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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Fall Ceramic DM - Final Round Judgment Posted!
- Thread starter mythago
- Start date
mythago
Hero
Oh, another tip for the newish folks:
Don't get hung up on the file names. Just because a picture of a hill is called "barrow.jpg" doesn't mean that it's a burial mound and you have to put it in your story as such.
Remember, the only judging guideline for the pics is that they are important--that if an editor were selecting illustrations for your story or your published adventure, they'd use those pics instead of something else. So if you look at "barrow.jpg" and think it looks like a nice hill for your character to have a picnic on, feel free.
Don't get hung up on the file names. Just because a picture of a hill is called "barrow.jpg" doesn't mean that it's a burial mound and you have to put it in your story as such.
Remember, the only judging guideline for the pics is that they are important--that if an editor were selecting illustrations for your story or your published adventure, they'd use those pics instead of something else. So if you look at "barrow.jpg" and think it looks like a nice hill for your character to have a picnic on, feel free.
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Halivar
First Post
Halivar vs. MacBeth, round 1
The Outher Darkness
by Halivar
(please forgive my formatting if it sucks. I tried!)
I hate Mardi Gras. It's the worst time of the year. I swear, if I knew I'd have to put up with this constant racket, I'd have stayed in Jersey. I certainly wouldn't have gotten an office on Bourbon Street. But things got too hot, see? Had to made a break for it. Thought I'd run for the border, but my toll money ran out in New Or-leenz. Not a bad city; when it's not Mardi Gras.
The name? Rich Davenport, private eye. It's another year, another carnival. I having a little nightcap, but I'm not ready for bed yet. See, a private dick has to keep late office hours. I tip the shades, just enough to see the procession of the drunken clowns singin' “When the saints go marching in.” I swear, if I hear that song one more time, somone's gonna catch it in the kisser.
It's dark in my office, with only the lamps from outside filtering through the shades to tell my where I set my drink. Alice, my seceratary (who hates my guts for making her keep the same hours I do) keeps the light on outside my door. I notice immediately when someone comes to my door by the shadow that covers the frosted glass with the words, “.I.P ,tropnevaD drahciR”. Of course, the letters are all backwards.
There's a shape at the window. Female, heavy-set, stupid hat. It's Alice.
Knock, knock. “Mr. Davenport, there's a client here to see you,” Alice drawls from behind the glass. Geez, I hate that accent. They call my hometown “juh-zee” instead of a good, proper “joi-zee.”
“Send her in,” I reply gruffly. I always act like it's a bother. Help in price negotiations. I sit up and take notice when a much slimmer shadow comes over the glass. I prop up my legs on the desk; gotta be casual, see?
So in walks this dame; real leggy piece o' work, too. I know who the blonde bombshell is just by the mink coat she's wearing in the hot, muggy “Law-zyana” nighttime. “Miss Boo-cheer, I presume?”
“Boo-shay,” she corrects. Everyone knows who Madame Bouchier is. As far as “madames” go, Bouchier is the queen. She's untouchable in the eyes of the law; she's so pristine you can clean your bathroom just by uttering her name in it. Her deal is to get her goons to do her dirty work. Guys like me.
“Whatever it is you're sellin', I ain't buyin',” I say. I leave off “for cheap” because it's kind of implied in my line of work.
“Wah, Detective Davenport, ah simply blanche at the thought that the most prest-ih-gee-ous detective in all of law-zyana maht assume the worst of such a hah society lady as mah-self.” Oh, how I hate that accent. She slinks; no, slithers over to the seat in front of my desk and sits. “Cigarette?”
I stand up, walk over and offer her my open cigarette tin. After lighting the cigarette from her (ever am I the gentlemen in the presence of such grace), I return to my reclining position. “So, what's it gonna be? Naughty husband? Thieving employee?” I know it's something big. Something she wants secret. “Prestigious,” my left foot. This dame wants somethin' she's not supposed to have, and a no-name private dick is just the one to get it for her.
She takes a long drag, and blows a smoke cloud over her shoulder. The whole scene, even her pose, is a straight cop off a Marlenne Dietrich movie. The broad may have class, but she's lacks originality; that's for sure. “I wanna know the location of a book, mistah Davenport.”
“A book? What kind of book?” I say.
“It's a foreign title. French. Do you know French, mistah Davenport?” she replies.
“Only when I'm kissin',” I retort. Her cool, unflinching stare tell me my joke has gone over like the Hindenburg.
“The book,” she continues, as if I had not spoken, “was recently puh-chased bah a book-collector bah the name of Jacques Diamonde.” I knew it. I knew it was a dirty job. If Diamond Jack is a book-seller then I'm John D. Rockefeller. Diamond Jack is the dirties, lowest, scummiest thug in all of New Or-leenz. I swear, he must be the bastard child of Al Capone; no doubt he make his old man proud, too. Madame Bouchier has her hands in many pies, but the ones marked “Diamond Jack” are off-limits; those pies are locked in a safe in a mine field surrounded by a guard fence with barb-wire. That's not counting the machine guns and battleships.
Could Madame Bouchier be moving into Jack's territory all of a sudden? This dame must be crazy. I try to take another swig from my bourbon, but it's empty. “Want one?” I say as I walk over to the decanter.
She ignores me. “The book is titled Le Obscurité Externe.” She proffers a slip of paper, presumably with the name of the book on it, as it's now apparent I don't speak French. Interesting question: the slip indicates she already knew I didn't; but how?
I return to my relaxed seat and say, “Diamond Jack... that raises the price. Steeply.”
She returns, “I'm prepared to reward you handsomely. All I want is to know is if he has it; and if he does, where it is.” It's a mistake, I tell myself. I can't do this. It's the dumbest thing I will ever have done in my life. If I do this, I'll be run out on a rail, and that's if I live through it. It'll be New York all over again. Then again, I'm three months late on rent for this office.
