Max_Writer

* * *

At 1 p.m. the next day, Thomas Vanderholdt roared up to St. Mary’s Hospital in his parents’ bright yellow Stutz Bearcat. He wore thick, leather driving clothes against the cold and wetness of the day. It was overcast and cloudy and threatened rain. As he set the heavy driving coat, goggles, hat and scarf in the front seat of the vehicle, he saw a black Ford tow truck with an auto club insignia painted on the side pull up. A man in coveralls climbed out and entered the hospital just ahead of him.

When Vanderholdt entered the hospital, the mechanic was asking for the room of Rupert Merriweather. The nurse behind the desk gave him directions to a private room on the third floor so he merely followed the man to the elevator. They rode up to the third floor with only the elevator operator for company, Vanderholdt leaving the car first and striding to Merriweather’s room.

Jones found himself following the well-dressed man right to Rupert Merriweather’s door.

* * *

Alan O’Shea arrived at St. Mary’s Hospital, unlit cigarette in his mouth. He made his way to the elevator and took it to the third floor. While they were riding up, the elevator operator looked at him.

“You’re supposed to smoke those, you know,” the young man quipped, pointing at O’Shea’s cigarette. Then: Third floor.”

“Thanks buddy,” O’Shea said.

* * *

Jones looked into the room and removed his hat.

Rupert Merriweather was lying on the bed in the center of the room. He looked awful. The normally young-looking sexagenarian was pale and his face was sunken as if he were very ill. His eyes were bloodshot, his pillow was covered in sweat, and his breathing was fast and shallow.

“Mr. Merriweather,” Jones said.

Also in the room were Merriweather’s wife Agnes, a thin-faced, plain woman who was crying quietly, and his son Bertrand, a fairly good-looking man in his mid-30s. Jones had met both of them before and, while Mrs. Merriweather had always been polite to the mechanic, the son was always rude and condescending to Jones.

“Consumption?” Vanderholdt said to Agnes, who just shook her head.

He knew both Agnes and Bertrand and didn’t particularly like the latter. Merriweather’s son was a snob who had snubbed him at parties and been generally rude to him at every opportunity.

Jones entered the room and approached Agnes.

“Mrs. Merriweather,” he said, holding out his hand.

She shook it as she dabbed at her nose with the handkerchief in her other hand. Bertrand glared at the man.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she said.

“I didn’t realize that Mr. Merriweather was sick,” he said.

“Yes, he’s been ill for some months now,” she said. “He thought it desperately important to speak to you and Mr. Vanderholdt. There was another gentleman too. Was anyone else downstairs?”

Just then another man appeared in the open doorway. He was quite dashing-looking and an unlit cigarette was in his mouth. When he saw Agnes, he removed his hat and tossed it to a chair next to the door. Both Vanderholdt and Jones couldn’t help but notice that the man had a boxy shape under his left arm that looked like nothing so much as a shoulder-holstered side arm.

Jones turned to Bertrand.

“Bertrand,” he said.

“I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name as it’s unimportant,” Bertrand growled.

“You wrecked your car again lately?” Jones asked.

“It’s none of your business!”

“It will be when your dad brings it back in for me to fix.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like he’ll be doing that anytime soon, does it?”

“I hope so.”

“Thank you for saying that in front of my mother.”

“Mrs. Merriweather,” the dashing man said. He nodded at Bertrand. “Bert.”

“Alan,” Rupert Merriweather gasped from the bed.

“Rupert,” Alan O’Shea said.

“Thank you for coming,” Merriweather said.

He introduced each of them by name to his wife and son.

“Agnes, Bertrand, could you leave us, just for a moment?” Merriweather said. “I need to speak to these gentlemen. It is of the utmost importance.”

Agnes and Bertrand exited, the former dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief and the latter scowling at the three men. O’Shea winked at him.

“Secure the door,” Merriweather said. “Close the door. This is something not everyone should hear.”

Jones shut the door. Merriweather coughed weakly and asked if the door had been shut. When Jones assured him it had, he went on.

“I have to tell you something that you might find difficult ... difficult to believe,” he said. “But it is of great importance and you three gentlemen are three men that I trust, and you are three men whom I believe will help me in this before my death.

“In the days of my youth, I and some of my fellow students became involved in what we believed was an innocent exploration of the occult. Led by a slightly older man named Marion Allen, we purchased an old farmhouse a few miles west of Arkham near the village of Ross’s Corners. There we could conduct séances and other psychic research in privacy.

“However, the unexpected result of our last experiment ... I know this will sound hard to believe but ... was the summoning of some evil force into this world. Instead of attempting to expel the thing, we abandoned the house, confident that the magic that had brought the evil to this world would keep it confined there. However, the spell that binds the being to the house only lasts as long as the casters live. I’m the last of that group. I fear, upon my death, that thing will go free and wreak havoc on the countryside.”

He turned to O’Shea, who stood on his right. The man was frowning.

“Alan, you don’t look like you believe what I’m telling you,” he said.

