He battled to keep his neck from arching, wary of their leader's blood-stained blade.

“Away from the slave, sisters!” the curtain-draped Hecate screeched. The women around him melted away, muttering and hissing. Mick struggled against his bonds, but found the effort futile. The nutty broads might not be able to carry a tune, but they could tie the hell out of a knot.

“Feast your eyes, slave of the unbidden, upon the Temple of Fractious Truth,” Hecate howled. Someone ripped the blindfold off Mickey's face. He looked around and found himself in an open space surrounded by large brick buildings. Bonfires lit the crowded area, casting orange light and coal-black shadows across the eerie buildings. Raw earth and withered flora had been scattered across the ground around him. The landscaping had been torn out by the roots and the paving stones had been thrown through every window of the sturdy buildings, but he could tell it had once been a nice place. Its fountain sputtered in front of him, and the crazed women in their tattered dresses splashed around in it, cupping their hands and sipping the water. Beyond the fountain, a great hall loomed. A scorched banner was hanging across its face, blue slathered in yellow: 'Bash 'em, Bearcats!' it read in cheery, hand-painted letters.

“Uhl, ehl,” he slobbered. There were young men lined up to either side of him, standing stone still and holding spears. They were dressed in pseudo-military outfits with colors matching the Bearcats banner. Marching bands uniforms. The pimple-faced guards looked focused, holding their weapons fiercely. They had taken him to the damn school, New River Baptist Academy. Above and beyond the hall's looming roof, the comet was crossing the sky.

“Only the most fortunate of the unbidden are allowed access to the sacred temple,” Hecate hissed. She was suddenly next to Mick, her ivory face inches from his own. Her breath stank and her eyes were so dilated that there wasn't any iris left to see. “Take it in, slave. Revel in its majesty. Not even the chosen are permitted in the cloister.”

A great moan arose from behind the line of armed juniors and seniors, the soul-warping sound of persons uncountable crying out in fear, pain, and desire.

“Silence, peons!” Hecate screeched. “Three of you may taste blood of the further reaches. Just three!”

The mob behind the boys burst into madness, clawing at one another, climbing over each other. The high schoolers shoved them back with their spear hafts, shifting until they made a gap just large enough for three people squeeze past. The mad civilians fell through, then scrambled on their hands like rabid dogs. The gaps closed behind them and the boys took up the housewives' song. The tuneless hymn radiated through the crowd, calming them. The chosen trio skittered through the dirt to the lip of the fountain and held out their hands in supplication to the glassy-eyed women frolicking in its waters.

“Taste the infinite!” Hecate called. The women in the fountain retrieved silver ladles from beneath the surface, then spooned glittering water into eagerly waiting mouths. Liquid splashed down the supplicants' chins, soaking their clothes. In that bitter mountain chill, Mick couldn't imagine being soaked through. These people did not seem to mind.

“That is enough!” Hecate ordered. The desperate drinkers gave her looks that could've turned a black cat white, but a wave of her translucent dagger drove them back into the crowd, taking up the chant themselves in a zealous, lunatic fervor.

Hecate stepped away from the fountain, her sweat-soaked curtain dress dragging behind her. She pointed at the waiting boys, then at Mick. As one, they advanced on him, spears leveled. He tried to squirm away, but unyielding hands clenched him tight. As they got closer, he could see that they were improvised weapons, whittled-down mop handles and flag staffs. Four of the boys hooked their weapons in the crooks of Mick's elbows and bodily lifted him to his feet.

“Dalm eht,” Mickey grunted. The strain on his shoulders was too much so he was forced to stumble along wherever his adolescent wardens directed him. He tucked his chin as far into his neck as it would go, then pushed against the gag with his tongue, further soaking it. He whipped his head back and forth, finally getting enough slack to slide the rag off his face.

“What the hell is this?” Mick shouted.

“Oh, so you've abandoned the cyclopean language of the outer shadows and deign to speak your native tongue, slave?” Hecate tittered. She danced ahead as the boys dragged Mick past the fountain. He glared at the spurting water, watching it catch fire- and star-light.

“When is that shit going to kick in?” he muttered. Hecate saw him staring at her geysering cosmic elixir and chided him.

“No, the molten souls of the stars are not for you,” she sang out. Mick shook his head. The woman was off her rocker. He'd have to get someone else's attention.