“All right,” I say, “I'm in.”
Mardis Gras is irritating in the confines of your own office. It's downright oppressive when you gotta wade through it. I gotta get away from the party if I'm gonna make it to Jack's. Something tells me he keeps odd office hours, like me. The noise is terrible, the ladies are are clawin' on me like harpies, and I realize I've stepped right into the middle of some silly parade. I gotta make a break for it, but first I have to navigate these mounted Krewe clowns. Oh, how I hate Now Or-leenz during Mardi Gras.
I find my jalopy a half-mile from the office. I knew this morning that I'd have to give the foot traffic a wide berth. The auto's sitting in a dark alley at the very edge of the French Quarter. Fortunately, Jack lived in Storyville (what was left of if, anyway), so there was sure to be some piece and quiet. Nobody takes Mardis Gras to that overgrown vacant lot.
Diamond Jack runs his business out of a mansion on an otherwise empty hill. How he got out of the great bulldozing of Storyville, I'll never know. Diamond Jack has more connections than the pope though, so I got a few ideas. So if the guy is so dangerous, why take the job? See, Diamond Jack doesn't take too well to Mardis Gras, but the man has henchmen, and if there's anything I know about thugs, they can't stay away from a good party. As I suspect, there are few, if any guards around the place as I drive up. I stop a good distance from the three story house, but not too far; just in case I gotta beat feet.
Apparently I was wrong about thugs; these ones, at least, because the place is crawling with them. They aren't too happy about me, either; might be because I got no business bein' here. Before I can even step two feet from my jalopy, I'm staring down three tommy gun barrels. I produce from under my tenchcoat a satchel of books I got with me, “Ease down, fellas. Mr. Diamonde inquired into some book procurements.” The goons stare me down. I'm sweatin' bullets; I'm shakin' in my shoes. Will they buy the ruse?
The goons look at each other. One says, “Yeah, you're the fifth this week.” The guards lower their guns. They bought my bluff. “Come with me,” he says. Good thing they didn't read the titles of those Poe detective novels I so love. Never read 'em, of course. I'm smart, but I'm not the readin' type.
The mansion seems bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, mostly because it's so empty. I hate the architecture in New Or-leenz; almost as much as I hate that stupid accent. The other disturbing thing is the art. The grand hall, leading up two curved stairs to a great balustrade, is covered in painted canvases. The canvases are a cacophony of colors. I tell ya, I've seen some crazy whacked-out “art” in the Big Apple, but never, ever have I seen such weird and disconcerting stuff as this. I notice that the guards leading me upstairs don't look at the art; they don't like it either. The paintings are filled with... I don't wanna mention it. Suffice it to say that painter ought to be locked away, for his safety and for everyone else. The goon leading me notices me looking at the paintings. He stops abruptly, and looking me out the side of his eye says, “Don't look at them. They take things from you. And they give your nightmares. You see the Darkness in your sleep.”
Yeah, it's time to leave.
Unfortunately, there's two more goons behind me, and as soon as my tour guide starts moving again, I'm being prodded up the stairs. At the top of the balcony, they move me down a long hallway with more unearthly paintings. Then I hear the howling. It spooks me, because it sounds like a ghost. I remember that part of The Fall of the House of Usher, and my blood runs icy cold. We come to a door, and the howling stops. “I swear,” says one of the goons, “I don't know how he knows when we're at his door. It's very strange.” Another grunts his agreement.
Knock, knock, goes the goon. A raspy voice inside beckons us, “Enter.”
The door opens, and I almost lose my mind. The good beside me turns to face me, though it seems as if he real goal is just no to look in the room. Inside is Diamond Jack, just as I always imagined him: a tall, stocky, bald man with the look of a professional boxer. I had always heard that he wears a three-piece suit, but today he's traded it for an art smock. The room is filled with more macabre canvases depicting strange and unsettling images. But the canvas he's currently working on is the one that's driving me nuts. It's black, almost all black. In the middle is a bright golden band, and it looks like he's painting colored lights into it. I see black silhouettes that are apparently trees. It looks uncannily like New Or-leenz in full Mardi Gras swing, as seen from the bayou outside. Why is it unsettling? I don't even know. All I know is that there's some kind of... not deja vu... I think Jung or Kant or somebody would call it synchronicity. It was like “art” and “reality” did a real whacking on each other and can't figure out who they are anymore.
“Mister Davenport?” he says, finally tearing my eyes off the canvas. Before I can even reply, “I know why you're here. It's all right, Mister Davenport.” His eyes are piercing, but glazed; sunken into their darkened hollows. The man looks like Frankenstein's monster, except a little bit more dead and a little less sane.
“How do you know who I am?” I choke out. I've completely lost my nerve. He continues to stare at me.
“I heard you howling. I heard you crying for help. You gave me this picture,” he says, gesturing towards the painting. Now I know the man is absolutely insane. He's off his rocker; he's batty, he's got so many screws loose I'm afraid he'll start falling apart in front of me.
Jack grins evilly. I know it's evil. It's horrible. He stands and puts down his brush on the easel. I see that he's got a book clutched in his left hand, close to his chest. He holds it out to me. “Take it to her,” is all he says. I'm dumbfounded; I can't think straight. This is all too crazy.
I didn't want him to, but he explained anyway. “I read it. It told me where it needs to go. It needs to go to Madame Bouchier. She knows some of its friends. It wants to go to her.” I take the book, almost as if I have no choice. I will my hands to stop, but they clasp tightly around the strange leather cover. The leather is stitched, and it's too smooth. I don't want to know what it's made of. On the cover are is the title: Le Obsurité Externe in simple, stark typeface. As I look closer, I can see that the letters are actually not ink; they're burned into the skin of the book.
