The Weird Company Page 5

  11 August, 1918

  I set pen to paper in the desperate hope that I will be able to organize the jumble of thoughts, memories and madness that has for the last day threatened my very being. Doctor Marsh has given strict orders to the servants limiting my movements to my bedroom and the library. I am not to leave the house, nor am I to have access to the thing that howls and cries in the attic. Marsh says that a kind of infectious hysteria has come over the house; he uses a French term folie á deux, and suggests that the only way to keep me from descending further into madness is to cut me off from the source of the delusion. Thus despite the fact that it calls me, pleads, begs for me to come to it, I am not under any circumstances allowed contact with the thing that raves in the attic, a man they tell me is my father, a man named Ephraim Waite.

  Doctor Marsh and the servants call me Asenath, and say that I am but eleven years old, my father’s only child in his old age. When I question them about my loss of memory they sigh and talk about my mother. She went mad, or so they say, and they are not surprised that my father’s sudden madness, which they blame on age and a long debilitating illness, has triggered in me a parallel delusion. I only wish it were so. Confining me to the library may have been a mistake, for it is here that I have found hints and allegations as to what is truly happening in this house, to me and the thing that was once my father. If what I suspect is true, there is more here than madness to deal with, and poor Doctor Marsh, who is not without his own secrets, is ill prepared to deal with what has happened here.

  The library is large, but not so large that I could not find what was hidden in plain sight. Amongst the old books on medicine, natural history, philosophy and other sciences, I found a set of journals, some of which were quite recent in manufacture, while others were extremely old, with poor-quality paper that had long become dark and brittle with age. All were written in a language that did not rely on the Latin alphabet, and despite the obvious centuries between the earliest and latest entries, all were written in the same cramped and flowing text. At first the contents of these volumes puzzled me, but that confusion was brief. Despite the foreign alphabet it quickly became apparent that I was familiar with this language, for the more I perused it the more I realized that I could understand what was being written. As I write this my ability to translate the journals is nowhere near fluency, but I understand much of it, and it tells me what I need to know. Some would look at the journals and their strange symbols, and suggest that my ability to translate them was madness. Others would call the contents themselves madness, or perhaps an elaborate hoax. If it be madness, some sort of shared delusion, then it is older than any of us dare to suspect, and in that itself the veracity of things lies.

  Know then that, according to his journals, Ephraim Waite was born in Oakham, in the County of Rutland just north of London in the year 1618. His childhood was unremarkable, and at a very young age he decided to become a soldier. He served in the Parliament Army, became an officer, and was amongst many that signed and sealed the instrument that commanded the execution of King Charles the First. He did these things because they were right, and because they had to be done. Charles had been a monstrous regent, who condemned himself through his own words in which he maintained that no earthly power had the right to judge him, for the very tenets of the law were founded on the concept that the King himself could do no wrong. Such men and such concepts have no place in this world. All men must be subject to the law, whether they be the laws of men, or those of the world itself. The rule of law, stressed Ephraim, must be maintained.

  It was not surprising that his service to the Lord Protector and Parliament went unrewarded. As was the right of all officers, he had laid claim to the properties of those whom he had defeated in battle, and in doing so accumulated some items and books that were most strange, both in their origins and in their teachings. These he studied, and on occasion, discussed, perhaps too openly with his peers. Rumors spread, and he had no doubt that it was for suspicion of witchcraft that Cromwell failed to reward his service. Likewise, when Charles the Second came to power, he was among many that were not pardoned by Charles the Second for actions against his father. Instead he was found guilty of regicide and in 1660 sentenced to be confined to Gorey Castle on the island of Jersey until his death.

  Thankfully, there were some who still felt a sense of loyalty to the man, and with the cover of night spirited him out of London, first to Spain, and then, after proper negotiations, to France where he assumed a role in the training of soldiers at a small military academy. It was here near Bayonne that he continued to carry out his studies in the occult sciences, and it was here that he met the enigmatic figure that he would only ever identify as Doctor C. The doctor was a kindred spirit, a seeker after mysteries, and an explorer into those forbidden arts and sciences that were called by some witchcraft, but were far from it. Ephraim was twenty years Dr. C’s senior, but the two soon became inseparable, and by 1670 when Ephraim retired to the country, Dr. C went with him.

  Their first two years of life in rural France were for the most part uneventful, and the two made some progress in the study of the laws that governed life and the world, and indeed had some success in a particular process called the Rendition of Souls, a rite carried out by natives of the Amazon region. Through a complex process involving a specially prepared drink, the two could gain influence over those with lesser strength of will, and thus accomplish the monumental task of transferring the thoughts and personality, the soul if you will, from one body to another. They did such things with lesser animals such as cats and dogs, and even birds. Using such brief transferences to gain a modicum of freedom from the pain of infirmity that had begun creeping into Ephraim’s life, but given the profound differences between human and animal brains, his occupation of such bodies was eventually always rejected, sometimes violently. There is, it seems a natural resistance to such transferences, and remnants of the previous occupant tend to reassert themselves and drive the invader out, and Ephraim saw no need to challenge such rejections. That is until the winter of 1672 when the accident occurred.