“Hey, I am a federal agent, you kids are in big trouble,” he grunted at the spear-wielding teens. They carried on like they were deaf. He looked up at the closest to find the boy's eyes staring wide open after the ethereal Hecate, drool swinging in strings from his chin.

“Your carnal authority carries no jurisdiction over the children of the further reaches,” she called back to Mick, mocking. He grunted and struggled against the spears under his arms, trying in vain to relieve some of the pressure on his swollen joints.

The boys stopped at the great double doors of the school's main hall. A bell tower loomed above them, silent. The blue and yellow banner flapped in the icy breeze. Unlike the other buildings, the glass here was intact. Benches and logs had been stacked against its shuttered windows, reinforcing them. Mick flopped onto the ground as the boys backed away to stare at the building with reverence.

“You will have a great honor this night, slave,” Hecate said.

“How's that?” Mick asked. He rolled his shoulders to try to loosen some of the knots the boys have twisted into them. It was no use. He'd need some Vitamin B if he wanted to feel any kind of better at all.

“Very few, even among the chorus, has laid eyes on a seedling god. But you, you will see it closer than anyone else,” she purred.

“A what?” Mick blurted. He couldn't imagine where this broad was getting these ideas.

She slapped him across the face, then dropped to her knees in the dirt before him. Her shimmering, phantasmal knife scratched at his throat. He could smell the warm blood on her fingers.

“Its coming was foretold by the prophet Aech-pee, Crafter of Love, and confirmed in the new primers by Wy-pel, Fed-ki, and Tev-Zad-Zee. I found the seed, it came into my home, and the lords chose me with their tooth,” Hecate ranted. She fell away from Mick, onto her ass. She clutched the knife, marveling at its transparency.

“I don't think that's a tooth,” Mick ventured,

“The unbidden do not grant their slaves the gift of thought,” Hecate snapped. She scrambled to her feet and pointed the jagged blade at him. More blood flowed from its point, splatting onto the ground.

“The seed sprouted, and grew into a great beast in just days. Time is immaterial to its race, you see. As are our mundane senses. It, like its tooth, exists on a plane beyond what human comprehension is allowed to perceive. Our primitive eyes cannot see it. Only the judgment its hunger metes.”

“What the hell, lady.”

“At first, it ate chickens and rabbits. But its hunger was insatiable, and we had to lock it away in the temple so it could grow undisturbed. Even there, cat and dog could not satisfy it, nor could goat, nor hog. I had hoped the cow would assuage its ravenousness, but its song never stopped. It devours their voices, you see, along with their flesh. You can hear it singing even now.”

Mickey leaned in. Over the sound of the crazed crowd behind him, he could hear something coming from the other side of the doors. A scratching, movement, the scrabbling of a hundred inhuman arms and legs, misshapen and furious.

“I'm not a fan of this tune. Does it take requests?” Mick snorted.

“Your glib spirit shall be a delicious feast for the un-named one. The last few slaves the unbidden sent were stringy, and sour. But it consumed them nonetheless.”

“The last few?”

“Men claiming their authority over the further reaches, as you do,” she hissed. “Their flesh was succored upon by the entity.”

“You fed them to this thing?” Mick asked. That's what Earp had sent him here for, to find a couple federals who hadn't checked in. The armory was locked down and its soldiers otherwise occupied, so this 'easy run' had fallen to Mick. His head was still spinning after the whole Head Hunter thing in Charleston, and this was not helping. The men he'd come to find were family men, and paper-pushers. As much as Mick didn't care to be in the hands of some space cult in Rooksford Glen, Virginia, this really was out of the missing agents' wheelhouse. Mick sighed and asked: “Did you kill them?”

“I honored their beings by integrating their physical forms into a manifestation beyond form, beyond physicality.”

“You are crazy. And verbose.”

“You are cretinous, and myopic. I am chosen to interpret the whims of the stars and the colors between them, and to raise the progeny they sent. Under my care, it will reclaim this blue orb from the primates who seek to tear it apart. You are minuscule, and made of meat. In with him. Feed it.”

While she had been ranting, her entire coven had gathered behind Mick, silent on their bare feet. Dozens of hands dug into him once again, lifting him off the ground. He thrashed and kicked and struggled with all his might, but there were even more hands on him than before. The great double doors yawned open before him, and then he was inside, airborne. He hit the floor with a tailbone-jamming thud, feeling concrete through linoleum tile. The doors closed behind him with a slam that echoed down the school's long entrance hall. He was in darkness.