Jack smiles, turns to his canvas, and our audience is over.
The book is in my passenger seat as I drive around. I gotta go back to the French Quarter, where Madame Bouchier's residence is. Instead, I drive wide of the parade, trying to force the images in Diamond Jack's artwork out of my head. It's midnight, almost 11 o'clock, now, and I'm in Treme, the “black” quarter. I definitely don't belong in Treme. I'm now completely lost. I turn down one street to find I have left pavement altogether behind. The dirt road is bad news for me, because it means I may have left New Or-leenz proper behind altogether. The rough, dilapidated shanties along the sides of the unpaved street are spookin' me. They place is dangerous. I'm looking all around, to make sure I don't get sprung, from time to time putting my eyes back on the road. Once I do this, and slam my breaks hard.
It's a chicken, right in the middle of the road. I honk my horn, but it doesn't budge. It sits there and stares at me. I get out and rush it, but it clucks and runs away. Fine with me, as long as it's not blocking my jalopy.
“Hey mon, I heard you howling,” comes a voice from behind me. I spin, reaching for my underarm holster. Before me stands a middle-aged negro man, covered in a large black cloak with a very shabby top-hat. “I would like to talk to you,” he says in a thick Caribbean accent. I gotta be careful with these guys, they do that crazy voodoo stuff I heard about. And what's this nonsense about howling, again?
“I'm kind of in a rush,” I say, and start back for my car.
“Don' give her the book, mon. It be bad voodoo,” he says. I turn to face him, but he is gone, with only dark alley to mark his departure.
I drop the book off in her mailbox that night, and spend the rest of it watching her house. Letting go of the book was the hardest thing I've ever done. I just didn't want to let go of it. I was stuck to it like it was riveted to my hand. It took all my willpower to finally close the mailbox door. In the morning, I discretely tail her. Yeah, I'm following her. That book has got some kind of hold on me I can't explain. I wanna why it that crazy Diamond Jack wanted me to give it to her. She never goes to my office of course; we arranged payment by check, and I assume Alice will get it in the mail tomorrow or so. She spends her day going from society residence to society residence, all the while avoiding the daytime celebrations. This goes on for seemingly for ever. She returns home, and I continue to case the place until just after twilight. She leaves her house, but this time it's different; this time she has the book. I can just tell. She climbs into the back of her Rolls-Royce, and the driver takes her out of the city.
I follow for a good five minutes down a dilapidated dirt road out of town. I got my lights off because I don't want her driver to see, and that makes negotiating the road very difficult. We're moving deep into the bayou now, and the trees are taking over. The Rolls stops, and I see a line of other very expensive cars. I want to know more, but a sudden fear grips me as I witness some of the others passing into what appears to be a wrought-iron, rural cemetery gate. I see Diamond Jack and his goons standing guard outside, and hooded figures passing into the graveyard. It's the robed ones that scare me. They give me chills the way Jack's art gave me chills. I can't think around them; my tongue sticks to my roof and I can't breath.
Some semblance of sanity comes back to me, though, as I throw the jalopy into reverse and make a hasty retreat.
I knew if I drove around Treme enough, I'd see the chicken again. It was almost like fate. That man had more to say to me, but he needed me to know he needed to say it, first. I step out of the jalopy, and the chicken promptly turns and rushes into a dark alley. I run after it, following it in the bright moonlight. I can't hear it, since the noise of the nighttime festival drowns out all other sounds. I seem to lose it at every corner, but I notice that as it makes each turn, it stops and waits for me. As I lock stares with it, it turns and runs off.
This lasts for fifteen minutes, before it finally breaks into an open lot, in the middle of what appears to be an abandoned shanty-town. There I see the old negro I met before, but this time he's not dressed to the nine's. He's dressed in strange animal prints and has covered his face with some kind of paint. He grins widely as he sees me. That's when I notice the large cat he has; some kind of weird African safarri creature, or something. He sits before a large bonfire, holding bundle of thatch he uses to fan the flames. In the dirt around the fire are splotches of some dark liquid and strange letters formed with colorful pebbles.
“Hey mon, I knew you be comin' back,” he says. He grins widely, displaying his rotted teeth. They say eating sugarcane does that. I'll have to remember to cut back on my sweets. “I knew you had to give her da book. It be possession, mon. And you still be possessed.” He turned back to the fire.
“What is that book?” I stammer.
The voodoo shaman stops smiling, suddenly, and looks at me gravely. “It be a door. It be a door to da Outer Darkness, mon. It be a place wear da monsters in your nightmares be havin' deir nightmares.”
My heart skips. The shaman, like he's reading my mind, says, “You see dem, too, eh, mon? Dey be Outsiders, mon. Dey be stealing your soul and driving you mad. It be how dey eat, mon.”
That's it. I'm leaving the Big Easy and going back to the Big Apple. But the shaman tells me more: “You can't leave dat book now, mon. Dat book be ownin' you. Dat book be callin' you.” As much as I hated to admit it, I had some strange, underlying urge to jump back in my jalopy and go get that book back. “Dat book is bad voodoo, like I say, mon. You let da Outsiders open dat door, and it be lights out for dis city and all da udder cities, mon. It be darkness from here on out, dat be for sure.”
I can't disbelieve. I have seen the art; seen the images from the “Outer Darkness,” and I know that this thing, this book, is malevolently evil. It also has a hold on me. Whatever is on the other side of that door, I don't want it coming through. “Okay,” I say, “how do I get the book.”
The shaman shrugs. “I don't know, mon. But I do know dis, because a spirit be tellin' me when I danced before you came tonight: dat book have a ritual dat be performed in a place o' da dead. Dat whole place be in the Outer Darkness once you open dat book. When you step into dat cemetery, you step into da Outer Darkness, and you be seein' dem Outsiders for what dey really are. If you wanna close da door, you gotta break da doorstops, mon. Break da doorstops, and you close da door.”