  What exactly occurred and why it was so life threatening I cannot say, but by December of that year Ephraim’s leg had been amputated and C was locked in a desperate battle against infection. So severe was the struggle that C would often hire one of the villagers to sit with Ephraim while the good doctor ran errands. It was during one of C’s absences, while he was being watched by a younger man from the village, that Ephraim initiated the rite and carried out the Rendition of Souls. Then once the transference was complete Ephraim Waite, now young and vigorous, took a pillow and smothered his infirm body and the mind that dwelt within.

  Even with the death of the host’s mind, the rendition did not go as smoothly as he had hoped. There were long bouts of memory loss and confusion. C had discerned exactly what had happened and attributed the mental turbulence to the process of a new mind matching and then supplanting the native rhythms and pulses of its new host. Such bouts eventually faded, and after a year Ephraim was fully in control of his new body. Yet the very act of assuring his survival had driven a rift between C and Ephraim. They had been forced to leave the village; to explain the strange behavior of the once quiet young man would have been too difficult. They rented a home in Paris, but the strain of what Ephraim had done was too great. In 1674 C enrolled in the army and left for India, while Ephraim headed for the Americas.

  In the New World, he first lived in Quebec, but then in 1688 travelled to New England where he felt comfortable enough to use his real name. He took up residence briefly in Kingsport, then in Arkham, and finally around 1701 in Innsmouth, where distant cousins had also found homes. During this time he met a number of men, both native to the area and colonists like himself, including C who now had built a home in nearby Providence. He formed a small cadre, who together studied the library of occult lore and mysticism that they had secretly accumulated. Had he been able to find it, Reverend Ward Phillips would ha
ve burned that collection to ash, and then thrown him into the pyre as well. The names of these likeminded men, Joseph Curwen, Simon Orne, and Edward Hutchinson, are familiar to me, and yet I am also wary of them. For while they and Ephraim were friends, they did not always agree on the means to support common causes, and above all else, the individual will to survive has always been paramount.

  It was in 1720 that Curwen came to his home in Innsmouth, and warned of the rumors that had reached him. Ephraim had been unwise, his studies had revealed to him a form of energy, a vitality that could be distilled from a variety of sources that retarded the aging process, and he had used it liberally. He had not been a young man when he had come to Innsmouth, but after nineteen years his lack of aging had drawn attention. He was being watched by curious and dangerously superstitious folk. With some help from Curwen he abandoned his life in Innsmouth and quickly moved south, leaving the home and property in trust to cousins until his heirs returned to claim it.

  In Philadelphia he used a significant amount of the vitality elixir and established himself as the young and energetic printer named George Gamwell. It was in this establishment that the young Benjamin Franklin first worked when he came to the city. It was a great loss to Ephraim when following a false promise by Governor Keith, Franklin left for London, and he noted his regrets over not being more vocal in his objections to the venture. Printing was not only a ruse by which to blend in to the town and earn a living, but it also allowed him the freedom to learn an art that he perceived as necessary to his future survival. While he printed books and pamphlets by day, by night he learned how to forge documents that would establish births and deaths, marriages and even lines of credit. In effect he could, given enough time, create an entirely new identity for himself or anyone else without fear of being caught.

  He also continued his study of the occult sciences, learning the rules which governed the structure and processes of our universe, and how such things could be manipulated, circumvented and when necessary even bent to his will. But while such studies allowed him to influence the thoughts and actions of others, and given the right circumstances even manipulate the physical world itself, they paled in comparison to what studies Curwen and the others had undertaken. They sought to bend the laws of time and mind, and engaged in the wholesale resurrection of the dead. Had he not been provided with the formula for making such preparations, and the incantation that invoked the powers that reconstituted flesh and mind, he would not have believed it possible. To him such workings took too great a liberty, and he took measures to distance himself from the others.

  It was not until that 1836 that circumstances forced him to return to Innsmouth. The intervening century had favored him, for he had profited off of trade and the war, and was heavily invested in a variety of ventures, all through the blind of various companies that served to keep him hidden. Whether he had lingered too long in Manhattan or his identity had been compromised, he did not know. Perhaps he had not hidden the transfers of funds and possessions as well as he thought. Regardless, his presence in Manhattan was discovered, and he rightfully feared what could happen to him if the truth were exposed. He wrote extensively concerning his preparations for quenching a man named Von Junzt, an occult academic who had been researching a book concerning hidden and forgotten cults, and had stumbled too closely as far as Ephraim was concerned. His plans for murdering the interloper were thwarted when the man suddenly departed for Washington D.C. In a panic Ephraim once more found a suitable victim, and undertook the Rendition of Souls. As expected, the procedure left him disoriented and with temporary memory loss. It took time for him to recover, and in the process the young man who was now suddenly in his ancient body went mad, escaped from his control, and set fire to the building. The flames spread and soon grew to an immense conflagration. He regretted that the disaster consumed so much of southern Manhattan, and that some innocents lost their lives, but most distressing was the loss of the documents he had prepared for his new life in Providence. Thus, Ephraim Waite returned to Innsmouth where he knew he could lay claim to his long abandoned property.

