Arkham PD: The Case of Agatha Nordsen

The rain was coming down sideways. Worse than usual for this time of year, but not totally abnormal; in the last few years Frank Bastion had seen worse storms at all times of the year. That was just the way of things. Frank could remember his youth, when winter was cold and summer was hot, but those days were long gone. He gathered it had something to do with the ozone layer or some such, but Frank hardly read any news these days outside the local stuff, it was just so damn depressing. Other cops told him that he was being withdrawn, that he was being willfully ignorant, but it wasn’t as though there was anything outside of Arkham that really mattered to him anymore.
And to those who said he was making himself ignorant of world events, well… he never did respond to those kinds of comments. He just smirked mirthlessly to himself; there was plenty in and around Arkham that he wished he could be ignorant of. He was just over fifty but his face was lined like a man twenty years his senior.
Rain like today’s always reminded him of those kinds of things that he wished he could forget and though it didn’t show in any obvious way, the keen observer could notice the lines on his aging face tighten almost imperceptibly as each drop of water pinged off the windshield of his squad car.
Through the curtain of moisture Frank could just barely make out the street opposite where he was parked. Old, bungalow style homes lined Bayview Lane but his hard grey eyes only rested on the Nordsen place. The paint on the houses edifice was chipped and weathered, a once brilliant fuchsia now faded with time into a bruise-like purple. This house in particular stood out from the rest not only because of the lack of upkeep, but because it was populated year-round. The northeast side of Arkham was rife with vacant homes kept by people who came up from Boston for the summer months. Most were kept in good repair by their owners or at least by people paid by the owners – but not the Nordsen place.
Agatha Nordsen had lived in this neighborhood for as long as Frank could remember but it hadn’t been until near ten years ago, just after Mr. Nordsen’s death, that Old Aggie had withdrawn into the single story house, abandoning her once proud front lawn to weeds and crabgrass.
Rumors and stories spread quickly in Arkham and it wasn’t very long until the kids here for the summer started talking about the old witch who lived in the one decrepit house on Bayview Lane. It was sad really. Frank thought she’d been a kind woman when he was young.
There was movement coming down the street and the old sergeant’s eyes picked up on it immediately. Even through the evening gloom made worse by the torrential downpour, he could see the misshapen form of Mrs. Nordsen hobbling down the lane. She was bent almost double from a combination of sheer age and the staggering number of parcels she carried in her arms. The packages, all around a foot long and wrapped in brown butcher’s paper, were held tight to her breast – Frank guessed that they all contained fish from different markets around town.
He elbowed the sleeping man in the passenger seat. It was one of the rules. Never go it alone.
“Cullings,” said Frank quietly, “it’s time.”
The man, dressed in a long faded trench coat and a blotchy fedora that had fallen over his face while he slept, jerked suddenly awake, emitting a shrill little exclamation. Mark Cullings swore that he didn’t dream when he slept, but that look of wild fear in his eyes just after waking told Frank that the detective suffered from the same nightmares they all did from time to time.
Cullings snorted, clearing some of the sleep from his lungs as he pushed up his fedora and looked out into the rain with bleary eyes.
“That her?” he mumbled.
Sergeant Bastion merely grunted the affirmative and Mark pinched at the bridge of his nose, scrapping away some of the crud that still crusted his eyes.
Old Aggie had gotten up to the front of her house now and was fumbling with her packages in order to unlock the door.
Mark rubbed at the back of his neck wearily, his jaw shifting slightly as he focused on the old woman. Casting a sideways glance at the old sergeant, he asked, “We sure about this Sir?”
Frank shot the younger detective a hard look as he reached over and grabbed three speed loaders worth of ammo from the dash. It was rule number four. Never forget to bring a gun and extra ammo.
Sighing, Detective Cullings reached back for the shotgun racked behind his seat. “Right.”
As the two men got out of the squad car, Old Aggie was just getting into her home, closing the door behind her. The bitter rain plastered Frank’s fading white hair to his scalp and despite this new gore-tex stuff he could still feel some of the water start to soak into his uniform beneath his jacket. His long coat and fedora quickly darkening with exposure to the rain, Cullings used a free hand to flick the brim of his hat, sending a cascade of droplets up into the air.
Exchanging looks, they made their way across the flooded street toward the Nordsen place and once under the wide eaves of the front porch, the younger man turned to Frank and asked, “So what’s the plan here?”