“What the hell did you get yourself into this time?” Mick wondered aloud. His voice bounced around the empty hall. He wormed around until his could get up off of his belly and onto his knees. There were smears of fluid and organic matter all over the floor, crusty, gummy, and slick all at once, and all stinking to high heaven.

“Damn it, Earp,” he muttered. He again pulled at the cord around his wrists, but it didn't give. If he was going to have half-a-chance against whatever was in here, he'd need both hands. Ideally a foot or two as well. He brought his wrists up and began to gnaw on the ropes. He'd had his teeth jostled by a haymaker or two in his time, but all his chompers were his originals, and strong. He was making some progress when he heard something.

It was a clacking, like long curved claws tapping against cold tile. Mick hopped to his tied feet with a quickness he'd forgotten he possessed. Something was coming from up ahead, in the dark bowels of the school. Mick considered pounding on the door, but he'd get no help from the maniacs outside. They'd delight in his fear. He did a quick inventory of everything he had on him: nothing. His hands were tied and the freaks had gone through every pocket on his person, even digging the switchblade out of his shoe.

The tapping was getting closer, and he could hear a shuddering breath. A murmuring whisper followed close behind. The godling swallowed voices as well as corpses.

“I ain't going to be too tasty, you know,” Mick called out. “I been marinating my brain in rye bourbon for thirty years. You might as well eat poison.”

“We don't want to eat you,” the whisper called out. The voice was joined by the wheezing breath of more lungs than should fit in one body. A dark form manifested in the gloom. Mick could count four heads, serpentine arms, and a set of glowing eyes in the shape. The whisper trickled down the hall again: “We want you to help us.”

“You got another thing coming if you think I'm going to help you!” Mick grunted. He bit down on the ropes as hard as he could, shaking his thick head from side to side like a pit bull. He felt just a bit of give, and that was enough. His slipped his hands out of the loops and took off, only remembering as he fell that his ankles were still tied. The floor was as hard and as cold this time as it had been the first time he'd hit it.

“What are you doing?” the voice asked again. Mickey rolled over to find the shape upon him. Four men and a golden retriever materialized out of the darkness. The dog loped over to Mickey and soaked his face in slobber.

“I thought you were...” Mick started, only for the dog to put its warm tongue right in Mickey's open mouth.

“Some invisible space demon?” the tallest of the men asked. “No such luck. Just another day in paradise.”

Mickey shoved the dog away and sat up. The speaker was dressed in federal gray wool, mid-sixies, a little worse for the wear. He had a narrow mustache and a set of broken spectacles.

“Alright wiseacre, I have seen a lot of crazy things so invisible space monster was never off the table,” Mick said. “You Groscost?”

“He is,” the tall man said, pointing to a younger gray-haired man with a matching cheap suit and a hell of a shiner. “I'm MacNeil. Cornelius MacNeil, U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission.”

“Mickey Malloy, Bureau of Investigation,” Mick said.

“What's a barrel basher going to do for us?” an old codger grunted from the back of the group.

“You are?” Mick asked over MacNeil's head.

“None the federals' damn business, that's who,” the scruffy, pot-bellied hillbilly grunted.

“That's Lenny Halloway, I'm Doctor Orville Madsden,” the last man in the group said. He was young, lanky, and soft. More than anything, he looked uncomfortable.

“They ain't need to know my name, city boy,” Halloway snapped.

“Alright, calm down,” Mick said. The old grump mumbled a thing or two under his breath, but Mick ignored him.

“So it's just you boys in here?” he asked.

“Us and these two G-men who couldn't figure their way out of a wet paper bag,” Halloway grunted.

“Lenny, I told you numerous times, we are not G-men. We're civil engineers,” MacNeil snapped.

“I am an accountant,” Groscost offered.

“You're the two I'm looking for, sounds like,” Mick said. “Anyone else in here?”

“It is the four of us and fifteen chickens, three goats, six cats and four dogs, three sows, and one ticked-off cow. Miss Peterson made claims regarding rabbits, but I fear the cats found them first. We had to lock the chickens in the teachers' lounge to keep the dogs away from them. And don't go in the gymnasium. It took us six hours to lure the cow in there, we don't want it getting out,” MacNeil explained.

“Me neither,” Mick said. “How about the invisible space god?”

“None that we can tell, and no invisible teeth,” MacNeil said.

“I was trying to tell that broad, I think she's just holding a piece of a broken bottle,” Mick said.

“She wouldn't listen,” Madsden muttered.