I shake my head. “Doorstops? I don't getcha.”
The shaman smiles again. “Dey all be da same, mon! But dey all be different! Dey be eight doorstops in all. Don't worry, mon, you know dem when you see dem.” The shaman gets up and starts putting out the fire with dirt. “Hey mon, you better hurry. At midnight dey complete da ritual, and der not be any closing da door after dat!”
I turn to go, but he grabs me roughly, spinning me around to face him. “Here, mon.” He's cupping a bit of milky white liquid in one hand, and with the other dips and starts drawing on my forehead. “Dat keep out da madness, for a while. Now you better be goin', mon!”
I race down the dirt road to the cemetery. I have to; it's ten till midnight, and a gateway to insanity is about to open up on the world. Never has my old jalopy taken such a beating. Tree roots jolt the auto every fifty yards, and that makes for very rough going. As I approach the cemetery, I realize that I've left my lights on. Jack's goons see me; worse, they must have recognized me, because they open up with their tommy guns. There's no way but forward, now. I gun it and barrel towards the gate. Bullets bounce off the car, rip through the car, and shatter my windshield. Amazingly, I'm unhurt. The jalopy bursts through the cemetery gate, taking the wrought-iron wings right off their hinges. Unfortunately, there's only so far you can charge into a cemetery without hitting a mausoleum. The jalopy crunches to a halt as my head slams into the steering wheel.
The goons are still only fifty feet away, though, so I gotta gather my wits and climb out. I'm making a mad dash away from the gate, to see if I can lose the goons among the great limestone and granite mausoleums. I pull out my revolver and make sure I've got some distance behind me. What I see, though, is a bunch of goons standing at the gate, staring at me. Then I remember how freaked out Jack's goons were back at the mansion. They certainly don't want to be in here, that's for sure.
I run through the graveyard, seeking the ceremony. My pocket watch says it's almost midnight, and I gotta hurry. I hear chanting, so I find it before too long. Diamond Jack is there, and so is Madame Boo-cheer. Diamond Jack has a tommy gun, so I'm gonna take him out, first. The hooded Outsiders, with cowls pulled forward, are all unarmed, or so it appears. I stalk around the outside, using all my skills as a private dick to remain unnoticed. I aim carefully, because I might not get a second shot.
Blam! Blam! I take out Diamond Jack. Madame Boo-cheer, mid-chant, breaks into a shriek and points at me. Blam! Blam! Madame Bouchier's very lucrative career is cut unnaturally short. I run into the clearing, where on a marble memorial marker lies the book, a bloody pentagram, candles, and several shiny objects. I grab Jack's tommy gun as the Outsiders pull back there hoods. I level the gun and turn to spray the hooded freaks.
What I see when I turn to them is insane. Not me, mind you, but what I see. I can feel the voodoo magic of the shaman's protective ward guarding me. I stare at the macabre, pulpy, tentacled monsters with a mix of abject terror and horrific revulsion. Their very appearance should have driven me mad, but for the steely determination lent me by the shaman's magic. The Outsiders come forward, their glowingly evil, unholy eyes bore into me as they come forward. Their toothy maws work as they utter guttural chants that, though foreign to me, are almost certainly horridly blasphemous in uncountable ways.
It's some small amount of satisfaction, then, when an uncharacteristic feature mars their face: surprise, as I pump lead from the tommy gun into their sickeningly slick flesh. I spin around, catching all the Outsiders. I do it in quick, short bursts; if this gun jams, it's lights out for Rich Davenport. Soon I have monsters laying all over my feet. The ritual, whatever it was, is finished. But the door remains open, I know, for I can feel the darkness still emanating from the book.
First things first, I take the book and tuck it in my trench coat pocket. That's when I notice the other objects on the table, including eight shiny, differently-colored sea-shells, all different colors. I can feel the otherworldliness that has been infused into them. I know what I'm looking at: the doorstops.
It's easy enough to break them. After just five quick strikes with the butt of the tommy gun, the shells are in pieces, and are no long multi-colored, but have the same natural... well... shell color. The candles go out, as the last of the magic leaves this place. For some reason though, the dark feeling in my bones remains; must be the book. I hear rustling behind me; it's probably Jack's goons. I notice the lights, then. It's close enough to New Or-leenz proper that I can still hear Mardi Gras, and see the lights[/i] across the watery bayou. I get that synchronicity again, but this time it really does feel like deja vu. I run for it. I realize that jumping that gate at the end of the cemetery is going to be rough, but I got no chance going through Jack's men.
The gate never comes, though. I rush past the last mausoleum and splash into the water. I rush past trees, splashing towards the light. How many miles is it? I have no way of knowing. I keep running, and I realize where I have seen those lights before. I see myself looking straight into the canvas Jack was drawing earlier. How odd it is, that Jack could have seen this. I run towards the light, and towards the music. I never thought I'd be grateful for that raucous noise, but right now it's a compass.
I turn to make sure none of Jack's men are following me. Behind me I see--
I see lights, colored lights, and amber lights marking the city. It's... it's the same scene I just turned from. I turn to it and run. I have to get away from Jack and his men. I keep weaving through trees to get closer to my goal, but I never seem to get closer. I turn again--
--and see the same city, same lights. I turn to the side. The city appears on my left. I turn the other way. The city appears on my right.
I can feel the protective ward of the shaman's mark leaving me, and some of my last lucid thoughts are to remember the shaman's words: “when you step into dat cemetery, you step into da Outer Darkness” and, “break da doorstops, and you close da door.”