His eyes hard, Sergeant Bastion didn’t say a word as he drew his .357 Magnum from a shoulder holster under his jacket and took a sideways stance and took two deep breaths. With a roar, Frank placed a side kick just below the doorknob. The weak, waterlogged wood around the frame splintered and crashed inwards – Frank may have been getting on in years, but the young detective was still scared of the old man when he got like this.
Frank stalked into the house, both hands holding his gun low, close to his right thigh. Glancing around nervously, Mark planted the shotgun’s stock against his shoulder but kept the barrel down as he turned and followed Frank in, sideling along so he could still keep an eye on the street.
Once inside the sound of the rain was oddly muffled, fading just to a soft rumble on roof shingles. The accompanying silence fell like a lead weight over the two cops and the hairs on the back of Detective Cullings neck started to stand on end. It was the kind of quiet you only got when someone was holding their breath and trying as hard as they could not to be heard.
Looking around slowly, Frank’s ears pricked up like a hunting wolf and he jerked his head forward before proceeding.
The inside of the house was as ramshackle as the outside with the living room having been taken over by dust and spiders. Through it all there was a single track of shuffling footprints interspersed with droplets of dripped water – they led toward the kitchen in the back of the house.
The small open aperture leading back concealed a lot of space to the left and right so with practiced movements, Frank moved left while Mark went right, both men crouching slightly once they had their backs to the wall on either side of the open space. After a second of checking their angles, Mark nodded once and spun off the wall and proceeded into the kitchen, his shotgun held low but ready.
The old sergeant, his joints screaming at him as he held the crouch, shook his head wearily as the younger detective’s coat billowed dramatically as he spun. Cullings was really into being an old school type of detective, “All Tracy Dick.” he called it. Frank had known that type of detective back in his early days on the force, more than one had shown up in Arkham following clues on a wide variety of cases. Missing persons mostly. It was the lucky few that didn’t end up dead or gibbering nonsense in the Asylum just north of town. Hell, a lot of cops ended up the same way, but Arkham P.D. took care of its own; so it didn’t happen quite as often.
“Clear.” said Cullings quietly from inside the kitchen and Sergeant Bastion only groaned slightly as he straightened up to move inwards.
The kitchen was also empty but for dust and cobwebs, though the layers of both were lighter in this room than any other. Old Aggie’s trail ended abruptly in the middle of the floor.
Turning his head up, Cullings sniffed the air and said, “You smell that?”
Frank nodded, tasting the air as well. “Fish.” he said simply.
Moving toward the opposite end of the room, Mark ended up facing an old fashioned refrigerator that hummed slightly. No other appliance or light in the house indicated that there was electricity here besides the fridge. Cullings moved toward it, his free hand outstretched, but Frank caught him with a word.
“Wait.” Coming up beside the young detective Bastion nodded, his revolver at the ready.
The moment the he popped the latch the smell drove both men backwards with an almost physical force. Frank caught a brief image of bubbling mold and rotting entrails before Mark drove back in to slam the door shut with his shoulder.
The detective made a slight retching sound and covered his mouth with a hand before saying, “Jesus Christ.”
The thump of the fridge’s door elicited another sound that made Frank hold a hand up for silence and cock his head down in concentration. In the following quiet there was the slight clink of metal from somewhere beneath them. He looked to Cullings to see if he’d heard it too and the detective nodded, gesturing down with his shotgun.
Frank went to where Old Aggie’s footprints ended, stooping down to inspect the floor closer and after a moment he saw it. A little circle of metal that acted as a handle; at a distance and under all this dust it looked like just another knot in the hardwood floor. Waiting for Cullings to come up beside him with the shotgun, Frank paused, then jerked the trap door up, letting it clatter open as he took a step back quickly to level his gun at the dark aperture.
There was a pair of rickety old wooden stairs leading down into what looked like a dirt floored cellar. Quickly pulling out their mag-lights, Mark affixed his to the clip on top of the barrel of his shotgun while Frank held his upside down in his left hand, propping his shooting hand over the wrist that held the flashlight. It was rule number two. Never enter the darkness without light.
The metal clinking sounded again from somewhere down in the darkness.
Both men silently recited rule number four in their minds. Never split up to check on the strange noises. Looking assuredly to each other, Sergeant Bastion and Detective Cullings moved downward, Mark in front with his shotgun up. He kept his back to the inside wall that bordered one side of the stairs and carefully fingered off the safety of his gun as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.
