Lair of the Crystal Fang, page 1
part #10 of Arkham Horror Series
Arkham Horror
It is the height of the Roaring Twenties – a fresh enthusiasm for the arts, science, and exploration of the past have opened doors to a wider world, and beyond…
And yet, a dark shadow grows over the town of Arkham. Alien entities known as Ancient Ones lurk in the emptiness beyond space and time, writhing at the thresholds between worlds.
Occult rituals must be stopped and alien creatures destroyed before the Ancient Ones make our world their ruined dominion.
Only a handful of brave souls with inquisitive minds and the will to act stand against the horrors threatening to tear this world apart.
Will they prevail?
First published by Aconyte Books in 2022
ISBN 978 1 83908 188 0
Ebook ISBN 978 1 83908 189 7
Copyright © 2022 Fantasy Flight Games
All rights reserved. The Aconyte name and logo and the Asmodee Entertainment name and logo are registered or unregistered trademarks of Asmodee Entertainment Limited. Arkham Horror, the Arkham Horror logo, and the FFG logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fantasy Flight Games.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the 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.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
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Cover art by Daniel Strange
Distributed in North America by Simon & Schuster Inc, New York, USA
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Spring, 1928
1
The Slabs
It Kills Without Mercy!
Police Discover Another Strangler Victim!
Evil Lurks Under Arkham!
More Blood Down the Big Drain!
Stanley Budzinski read the fresh headlines as he passed the newsstands on his way to work. Arriving at the jobsite, he chose a shovel for his day of digging. Rain trickled off his wool cap. The streets gleamed, gutters gurgling with runoff from the morning showers. The city had decided to start its controversial “Big Drain” renovation project in the Merchant District, at a hub where the sewer system and storm drains knotted together like a plate of spaghetti. Business owners weren’t happy with the extra trucks clogging traffic. The road in front of the site was closed, one side of the street torn up, a giant crater gaping in the earth where before there had been a vacant lot between shops. Everything was a muddy mess. And it was only the beginning.
Stanley descended a ramp into the hole where that old weedy lot used to be.
He walked on planks through pools of suspicious brown water collecting outside the Main Street tunnel. Who knew what noxious flotsam and jetsam bobbed below the surface? He stepped over a low sandbag barrier, entering the open pipe mouth. The tunnels were tall enough in this part of the system that he could stay upright. Sludge spattered his boots. Each step made an obscene sucking noise like a plunger. Dreadful odors saturated the pipes. His job was dirty, brutal, and unforgiving. Stanley knew the score and accepted it because he needed the paycheck.
This new lurking menace that the Advertiser kept shouting about was another matter.
He felt those newspaper headlines being slowly chiseled into his brain each day. And he refused to pay two cents to read any more nonsense about killers prowling in the pipes. That didn’t mean his companions on the job didn’t gobble up the lurid articles like pieces of candy.
“Maybe the reporters are just making it up?” he’d said to them while they devoured their sandwiches. “Anything to sell a few more copies, right? Who believes the garbage they print?”
His fellow workers believed, that’s who. Lots of other people too. Neighbors, relatives…
Even his sweet wife, Lena, who toiled all day at the commercial laundry.
It seemed that everyone was choosing to live in fear these days.
Not Stanley. Not yet. Although he was nervous that he might be joining them soon, because the atmosphere in the sewers wasn’t good anymore. Not like before. In the old days. He couldn’t really explain it either, only that lately, whenever he was alone in the pipes going about his business, he’d get a queasy feeling, like he wasn’t alone… like someone else was there.
Watching.
But he always pushed the feeling away, ignoring it. How was he supposed to get his work done if he was always looking over his shoulder?
The transport teams were still in the early stages of laying tracks to move men and equipment in, rubble and dirt out. For now, the only way to access the system was on foot. Stanley followed a string of electric bulbs festooned against the arching brick wall. Licorice black snaky wires supplied the juice that gave them their power, bringing light to the subterranean gloom. Looking ahead was dizzying, as if you’d tripped and fallen down a bottomless well. Sound echoes in tunnels. They’re usually loud places; drills and jackhammers chewing away. But this morning, aside from his own footsteps, the pipe was silent. Eerily so.
He realized he hadn’t seen a single worker yet. Where was everyone?
Probably deeper inside, he thought, where the excavation was happening. Stanley increased his pace, convincing himself it was the humid air making him sweat so much.
The papers claimed the killer lived in the pipes. Or, at least, the creep was using the system to move around the city undetected, and to dispose of a growing number of dead bodies.
Three confirmed victims to date.
Same method of murder. Similar patterns left behind. Each of the deceased was found floating in, or around, the sewers. One woman. Two men. All the victims had their necks wrung.
Once they were knocked out, the strangler made an incision in their throats. The fiend bled them to death. Some said the murderer must be a disgruntled doctor. The cuts might’ve come from a scalpel because they were precise and well placed. The killer understood how to throttle victims without killing them, so that their blood was still pumping. No one knew the reason for stealing the blood, except the murderer. That only made the crimes worse.