“The woman's so convinced that there's a monster in here that she just threw us in and assumes we've been eaten,” MacNeil explained.

“Speaking of which, how'd you all get - !” Mick started, but the dog was on him again, drowning him in slobber.

“Sandy, get offa him,” Halloway snarled. The yellow dog gave Mick one last lick and went to sit by the old man's foot.

“We came into town after investigating the train wreck when a mob came out of nowhere and threw us here, shouting about some craziness,” Groscost explained. “They popped me right in the eye, and broke Neil's glasses.”

“Wait, you go by Neil MacNeil?”

“Yeah, yeah,” MacNeil muttered. He squatted down and began working at the cords around Mickey's ankles.

“Anybody else hurt?” Mick asked.

“Just banged up. For all of her bluster, I don't think they've touched anyone but us,” Groscost reported.

“That's good. You boys get a chance to figure out what caused the wreck before they jumped you?” Mick asked while MacNeil worked.

“We initially suspected foul play, but we found a rail on the new bridge buckled from the changing weather. They used a lower grade of steel than regulations call for. The line whole line'll have to be inspected and, I suspect, re-laid,” Groscost explained. MacNeil jumped in while he worked at Mickey's knots:

“The engine jumped the tracks and dumped the cargo into the lake. Incidentally, it cut off the fast way in or out of town. We took the long way 'round, through the mountains, to see if... anybody... Got it!” MacNeil stood up said as he freed Mick's feet. He continued: “To see anybody needed anything flown in, medicines or what-have-you. It's going to be a while before the bridge is open to trains or trucks again. We couldn't find anyone until that broad and her mob swooped in and scooped us up.”

“Do you know what's happened?” Doctor Madsden asked. “We haven't a clue.”

“Well, that's a funny story,” Mick said, rubbing his ankles. “Help me up.”

MacNeil and Groscost hauled him to his feet.

“You know what they store at the New River Armory?” he asked.

“No, I'm afraid not,” Madsden replied. The two feds shook their heads.

“Chemical weapons,” Halloway grunted.

“Of course they do not!” Madsden objected.

“We'd know if the Army was transporting dangerous munitions across state lines,” Groscost said.

“It ain't munitions, but the man ain't wrong,” Mick said.

“Told ya,” Halloway said. “One of them Army officers was gabbing on and on about it in Georgie's just last week. He was about ten whiskey neats in, mind you, and I was closer to twelve, but he took a shine to me and wouldn't shut up. Loose lips and all.”

“That's ships, not locomotives,” Groscost pointed out.

“Well then... loose brains crash trains,” Halloway declared. “This doc would not shut his trap, kept blabbing away even when I told him to can it.”

“Sure he did, you old drunk,” Madsden snapped.

“Hey son, some folks don't take kindly to that kind of dispersion of character,” Mick said. “As for what your friendly local armory stores, you folks ever heard of 'go pills?' Methamphetamine?”

All Mick got was confused looks and shook heads.

“Little pick-me-ups for our boys overseas. Pop one of those, it's like a pot of coffee mixed with a lightning bolt, straight to the brain. In normal doses, it'll let you fight for twenty-four hours straight. The green tabs that got dumped out of those train cars into the Claytor Lake reservoir were a new formula, straight from Crown Pharmaceuticals. They say it's three times stronger. In the amounts those folks out there have been exposed to, we're looking at violent paranoia, hallucinations, and suggestibility.”

“Oh my goodness,” Madsden whispered. “They've all been drinking it?”

“Every sip that didn't come out of a bottle or a cow,” Mick confirmed.

“So they're all doped up?” MacNeil asked.

“Yes, sir, on high-octane chainsaw juice, straight out of the tap.”

“Ain't none of that stuff happen to me,” Halloway said.

“That's because you don't drink water, Lenny,” Madsden replied derisively.

“Oh, right,” the old man said. He laughed to himself, adding: “Who'd've thought, whiskey'd save the day. But then when I said the first thing about them going crazy for real and not just having a bender, I get sacrificed. But you got caught up, too, four-eyes. She threw you in here for flapping your damn gums.”

“I was curious.”

“You was down-right annoying.”

“What I don't get is where all this space monster nonsense came from,” Mick said, ignoring the pair. “Who is that Hecate dame?”

“Oh,” Madsden squeaked. Everyone turned to look at the mousy man.

“'Oh' what?” Mick demanded.