The smell of blood was obvious to both of them as they came down the stairs; the coppery sting of it was a familiar presence in these situations. Their beams of light revealed the walls of the cellar and the source of the blood. Dark splotches of it coated the wall in seeming randomness that took on the appearance of disquieting runes when viewed all together. Neither cop could see this in the gloom of the basement but this scene was a familiar one to both of them.
Mark reached the bottom step, stopping for a moment as his left foot touched the dirt floor. It was only the lowest noise that made him look left, like a foot shifting soil, but it saved his life. Out of the murky darkness around them Old Aggie came charging toward the detective with an old wood-handled axe held high over her head. She screamed as the beam of Frank’s light found her and the sound was like something emitted by a bloodthirsty animal.
Acting almost on instinct, Cullings held his gun up and blocked the axe with the barrel, the blade stopped barely a hairsbreadth from his forehead.
Aggie reeled back for another attack, screaming with a voice that sounded chocked and wet, like she was gurgling water. “You’ll never take him! Never take him!!”
Frank fired once, going for a kill shot out of pure reflexive training, but Mark acted quicker, lashing out with his right leg and kicking the old woman in her frail shinbones. She went down under the awkward weight of the axe in mid swing, yowling in anguish. Frank’s shot went zipping over her head, smashing into the brickwork of the wall with a dull cracking sound.
The muzzle flash from Frank’s gun blinded everyone in the tiny basement for a moment but also received an alien scream from somewhere in the room. With white spots dancing over his eyes, Sergeant Bastion blinked several times, swinging his light and gun around the room, looking for the scream’s source.
The rattling of metal grew ever louder and there was a mass of shuffling noises from one corner. There was the thing, chained to the wall by its ankles and wrists, leaving just enough slack for it to move about in a three foot radius in the corner. Its bulbous, watery eyes shone in Frank’s light and its slime covered scales made its body flare with a sickly green.
It looked almost human in shape but for its abnormally long arms and webbed hands that ended in fierce talons. Fins like a fishes ran along its spine and biceps and its snarling mouth, wide like a frogs, was filled with hundreds of tiny, needle-sharp teeth. While the light remained fixed on the corner it let out sharp hisses and gurgling little growls.
Frank’s face became a mask of fury, his deep brow making his eyes all but black in the gloom of the basement. He glanced back to Cullings to check on him, but the younger man had Old Aggie covered with his gun over at the bottom of the stairs, with one foot pressed against the wrist of the hand that still gripped the axe.
She writhed and screamed under Mark’s barrel. “No! Please, no! They gave him back! I prayed and I prayed and they gave me back my John! You won’t take him again!!”
John Nordsen… Frank recalled that that had been her husband’s name. His scowl softened into a look pity.
“God damn,” whispered Cullings, “She actually thinks one of them could be her husband.”
The thing in the corner gave another snarling hiss and strained against its chains.
Frank gave a long sigh as he closed his eyes for a moment and then, turning away from Old Aggie’s struggling form, he leveled his revolver at the thing.
Aggie fought furiously against Mark’s weight and shrieked, “Nooooo!!!”
The thing didn’t stop moving until Frank had emptied his remaining five shots into its wretched carcass. Sergeant Bastion’s face was unreadable as he fired each round, his eyes were distant and cold but the keen observer would notice the subtle flinch each time he pulled the trigger.
Turning back to Mark, he said, “She have anything on her?”
Planting his knee on her axe hand, the detective patted down Old Aggie’s sackcloth dress with swift efficient movements. “Nothing.”
Frank searched the room quickly, skirting the dead thing in the corner, before he finally came up with a tattered old book, its cover made from some kind of animal hide and its pages scripted in what looked like blood.
“Got it?” asked Mark, having gotten the axe away from Aggie and now working to get her hands behind her back so he could cuff her. She was still screaming, but now it was in a language that neither men knew.
“Got it.” said Frank as he carefully opened the cover as he clutched his flashlight in his armpit and his gun under the book’s cover. He was sure not to pause to long on any of the actual words, he merely scanned them long enough to see what they looked like.
Mark glanced back at the sergeant as he placed his cuffs on Aggie. “Well?”
On the back page, emblazoned over the last section of writing, was the mark of a great red eye with a jagged lightning bolt coming from it like a tear.
“Shit.”
Mark’s jaw tightened. “It’s him isn’t it?”