Because where facts failed, rumors grew. Multiplying like mushrooms in the seepy dark.
The newspapers didn’t help, coming up with their “monster of the sewers.”
News stories stirred the pot. People cooked up private theories about the mysterious bloodsucker. It was a mad scientist who needed fresh blood for experiments. Or there was a giant South American bat that stowed away on a ship and escaped from the docks. The bat flew into the underground pipes to roost and feed. Cannibals, goblins, demons, evil spirits, witches…
Hogwash.
Stanley shook his head. He felt a stab of a pain in his neck. That came from hard labor, not spooky campfire tales. As if there weren’t enough real ways to die down here, they had to make things up for people to dread. Curse this loose talk of demons! The strangler, they said, was beastly strong. Inhuman. Leaving people with their skulls twisted the wrong way around…
Stanley recalled an afternoon not too long ago, when a crew discovered a pale corpse floating in the muck. He hadn’t seen it himself. But the work was shut down. There’d be no pay for the rest of the day. The cops marched in like invaders. The sewers were his turf. Not theirs. He didn’t welcome trespassers. Real or imaginary. He’d heard the police were alarmed by the “unusual” condition of the remains. The men in blue went so far as to take down all the sewer workers’ names. They made a list. They even questioned a few crewmen who’d been to jail a time or two for violent offenses. Hinting the killer might be a lowly digger, someone like him.
Stanley fumed at that. “I’m no criminal,” he’d told Lena that night. “I earn my bread.”
He’d pounded his fist on the table.
Lena had touched his arm gently. “It’s wrong of them to make you feel guilty.”
“Every type of foulness ends up in the sewers,” he said. “You can’t imagine.”
Thinking back, Stanley felt his anger rising again. He stomped harder into the sewer ooze. Day after day, he and his cohorts made sure every awful, hideous thing that went into the pipes got whisked away. Out of the city, to the river. And beyond. They kept Arkham clean. Over the years, he thought he’d pretty much seen it all. But there was one thing he’d never seen.
He’d never seen a monster.
“Hiya, Big Stan,” a voice said suddenly.
Stanley felt himself jump inside. He planted his strong legs and waited, looking ahead.
It came from farther down in the tunnel. The bricks glistened with slime. Higher up, crusted swirls clung to the walls like rancid cake frosting. Stanley froze in his tracks, his train of thoughts derailed. Hairs prickled on his arms. He wished he’d brought a safety lamp and didn’t have to rely on the naked bulbs illuminating the
Then he sighed in relief.
It was only Paddy O’Hara. The light from Paddy’s safety lamp revealed the man’s puffy cheeks stretched in a jack-o-lantern smile. Paddy, happy to see him. Good Ole Paddy.
Paddy O’Hara was Stanley’s shift boss. A demanding fella at times, but friendly enough. Stanley had worked for worse tyrants. Paddy wasn’t too bad.
“Morning, Paddy. Are we the only two fools who bothered showing up today?”
“What? No. I sent the others for more rails.” Paddy sounded distracted. His head tilted as if he were listening for something. Voices? Paddy’s bloodshot eyes pinched with concentration.
Stanley waited for instructions.
Eventually Paddy said, “I hope you brought your big muscles today, boyo. We’ve run into an unexpected delay. Major obstacle. We need to bust it out before the others get back with them rails.” Paddy chewed the stem of an unlit briar pipe he’d brought all the way from Galway. He didn’t light up this deep in the tunnels. Not unless he wanted to risk an explosion. Firedamp and stinkdamp were dangerous gases that could build up, forming flammable pockets. If the methane and hydrogen sulfide didn’t ignite and blow you to smithereens, they’d knock you out and smother you. A pair of real boogeymen who didn’t need embellishment from the papers!
A stripe of gray mud marked Paddy’s jaw. He looked tired, Stanley thought.
“What sort of obstacle?” he asked the shift boss.
Paddy removed his pipe. He pointed the gnawed bit at Stanley. “Just you wait and see. It’s a head-scratcher, this one. A real head-scratcher.” His eyes showed a frantic glimmer.
“Let me guess. Something not marked in the plans?” Stanley said.
Paddy feigned a look of shock. “In the plans?” He guffawed. “Remind me now, what are those? There are more unmarked tunnels down here than marked ones. I swear we’d be better off wandering in the depths, not knowing what to expect. Whoever drew these maps was having a hearty laugh at our expense. A devious joker they were.” Paddy sucked airily on his pipe.
Weeks ago, the Arkham city council had finally agreed to the mayor’s Big Drain proposal: a renovation of the deteriorating waterworks running beneath the whole town. From the start, work crews discovered the maps of the old water lines were, to put it mildly, unreliable.
Paddy turned and started walking. Stanley followed him farther into the system.
Above them, the residents of Rivertown were waking up.