The city lights dim. They dim, and then they are gone. The music fades, and I am left in darkness. I can feel the water at my ankles any longer. I freak out, I lose my nerve. I pull out my matches and light one. I pull out the book. If the book has a way to open a door, I can get back. I can still get back. I just have to perform a simple ritual.
That's when I remember I don't understand French. As the match burns down, I realize that I'm here for good. This is forever. There is no way home. The protective mark gives out the last of its voodoo magic and new sounds reach my ears. In the pitch black, I hear the moans, the slithery slime of unseen monsters. This is the company I have to keep now, forever.
Then I hear howling. The howling is from me, because I have gone mad.
The Outher Darkness
by Halivar
(please forgive my formatting if it sucks. I tried!)
I hate Mardi Gras. It's the worst time of the year. I swear, if I knew I'd have to put up with this constant racket, I'd have stayed in Jersey. I certainly wouldn't have gotten an office on Bourbon Street. But things got too hot, see? Had to made a break for it. Thought I'd run for the border, but my toll money ran out in New Or-leenz. Not a bad city; when it's not Mardi Gras.
The name? Rich Davenport, private eye. It's another year, another carnival. I having a little nightcap, but I'm not ready for bed yet. See, a private dick has to keep late office hours. I tip the shades, just enough to see the procession of the drunken clowns singin' “When the saints go marching in.” I swear, if I hear that song one more time, somone's gonna catch it in the kisser.
It's dark in my office, with only the lamps from outside filtering through the shades to tell my where I set my drink. Alice, my seceratary (who hates my guts for making her keep the same hours I do) keeps the light on outside my door. I notice immediately when someone comes to my door by the shadow that covers the frosted glass with the words, “.I.P ,tropnevaD drahciR”. Of course, the letters are all backwards.
There's a shape at the window. Female, heavy-set, stupid hat. It's Alice.
Knock, knock. “Mr. Davenport, there's a client here to see you,” Alice drawls from behind the glass. Geez, I hate that accent. They call my hometown “juh-zee” instead of a good, proper “joi-zee.”
“Send her in,” I reply gruffly. I always act like it's a bother. Help in price negotiations. I sit up and take notice when a much slimmer shadow comes over the glass. I prop up my legs on the desk; gotta be casual, see?
So in walks this dame; real leggy piece o' work, too. I know who the blonde bombshell is just by the mink coat she's wearing in the hot, muggy “Law-zyana” nighttime. “Miss Boo-cheer, I presume?”
“Boo-shay,” she corrects. Everyone knows who Madame Bouchier is. As far as “madames” go, Bouchier is the queen. She's untouchable in the eyes of the law; she's so pristine you can clean your bathroom just by uttering her name in it. Her deal is to get her goons to do her dirty work. Guys like me.
“Whatever it is you're sellin', I ain't buyin',” I say. I leave off “for cheap” because it's kind of implied in my line of work.
“Wah, Detective Davenport, ah simply blanche at the thought that the most prest-ih-gee-ous detective in all of law-zyana maht assume the worst of such a hah society lady as mah-self.” Oh, how I hate that accent. She slinks; no, slithers over to the seat in front of my desk and sits. “Cigarette?”
I stand up, walk over and offer her my open cigarette tin. After lighting the cigarette from her (ever am I the gentlemen in the presence of such grace), I return to my reclining position. “So, what's it gonna be? Naughty husband? Thieving employee?” I know it's something big. Something she wants secret. “Prestigious,” my left foot. This dame wants somethin' she's not supposed to have, and a no-name private dick is just the one to get it for her.
She takes a long drag, and blows a smoke cloud over her shoulder. The whole scene, even her pose, is a straight cop off a Marlenne Dietrich movie. The broad may have class, but she's lacks originality; that's for sure. “I wanna know the location of a book, mistah Davenport.”
“A book? What kind of book?” I say.
“It's a foreign title. French. Do you know French, mistah Davenport?” she replies.
“Only when I'm kissin',” I retort. Her cool, unflinching stare tell me my joke has gone over like the Hindenburg.
“The book,” she continues, as if I had not spoken, “was recently puh-chased bah a book-collector bah the name of Jacques Diamonde.” I knew it. I knew it was a dirty job. If Diamond Jack is a book-seller then I'm John D. Rockefeller. Diamond Jack is the dirties, lowest, scummiest thug in all of New Or-leenz. I swear, he must be the bastard child of Al Capone; no doubt he make his old man proud, too. Madame Bouchier has her hands in many pies, but the ones marked “Diamond Jack” are off-limits; those pies are locked in a safe in a mine field surrounded by a guard fence with barb-wire. That's not counting the machine guns and battleships.
Could Madame Bouchier be moving into Jack's territory all of a sudden? This dame must be crazy. I try to take another swig from my bourbon, but it's empty. “Want one?” I say as I walk over to the decanter.
She ignores me. “The book is titled Le Obscurité Externe.” She proffers a slip of paper, presumably with the name of the book on it, as it's now apparent I don't speak French. Interesting question: the slip indicates she already knew I didn't; but how?
I return to my relaxed seat and say, “Diamond Jack... that raises the price. Steeply.”
She returns, “I'm prepared to reward you handsomely. All I want is to know is if he has it; and if he does, where it is.” It's a mistake, I tell myself. I can't do this. It's the dumbest thing I will ever have done in my life. If I do this, I'll be run out on a rail, and that's if I live through it. It'll be New York all over again. Then again, I'm three months late on rent for this office.
“All right,” I say, “I'm in.”
Mardis Gras is irritating in the confines of your own office. It's downright oppressive when you gotta wade through it. I gotta get away from the party if I'm gonna make it to Jack's. Something tells me he keeps odd office hours, like me. The noise is terrible, the ladies are are clawin' on me like harpies, and I realize I've stepped right into the middle of some silly parade. I gotta make a break for it, but first I have to navigate these mounted Krewe clowns. Oh, how I hate Now Or-leenz during Mardi Gras.