  In Innsmouth he asserted his claim to the property, and his cousins had little choice but to turn over the house to their long lost kin, particularly after he produced a key and papers that linked him to the great grandfather for whom he had been named. Despite his legal claim, he was not welcomed in Innsmouth, for the Waites had long assumed the property to be theirs, and for it to suddenly be taken from them was no small imposition. In his absence, Innsmouth had developed into a profitable little town, filled with mostly pedestrian of folk content to work as simple fishermen, boat wrights or tradesmen. Some, particularly the Marsh, Sandwin and Eliot families, had established routine trade with the Far East, including China, India and the islands of the Pacific such as Java and Sumatra. Such connections were useful to his studies and he cultivated strong ties with the Marsh and Gilman families, and where possible with the Waites as well. It took time, but time was something he had plenty of.

  Or so he thought. The details that Ephraim relates concerning the decline in trade that had made the town rich, and how the Marsh family and their allies fell on hard times, are too great to relate here. It is apparent from his notes that between the failure of the merchant fleet, and poor fishing catches, the town fell into debt and despair. It did not help when the boats out of Rowley were seen in waters off of Innsmouth. Anger and violence, however, does not put food on the table. At a loss, the townsfolk turned to the church and prayer for deliverance from famine and poverty. They prayed in vain, and as the years passed the town of Innsmouth slowly spiraled into near destitution.

  Captain Obed Marsh was an aging scion of one of the founding families of Insmouth, and he felt some responsibility for the situation. He could often be found in the local bar deep into his cups, angrily railing against paying fealty to a god that allowed nets to be empty and children to go hungry. In this opinion he often found commonality with another man, a curious fellow by the name of Mentzel who had rented a cottage down the shore near Falcon Point. He claimed to be an antiquarian working on a book concerning the history of Essex County. This assertion gained him access to a wide variety of records and accounts that would under most circumstances be closed. He seemed particularly interested in the Marsh family history, focusing much on Obed’s grandfather Obadiah and the loss of his ship the Corey, and the wives that the survivors had brought back from the Marquesas. Ephraim did not much like speaking to Mr. Steven Mentzel. His voice lacked emotion, his eyes and face seemed wholly unanimated, his manner of speaking was very odd and confusing, and he often had intimations of knowledge that seemed beyond him. Ephraim was particularly disturbed by his discussion of the seizure of Hong Kong by the British a full day before the event was reported in the press. That this man was one to whom Captain Obed was willing to listen concerned him greatly, but there was little Ephraim could do. When Mentzel announced that he was departing the village, Ephraim was grateful and wished him well with whatever work he had in the hamlet of Zaman’s Hill.

  Whatever Mentzel and Marsh had discussed and planned came to a crisis in 1846. Ephraim spent pages detailing how Obed eventually gathered to his side a number of his former crew and their families and began preaching against the churches of the town. Ephraim wrote about how the Order grew, and how eventually Captain Obed Marsh was arrested and jailed on trumped-up charges. In response to Obed’s incarceration nature itself seemed to go awry, and the village was beset by monsters. Matt Eliot and a few others who had opposed Obed had been killed in the invasion from the sea. In the end Obed Marsh was in command, with the town of Innsmouth firmly in his grip.

  Rumors were spread to explain what had happened; a plague had come to Innsmouth, and brought with it madness and violence. Its victims had succumbed quickly, but entire families had been lost and as a preventative measure some homes had been razed. Obed posted guards on the road and rail and made sure that no one could leave without his word. It was soon a
fter this that Obed and the Order took new wives. No one ever learned where they came from; some thought they were from Persia, and the veils they wore in public were required by their Mohammedan faith. But Ephraim suspected they were something different, and gave them a wide berth, for he was sure that the reins of power were not held solely by Obed. Once, one of the Multree women asked what had become of the first wives, the ones that had been replaced. The next day she was found wandering the streets, her eyes glazed over, her mind lost. After that, even the faithful learned it was better not to ask questions.

  Obed may have had complete control over the town, but he still had to deal with the outside world. It was in this capacity that Ephraim found himself making regular trips to Arkham and Kingsport to handle what business those in Innsmouth still had outside its limits. Do not think that during these trips he did not consider escape. A weird shadow had fallen over Innsmouth and those inhabitants that remained were slowly succumbing to its influence. Yet while some would flee from such events, he felt strangely comforted. Obed Marsh may have been in league with some festering aquatic nightmare, but Ephraim had seen worse bargains made. Besides, the darkness that slowly encompassed Innsmouth was no threat to him; on the contrary it provided a most excellent place to hide and carry out his experiments without fear of discovery or reprisal. He thought about fighting it, or fleeing, but instead he succumbed, and while he did not embrace the madness that was around him, he did nothing to stop it.