A block away, the river flowed between its ancient banks heading toward the ocean. Under the streets, a malodorous stew of hazardous chemicals and human detritus wormed along a well-worn path before emptying into the stream, then joining the Miskatonic, and finally traveling east. In Rivertown, folks said the smell above ground was no better than the sewer. A miasma of fish guts and industrial waste stained the air like a sepia tint. You tasted it in your morning eggs and pancakes, in your coffee cup, or on your partner’s lips.
Stanley looked up at the new wood beams bracing the arch of the main tunnel. This support work was the first stage of the renovation project. Foot by foot, they would inspect, repair, and widen the pipes to meet the current demands of a growing New England city. After the Big Drain was completed, raw sewage would be treated before pouring into the waterways.
Passing from under the safety of the beams, the two men entered a section of unsecured tunnel. Evidence of damage showed everywhere. A web of cracks spread along the tube. One jagged fissure opened into a gap commodious enough to admit a curious child. Chunks of crumbling brickwork, previously located on the ceiling, checkered the floor like steppingstones.
Stanley and Paddy arrived at a “v” split in the tunnel. To their left, a narrow side passage diverged at a forty-five-degree angle.
Paddy ducked into the smaller channel. Cut directly into the bedrock, hewn by hammers and chisels rather than bricked, it was one of many unknown antiquated drains. Many amounted to hardly more than glorified trenches, but they’d lasted… well, no one knew exactly how long they’d been there. This one’s shape was oval, like a mouth opening as if to yawn – or to scream.
Stanley and Paddy stooped forward to fit themselves inside the low-ceilinged passage, proceeding in single file. Inside the passage, the flow of water wasn’t moving forward. The calf-deep water accumulating at the bottom of the channel suddenly deepened to above the knee. A thin rainbow-colored film coated its surface. Rough, angular rock scraped at the men’s shoulders. The air grew thicker; the stink of it was more pronounced. Stanley’s throat felt scratchy. His eyes were irritated, stinging and tearing up. He coughed and swallowed a mouthful of bitter spit.
Stinkdamp.
Hydrogen sulfide gas did that to a person.
But he didn’t feel dizzy or have a headache. Probably bad air circulation. More bad gases than normal. He’d monitor for signs of gas poisoning. His thinking was still clear. He felt fine.
Then a cold, slippery hand clamped onto the back of Stanley’s neck.
And squeezed.
He whipped around, swinging his arms wildly, looking to shove it away.
But there was nobody there.
He rubbed the patch of bare skin below his hairline. Five fingers had fastened themselves like a steely vise above his shirt collar. He felt the echoes of them there still.
Paddy stopped. “Here we go.” He hadn’t noticed Stanley’s panic. “Take a gander at our mystery. This wee channel we’re in was packed with rocks. Put here long ago they were. For what purpose… who knows? Every gap was plugged. A crew spent the night digging them out.”
“We’re working round the clock now?” Stanley ignored the shakes in his hands, hoping to hide any sign of alarm from his boss. But Paddy was too preoccupied to notice anything.
“Now till doomsday… always behind schedule,” Paddy said, wiping his sweaty brow.
Stanley’s curiosity took over, driving away lingering feelings of fear from being touched by an invisible hand. He wanted to see what Paddy had brought him here for.
What was behind that plug of rocks?
He leaned in, staring over the top of the shorter man. Paddy raised his safety lamp to reveal the obstacle in question, and Stanley was disappointed.
It looked like a cross section of old drain. Nothing especially remarkable except for maybe its odd location. Only a portion of the exposed pipe was visible. The hand-laid stone slabs were expertly fitted together, a specimen of an earlier style of workmanship. It bisected the drain they were standing in, sealing it off, creating a dead end. That explained the bad air flow and the backed-up rainbow pool of waste that had risen nearly to the top of Stanley’s thigh-high boots.
“Looks old,” Stanley said. “Any idea when it was built?”
“Who knows? It’s all gotta come out. The new tunnel is set to go right here.”
Stanley was going to need a pick, maybe a digging pry bar to get started. There wasn’t much room to swing. He was turning to go back for his tools when Paddy snagged his elbow.
“Feel it first,” Paddy said.
“What?”
“The slabs… You gotta feeeeel them.”
Paddy’s expression contorted. His chin kept trembling. A misfiring nerve twitched at his left eyelid. It was as if he was fighting for control of his own face. Like somebody put fishhooks in him and was pulling his features in different directions all at once.
Stanley didn’t like what he was seeing. As if Paddy were changing right before his eyes.
Into somebody else.
A stranger.
Maybe it’s the shadows doing it, he thought. Maybe the cramped quarters are to blame. The gases. But that twitchy scrambled look and his odd, sly-sounding request… One thing was for certain: Stanley hated, really, really hated, the way Paddy had grabbed his elbow and hung on tight. Desperate, like a drowning man who’d lost all sense and filled up with panic, ready to drag Stanley to the bottom too.
“What’s it you want from me?” Stanley asked. Maybe he didn’t understand. It was something simple and he was confused, that was all. He’d give Paddy another chance to explain.
“Touch the slabs,” Paddy said. “Have a good feel at them slabbies.”