I find my jalopy a half-mile from the office. I knew this morning that I'd have to give the foot traffic a wide berth. The auto's sitting in a dark alley at the very edge of the French Quarter. Fortunately, Jack lived in Storyville (what was left of if, anyway), so there was sure to be some piece and quiet. Nobody takes Mardis Gras to that overgrown vacant lot.
Diamond Jack runs his business out of a mansion on an otherwise empty hill. How he got out of the great bulldozing of Storyville, I'll never know. Diamond Jack has more connections than the pope though, so I got a few ideas. So if the guy is so dangerous, why take the job? See, Diamond Jack doesn't take too well to Mardis Gras, but the man has henchmen, and if there's anything I know about thugs, they can't stay away from a good party. As I suspect, there are few, if any guards around the place as I drive up. I stop a good distance from the three story house, but not too far; just in case I gotta beat feet.
Apparently I was wrong about thugs; these ones, at least, because the place is crawling with them. They aren't too happy about me, either; might be because I got no business bein' here. Before I can even step two feet from my jalopy, I'm staring down three tommy gun barrels. I produce from under my tenchcoat a satchel of books I got with me, “Ease down, fellas. Mr. Diamonde inquired into some book procurements.” The goons stare me down. I'm sweatin' bullets; I'm shakin' in my shoes. Will they buy the ruse?
The goons look at each other. One says, “Yeah, you're the fifth this week.” The guards lower their guns. They bought my bluff. “Come with me,” he says. Good thing they didn't read the titles of those Poe detective novels I so love. Never read 'em, of course. I'm smart, but I'm not the readin' type.
The mansion seems bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, mostly because it's so empty. I hate the architecture in New Or-leenz; almost as much as I hate that stupid accent. The other disturbing thing is the art. The grand hall, leading up two curved stairs to a great balustrade, is covered in painted canvases. The canvases are a cacophony of colors. I tell ya, I've seen some crazy whacked-out “art” in the Big Apple, but never, ever have I seen such weird and disconcerting stuff as this. I notice that the guards leading me upstairs don't look at the art; they don't like it either. The paintings are filled with... I don't wanna mention it. Suffice it to say that painter ought to be locked away, for his safety and for everyone else. The goon leading me notices me looking at the paintings. He stops abruptly, and looking me out the side of his eye says, “Don't look at them. They take things from you. And they give your nightmares. You see the Darkness in your sleep.”
Yeah, it's time to leave.
Unfortunately, there's two more goons behind me, and as soon as my tour guide starts moving again, I'm being prodded up the stairs. At the top of the balcony, they move me down a long hallway with more unearthly paintings. Then I hear the howling. It spooks me, because it sounds like a ghost. I remember that part of The Fall of the House of Usher, and my blood runs icy cold. We come to a door, and the howling stops. “I swear,” says one of the goons, “I don't know how he knows when we're at his door. It's very strange.” Another grunts his agreement.
Knock, knock, goes the goon. A raspy voice inside beckons us, “Enter.”
The door opens, and I almost lose my mind. The good beside me turns to face me, though it seems as if he real goal is just no to look in the room. Inside is Diamond Jack, just as I always imagined him: a tall, stocky, bald man with the look of a professional boxer. I had always heard that he wears a three-piece suit, but today he's traded it for an art smock. The room is filled with more macabre canvases depicting strange and unsettling images. But the canvas he's currently working on is the one that's driving me nuts. It's black, almost all black. In the middle is a bright golden band, and it looks like he's painting colored lights into it. I see black silhouettes that are apparently trees. It looks uncannily like New Or-leenz in full Mardi Gras swing, as seen from the bayou outside. Why is it unsettling? I don't even know. All I know is that there's some kind of... not deja vu... I think Jung or Kant or somebody would call it synchronicity. It was like “art” and “reality” did a real whacking on each other and can't figure out who they are anymore.
“Mister Davenport?” he says, finally tearing my eyes off the canvas. Before I can even reply, “I know why you're here. It's all right, Mister Davenport.” His eyes are piercing, but glazed; sunken into their darkened hollows. The man looks like Frankenstein's monster, except a little bit more dead and a little less sane.
“How do you know who I am?” I choke out. I've completely lost my nerve. He continues to stare at me.
“I heard you howling. I heard you crying for help. You gave me this picture,” he says, gesturing towards the painting. Now I know the man is absolutely insane. He's off his rocker; he's batty, he's got so many screws loose I'm afraid he'll start falling apart in front of me.
Jack grins evilly. I know it's evil. It's horrible. He stands and puts down his brush on the easel. I see that he's got a book clutched in his left hand, close to his chest. He holds it out to me. “Take it to her,” is all he says. I'm dumbfounded; I can't think straight. This is all too crazy.
I didn't want him to, but he explained anyway. “I read it. It told me where it needs to go. It needs to go to Madame Bouchier. She knows some of its friends. It wants to go to her.” I take the book, almost as if I have no choice. I will my hands to stop, but they clasp tightly around the strange leather cover. The leather is stitched, and it's too smooth. I don't want to know what it's made of. On the cover are is the title: Le Obsurité Externe in simple, stark typeface. As I look closer, I can see that the letters are actually not ink; they're burned into the skin of the book.
Jack smiles, turns to his canvas, and our audience is over.
The book is in my passenger seat as I drive around. I gotta go back to the French Quarter, where Madame Bouchier's residence is. Instead, I drive wide of the parade, trying to force the images in Diamond Jack's artwork out of my head. It's midnight, almost 11 o'clock, now, and I'm in Treme, the “black” quarter. I definitely don't belong in Treme. I'm now completely lost. I turn down one street to find I have left pavement altogether behind. The dirt road is bad news for me, because it means I may have left New Or-leenz proper behind altogether. The rough, dilapidated shanties along the sides of the unpaved street are spookin' me. They place is dangerous. I'm looking all around, to make sure I don't get sprung, from time to time putting my eyes back on the road. Once I do this, and slam my breaks hard.