“Her real name is Catherine Peterson. She is the eleventh grade English teacher here at New River Baptist,” Madsden explained slowly. “I'm the twelfth grade biology teacher.”

“So what?”

“Well, word came in a couple weeks ago that her fiance was killed in New Guinea. I only sought to comfort her.”

“So you're snakin' in on Harry's old lady ten days after he's in a pine box?” Halloway raged.

“Hold on, Lenny,” MacNeil said. “Let him talk.”

“I was only trying to take her mind off things. I told her about the comet and showed it to her in my telescope,” Madsden offered meekly.

“That comet those loons are worshiping out there?” Mick asked.

“It's called Whipple-Fedtke-Tevzadze, and it will only be visible from the Earth for a few more days. I thought it would be nice,” he said, shrugging. “And I loaned her a collection of stories I'd enjoyed. I didn't think she'd gotten the chance to read them. But it seems like she might have absorbed some of the more worrisome details.”

“What stories?”

“Selections from Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Tales of existential cosmic horror.”

“That's how you pick up a lady?” Halloway sputtered, chortling through his missing teeth. “I guess Harry's memory ain't in any danger at all.”

“Existential cosmic horror sounds about right,” Mick said. “But how'd she get everyone else in on that fever dream?”

“She also teaches Public Speaking.”

“Must be a good teacher,” Mick quipped.

“So what do we do?” MacNeil asked.

“You said they don't come in here?”

“Not one, except to throw in more 'food,'” Groscost said.

“Well, then we wait,” Mick said.

“Wait for what?” MacNeil demanded.

“Well on my way in I had the boys from the armory dump about six tons of sleeping pills into that lake. Those folks out there may be hopped up on methamphetamine right now, but if they keep sipping their magic water they'll be ready for a nap as soon as the barbiturates hit.”

“Is that... safe?” Madsden asked.

“Safer than having a god-growing space cult in your back yard,” Mick said. “They'll wake up with a son-of-a-bitch of a hangover and maybe a little withdrawal. Now, where have you boys been sleeping? It has been a long damn night. I need some beauty sleep and some Vitamin B. And it sounds like the stuff's already kicking in out there.”

The whole group paused and listened to the manic mob outside. Their fervor had died down somewhat, but they were still wilder than prep-school kids and English teachers had any right to be. And the singing kept going, though it seemed to have dropped an octave.

“Well, we got cots so we can help with that,” Groscost said, pointing down the hall they'd come from. “But Vitamin B...”

“I'm looking at you for this one, Lenny,” Mick said. “This is a school. You look in the bottom drawer of the principal's desk yet?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” the codger grunted.

“Alright, cough it up,” Mick ordered, hand out.

Halloway muttered another something under his breath but produced a quart bottle from an inside jacket pocket. There was a good third of it left. Mick took it and studied the label. An expensive single malt scotch that he couldn't pronounce, the kind of sauce perfect for the head of a private school who had more dollars than sense.

“Vitamin S works too,” Mick said. He popped the cap off and took a big slug. The smokey, peaty brown fought hard, but he wrestled it down and it warmed his gut. MacNeil took the bottle, sniffed it, gave a look of approval, then took a sip of his own. To Halloway's dismay, Groscost took it next and gave it a try. He wasn't as impressed as MacNeil was with the old Scotch, but he didn't spit it out, either. He handed it off to Madsden who immediately returned it to the impatiently waiting Halloway.

The old man wiped the lip of the bottle off on his grubby sleeve, took a swig of his own, then secreted it back away.

“You boys got anything to eat?” Mick wondered.

“There was a bake sale,” Madsden said. “We got some of the food out before the animals finished it off.”

“Chickens ate cakes?” Mick asked.

“Goats love pie,” Halloway belched.

An unseen goat bleated.

Mick took a bite out of a stale muffin, then took a seat next to Madsden.

“Doc,” Mick said through a mouthful of crumbs, slapping the young teacher on the back a little harder than he should've, “We're going to have to talk about your first date reading list. Maybe something a bit more wholesome next time.”

Madsden managed a weak chuckle as he rubbed his sore shoulder.

“Yeah,” Halloway belched, “Why couldn't you give little Cat Peterson a Bible?”

“If she was going to get high on go pills and act out a book, let's be glad she went with Lovecraft over the Old Testament,” Mick chuckled. “I'll spend a night in a space zoo over getting stoned to death every time.”

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Copyright © 2023 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Tyrelle Smith.