The man looked uncomfortable.

“You’re a very sick man, Mr. Merriweather,” he finally said.

“I have all my faculties, Alan,” the other man replied. “I know what I saw and the thing that I ... I don’t want to even think about it. If you won’t believe me, go to the house.”

He gestured to the stand next to his bed where a metal box sat.

“Take that box,” he said. “All the aid I can offer you lies within. If you don’t believe me, at least go and examine the house. See for yourself. You must find a way to send that thing back where it came from. You must see that it is done. Do it for me. Please. I’m begging of you. As a last man’s dying wish, take an afternoon or a day. Please. I beg you.”

“All right,” O’Shea said. “Don’t get yourself worked up, Mr. Merriweather.”

“It’s worth a day,” Vanderholdt said.

Merriweather coughed violently for several moments. O’Shea looked around for any medication but didn’t see any. Merriweather gestured at the metal box again as O’Shea tucked the unlit cigarette behind his ear.

“Please, take the box,” Merriweather said again. “And help me.”

O’Shea reached over and picked up the box. Merriweather started coughing again, more violently this time. O’Shea called his name as Merriweather was choked with a sudden spasm. He doubled up, groaned, and then coughed forth a huge gout of blood and tissue, splattering O’Shea, before falling back onto the bed, his breathing shallow.

“Go get a nurse!” O’Shea said to Jones.

Jones rushed into the hallway.

“What’s going on!?!” Bertrand said to him. “What’s going on in there?”

Jones ignored him and ran to the nurses’ desk just down the hall.

“Mr. Merriweather is coughing something fierce and he’s been spitting up blood,” he told the nurse there.

“Orderly! Orderly!” the woman called.

She left the desk at speed and a couple of orderlies followed her down the hallway, Jones right behind them.

O’Shea had put the box back down and he and Vanderholdt were trying to revive Merriweather. It looked to Vanderholdt like the old man had fallen into a deep coma. His breathing was shallow and he didn’t respond to any stimulus. Both men stepped back out of the way as one of the orderlies started to shout down the hall for a doctor. Agnes and Bertrand also came in, the latter glaring at the three men.

One of the orderlies asked the three men to leave and they headed for the door. When O’Shea turned around to get his hat, he casually picked up the box, but noticed that Bertrand was glaring at him as he did so. He turned and left.

“One moment!” Bertrand said as he pursued the man.

Vanderholdt followed the two men while Jones stopped when he reached Agnes. He took her hand.

“If there’s anything I can do to help,” he said.

She nodded, the tears flowing more freely. He went out to the hallway to find Bertrand confronting O’Shea.

“Just a minute!” the younger Merriweather said. “What did you take from my father’s room?”

Vanderholdt stood between the two men.

“My hat, Bert,” O’Shea said.

“What?” Bertrand said.

“My hat,” the other man merely said.

“No, I saw you!” Bertrand said. “You picked up that box!”

He looked Vanderholdt, who kept moving between the men, in the face.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m talking to this gentleman, Vanderholdt. Now, pardon me.”

“You don’t need to talk to the man,” Vanderholdt said quietly.

“Yes I do!” Bertrand said. “He stole something from my father’s room.”

O’Shea turned and walked down the hallway. Jones moved after the man.

“You haven’t heard the last of this, you stinking Irishman!” Bertrand shouted.

There was a hitch in O’Shea’s step but otherwise he just continued down the hallway.

“I don’t have time for you, Vanderholdt!” Bertrand said to the other man.

He turned away and went back into his father’s room

“Good,” Vanderholdt muttered after him.

He headed down the hall.

* * *

The other two men had stopped at the elevator.

“We need to get back in that room somehow and get that box,” Jones said.

“Oh, no problem,” O’Shea said, showing him the box tucked into his coat. “I got us covered.”

“How do you know Mr. Merriweather?” Jones asked the man.

“He’s my stockbroker,” O’Shea said. “How do you know Mr. Merriweather?”

“I fix his car,” Jones replied. “And I’ve fixed Bertrand’s car many times.”

The man whom Bertrand had called Vanderholdt arrived.

“He’s as bad a driver as he is a person,” Jones went on.

“No surprise there,” O’Shea said.

“He wasn’t any better in school,” Vanderholdt said.

“I’m Grover Jones,” Jones said, extending his oil-stained hand to O’Shea.

“Alan O’Shea,” the other man shook his hand.

“Grover Jones,” Jones said to Vanderholdt and held out his hand, which Vanderholdt took. “So, how do you know Mr. Merriweather? I assume he’s your stockbroker too.”

“Well, he’s my father’s stockbroker,” Vanderholdt said.

The elevator arrived and they rode it down to the first floor, O’Shea asking the elevator operator if he had a light. The youth lit his cigarette for him and he took a deep drag.

“So, do you believe what he’s saying?” Jones asked.

“Not a bit,” Vanderholdt replied.

The elevator arrived on the first floor and Jones thanked the operator.

“But, we promised to help out,” Vanderholdt went on.