It's a chicken, right in the middle of the road. I honk my horn, but it doesn't budge. It sits there and stares at me. I get out and rush it, but it clucks and runs away. Fine with me, as long as it's not blocking my jalopy.
“Hey mon, I heard you howling,” comes a voice from behind me. I spin, reaching for my underarm holster. Before me stands a middle-aged negro man, covered in a large black cloak with a very shabby top-hat. “I would like to talk to you,” he says in a thick Caribbean accent. I gotta be careful with these guys, they do that crazy voodoo stuff I heard about. And what's this nonsense about howling, again?
“I'm kind of in a rush,” I say, and start back for my car.
“Don' give her the book, mon. It be bad voodoo,” he says. I turn to face him, but he is gone, with only dark alley to mark his departure.
I drop the book off in her mailbox that night, and spend the rest of it watching her house. Letting go of the book was the hardest thing I've ever done. I just didn't want to let go of it. I was stuck to it like it was riveted to my hand. It took all my willpower to finally close the mailbox door. In the morning, I discretely tail her. Yeah, I'm following her. That book has got some kind of hold on me I can't explain. I wanna why it that crazy Diamond Jack wanted me to give it to her. She never goes to my office of course; we arranged payment by check, and I assume Alice will get it in the mail tomorrow or so. She spends her day going from society residence to society residence, all the while avoiding the daytime celebrations. This goes on for seemingly for ever. She returns home, and I continue to case the place until just after twilight. She leaves her house, but this time it's different; this time she has the book. I can just tell. She climbs into the back of her Rolls-Royce, and the driver takes her out of the city.
I follow for a good five minutes down a dilapidated dirt road out of town. I got my lights off because I don't want her driver to see, and that makes negotiating the road very difficult. We're moving deep into the bayou now, and the trees are taking over. The Rolls stops, and I see a line of other very expensive cars. I want to know more, but a sudden fear grips me as I witness some of the others passing into what appears to be a wrought-iron, rural cemetery gate. I see Diamond Jack and his goons standing guard outside, and hooded figures passing into the graveyard. It's the robed ones that scare me. They give me chills the way Jack's art gave me chills. I can't think around them; my tongue sticks to my roof and I can't breath.
Some semblance of sanity comes back to me, though, as I throw the jalopy into reverse and make a hasty retreat.
I knew if I drove around Treme enough, I'd see the chicken again. It was almost like fate. That man had more to say to me, but he needed me to know he needed to say it, first. I step out of the jalopy, and the chicken promptly turns and rushes into a dark alley. I run after it, following it in the bright moonlight. I can't hear it, since the noise of the nighttime festival drowns out all other sounds. I seem to lose it at every corner, but I notice that as it makes each turn, it stops and waits for me. As I lock stares with it, it turns and runs off.
This lasts for fifteen minutes, before it finally breaks into an open lot, in the middle of what appears to be an abandoned shanty-town. There I see the old negro I met before, but this time he's not dressed to the nine's. He's dressed in strange animal prints and has covered his face with some kind of paint. He grins widely as he sees me. That's when I notice the large cat he has; some kind of weird African safarri creature, or something. He sits before a large bonfire, holding bundle of thatch he uses to fan the flames. In the dirt around the fire are splotches of some dark liquid and strange letters formed with colorful pebbles.
“Hey mon, I knew you be comin' back,” he says. He grins widely, displaying his rotted teeth. They say eating sugarcane does that. I'll have to remember to cut back on my sweets. “I knew you had to give her da book. It be possession, mon. And you still be possessed.” He turned back to the fire.
“What is that book?” I stammer.
The voodoo shaman stops smiling, suddenly, and looks at me gravely. “It be a door. It be a door to da Outer Darkness, mon. It be a place wear da monsters in your nightmares be havin' deir nightmares.”
My heart skips. The shaman, like he's reading my mind, says, “You see dem, too, eh, mon? Dey be Outsiders, mon. Dey be stealing your soul and driving you mad. It be how dey eat, mon.”
That's it. I'm leaving the Big Easy and going back to the Big Apple. But the shaman tells me more: “You can't leave dat book now, mon. Dat book be ownin' you. Dat book be callin' you.” As much as I hated to admit it, I had some strange, underlying urge to jump back in my jalopy and go get that book back. “Dat book is bad voodoo, like I say, mon. You let da Outsiders open dat door, and it be lights out for dis city and all da udder cities, mon. It be darkness from here on out, dat be for sure.”
I can't disbelieve. I have seen the art; seen the images from the “Outer Darkness,” and I know that this thing, this book, is malevolently evil. It also has a hold on me. Whatever is on the other side of that door, I don't want it coming through. “Okay,” I say, “how do I get the book.”
The shaman shrugs. “I don't know, mon. But I do know dis, because a spirit be tellin' me when I danced before you came tonight: dat book have a ritual dat be performed in a place o' da dead. Dat whole place be in the Outer Darkness once you open dat book. When you step into dat cemetery, you step into da Outer Darkness, and you be seein' dem Outsiders for what dey really are. If you wanna close da door, you gotta break da doorstops, mon. Break da doorstops, and you close da door.”
I shake my head. “Doorstops? I don't getcha.”
The shaman smiles again. “Dey all be da same, mon! But dey all be different! Dey be eight doorstops in all. Don't worry, mon, you know dem when you see dem.” The shaman gets up and starts putting out the fire with dirt. “Hey mon, you better hurry. At midnight dey complete da ritual, and der not be any closing da door after dat!”