Snapping the book closed, Frank tossed it onto the dead thing in the corner and came over to the lighter gloom at the bottom of the stairs, pocketing his flashlight and holstering his gun. He moved close to Old Aggie, taking her shoulders and pinning her against the wall. Her eyes were wild now, shifting quickly and never focusing on anything even when Frank was less than a foot from her face.
“Agatha Nordsen.” said Frank evenly in a cold hard voice. She focused a sideways glance on the sergeant. “Agatha. You have to tell us where you got that book.”
Her old wrinkled face dipped and jerked oddly, as if it was supported by a loose string at the top of her cranium. “You took him… You took my John away again.” she said with a hiss.
“That was not your husband Agatha. That was not John Nordsen. John Nordsen died almost ten years ago Agatha.”
Old Aggie cringed away at the words and wailed, “No, no, no…”
“You were tricked Agatha.” continued Frank, “Tricked into thinking that thing you summoned was your husband. We need to know who gave you that book Agatha, we need to know who’s responsible for this!”
Agatha closed her eyes and shook her head violently, Frank feared she might actually succeed in breaking her own slender neck. “No, no, no!” she said, “It’s just like he said, it’s just like he said!”
Frank’s voice rose with angry desperation. “Like who said Agatha!?”
Tears started rolling out of her eyes as she looked hopelessly up at the old sergeant. “The Crawling Chaos…” she whispered.
Cullings turned away and cursed sharply, slamming his hand into the stair’s railing. Frank released Old Aggie and let her slump down to the floor, her whole body now shaking with mad sobs intermingled with giggling laughter.
Facing Bastion with a frustrated face, Mark asked, “Well? What now Sir?”
Frank glanced back over at the dead thing in the corner, his hands in his jacket pockets. “Stick to protocol.” he said finally, “Burn it all.”
Together they managed to get Aggie upstairs into the kitchen, she simply lay limp in their grasp and they had to be careful not to hurt her anymore than they already had. The orderlies up at the asylum tended to start asking a lot of inconvenient questions when they brought in people who looked as though they’d been brutalized.
In the relative brightness of the kitchen, Frank turned back to shut the trap door to the cellar but stopped suddenly when he looked at Agatha. He hadn’t noticed it when she’d been carrying the fish or down in the basement. His face quickly acquired a look of abject horror and revulsion.
“Frank, what’s the mat-” Seeing his sergeant’s face, Mark started to speak but stopped abruptly when he too looked down at Old Aggie.
Despite her eighty-something years of age, Agatha’s belly was swollen and large, obviously several months along in a pregnancy.
“Oh God…” said Mark, letting go of Aggie so that she fell to the ground with a puff of dust.
Frank clenched his jaw and spoke through his teeth, his eyes never left Agatha’s pathetic form. “Get the gas Mark.”
“Jesus Christ… Frank, you can’t just-” started Mark.
“Get the God damned gas detective!” barked the old man, his hands shaking as he took his revolver back out and ejected all the spent shells. The bits of metal made little tinkling sounds as they hit the hardwood floor.
Cullings’ grip tightened on his shotgun - but he turned away with a painful expression on his face. As he walked away toward the front door Sergeant Bastion began putting fresh bullets into his .357 magnum, never taking his eyes off the woman in front of him on the floor.
Once he was outside and heading toward the squad car, Detective Cullings barely heard the gunshot as a rumble of thunder echoed over Arkham. He looked down Bayview Lane, out toward the ocean, where an arcing bolt of lightning crashed down into the whitecaps out at sea.
He placed his shotgun back in the rack behind the passenger seat and got two cans of gas out from the trunk of the car. By the time he made it back to the house the trap door in the kitchen was closed and the only thing left of Old Aggie Nordsen was a bright red smear on the hardwood floor.
Neither of the men said anything for a long time and despite the rain, despite the wind, despite the sickening bile rising in their throats, they made sure it all burned.
They watched the rising conflagration from across the street, the water in their cloths slowly being leeched away by the seats in the car. Mark swallowed, willing his dry mouth say something, anything, but nothing came out.
Frank thumped his skull back against the headrest, his tired old face slack and devoid of emotion. Slowly, he said, “What’s rule number one Cullings?”
The knot in his throat tightened and tears started welling in his eyes as Detective Mark Cullings chocked out the words. “Ne- never let them have Arkham.”
Taking a deep, long breath, Sergeant Frank Bastion spoke with a shaking voice that carried a thousand horrid memories, “Never let them have Arkham.”