I turn to go, but he grabs me roughly, spinning me around to face him. “Here, mon.” He's cupping a bit of milky white liquid in one hand, and with the other dips and starts drawing on my forehead. “Dat keep out da madness, for a while. Now you better be goin', mon!”
I race down the dirt road to the cemetery. I have to; it's ten till midnight, and a gateway to insanity is about to open up on the world. Never has my old jalopy taken such a beating. Tree roots jolt the auto every fifty yards, and that makes for very rough going. As I approach the cemetery, I realize that I've left my lights on. Jack's goons see me; worse, they must have recognized me, because they open up with their tommy guns. There's no way but forward, now. I gun it and barrel towards the gate. Bullets bounce off the car, rip through the car, and shatter my windshield. Amazingly, I'm unhurt. The jalopy bursts through the cemetery gate, taking the wrought-iron wings right off their hinges. Unfortunately, there's only so far you can charge into a cemetery without hitting a mausoleum. The jalopy crunches to a halt as my head slams into the steering wheel.
The goons are still only fifty feet away, though, so I gotta gather my wits and climb out. I'm making a mad dash away from the gate, to see if I can lose the goons among the great limestone and granite mausoleums. I pull out my revolver and make sure I've got some distance behind me. What I see, though, is a bunch of goons standing at the gate, staring at me. Then I remember how freaked out Jack's goons were back at the mansion. They certainly don't want to be in here, that's for sure.
I run through the graveyard, seeking the ceremony. My pocket watch says it's almost midnight, and I gotta hurry. I hear chanting, so I find it before too long. Diamond Jack is there, and so is Madame Boo-cheer. Diamond Jack has a tommy gun, so I'm gonna take him out, first. The hooded Outsiders, with cowls pulled forward, are all unarmed, or so it appears. I stalk around the outside, using all my skills as a private dick to remain unnoticed. I aim carefully, because I might not get a second shot.
Blam! Blam! I take out Diamond Jack. Madame Boo-cheer, mid-chant, breaks into a shriek and points at me. Blam! Blam! Madame Bouchier's very lucrative career is cut unnaturally short. I run into the clearing, where on a marble memorial marker lies the book, a bloody pentagram, candles, and several shiny objects. I grab Jack's tommy gun as the Outsiders pull back there hoods. I level the gun and turn to spray the hooded freaks.
What I see when I turn to them is insane. Not me, mind you, but what I see. I can feel the voodoo magic of the shaman's protective ward guarding me. I stare at the macabre, pulpy, tentacled monsters with a mix of abject terror and horrific revulsion. Their very appearance should have driven me mad, but for the steely determination lent me by the shaman's magic. The Outsiders come forward, their glowingly evil, unholy eyes bore into me as they come forward. Their toothy maws work as they utter guttural chants that, though foreign to me, are almost certainly horridly blasphemous in uncountable ways.
It's some small amount of satisfaction, then, when an uncharacteristic feature mars their face: surprise, as I pump lead from the tommy gun into their sickeningly slick flesh. I spin around, catching all the Outsiders. I do it in quick, short bursts; if this gun jams, it's lights out for Rich Davenport. Soon I have monsters laying all over my feet. The ritual, whatever it was, is finished. But the door remains open, I know, for I can feel the darkness still emanating from the book.
First things first, I take the book and tuck it in my trench coat pocket. That's when I notice the other objects on the table, including eight shiny, differently-colored sea-shells, all different colors. I can feel the otherworldliness that has been infused into them. I know what I'm looking at: the doorstops.
It's easy enough to break them. After just five quick strikes with the butt of the tommy gun, the shells are in pieces, and are no long multi-colored, but have the same natural... well... shell color. The candles go out, as the last of the magic leaves this place. For some reason though, the dark feeling in my bones remains; must be the book. I hear rustling behind me; it's probably Jack's goons. I notice the lights, then. It's close enough to New Or-leenz proper that I can still hear Mardi Gras, and see the lights[/i] across the watery bayou. I get that synchronicity again, but this time it really does feel like deja vu. I run for it. I realize that jumping that gate at the end of the cemetery is going to be rough, but I got no chance going through Jack's men.
The gate never comes, though. I rush past the last mausoleum and splash into the water. I rush past trees, splashing towards the light. How many miles is it? I have no way of knowing. I keep running, and I realize where I have seen those lights before. I see myself looking straight into the canvas Jack was drawing earlier. How odd it is, that Jack could have seen this. I run towards the light, and towards the music. I never thought I'd be grateful for that raucous noise, but right now it's a compass.
I turn to make sure none of Jack's men are following me. Behind me I see--
I see lights, colored lights, and amber lights marking the city. It's... it's the same scene I just turned from. I turn to it and run. I have to get away from Jack and his men. I keep weaving through trees to get closer to my goal, but I never seem to get closer. I turn again--
--and see the same city, same lights. I turn to the side. The city appears on my left. I turn the other way. The city appears on my right.
I can feel the protective ward of the shaman's mark leaving me, and some of my last lucid thoughts are to remember the shaman's words: “when you step into dat cemetery, you step into da Outer Darkness” and, “break da doorstops, and you close da door.”
The city lights dim. They dim, and then they are gone. The music fades, and I am left in darkness. I can feel the water at my ankles any longer. I freak out, I lose my nerve. I pull out my matches and light one. I pull out the book. If the book has a way to open a door, I can get back. I can still get back. I just have to perform a simple ritual.
That's when I remember I don't understand French. As the match burns down, I realize that I'm here for good. This is forever. There is no way home. The protective mark gives out the last of its voodoo magic and new sounds reach my ears. In the pitch black, I hear the moans, the slithery slime of unseen monsters. This is the company I have to keep now, forever.
Then I hear howling. The howling is from me, because I have gone mad.
