The Investigators of Arkham Horror: Lucius Galloway

Arkham’s bold investigators strive to defend the world from the influence and chaos of the Ancient Ones – learn of Lucius Galloway’s encounters with the strange occurrences in Arkham, in this new chapter of The Investigators of Arkham Horror.

Download the deluxe illustrated PDF version of Lucius’s story below, or scroll down to read the story online. If you haven’t already read Winifred Habbamock’s story, published last week, click on the link below:

Lucius Galloway: The Poet

“Arkham! Next stop is Arkham!”

The conductor’s forceful yell cut through the din of the slowing train. Lucius Galloway stood from the cramped coach seat, slung his battered satchel over one shoulder, and tried to maintain his composure. No matter how agitated he might feel, he wore good manners like a suit of armor, insulating him against the world. He’d been many things over the years – ad man, teacher, poet, academic – but no matter what hat he wore, he’d found that a quiet voice spoke louder than any shout.

The conductor pushed past him without a word, belt jingling. Rude, but some people were like that. They judged folks based on superficial nonsense instead of the core. For the first time in his sixty-plus years, Lu believed in souls. He’d seen things, things that haunted him. But as the train rattled to a stop, he put the entire Harvard mess out of his mind. All that mattered now was Rudi.

Lucius made his way across the crowded platform, clutching a letter in his sweating hand. He’d memorized the brief lines but still clung to it like a talisman, as if the words of his beloved would sweep away the demons that still haunted him.

The world is bigger even than we’d imagined. Come join us, and you’ll see. – Rudi

The message had been full of hope, but dread still curled and twisted in Lu’s gut like a sleeping beast on the verge of waking.

Less than an hour later, a confused Lucius exited a taxi outside a blocky, windowless warehouse. This didn’t make sense at all. He’d expected the return address on Rudi’s letter to lead him to a boarding house or hotel. Perhaps he’d gotten it wrong? He squinted at the envelope and then up and down the street. Nothing but warehouses and garages, their blind facades looming. None of this made sense; his unease grew. He would have fled if not for his need to see Rudi as soon as possible, to reassure himself that the center of his world still held.

A bang nearby made him jerk like a frightened child. He traced the sound to an open door on the side of the warehouse. As he watched, the breeze caught it again, slamming it against its frame as if in invitation.

Or warning.

Perhaps someone here knew Rudi and had posted the letter for him. At the very least, they could point Lucius to likely boarding houses. People in small towns talked, and there were only so many places that would welcome a Black man traveling alone, even one as old as he and Rudi had both become.

Squaring his shoulders, he marched toward the door, determination overshadowing his unease. The obstacles did not matter. They would not keep him from his love. They never had, and they never would.

He reached the banging door. It opened easily enough, allowing him entry into the dark innards of the warehouse. There were no lights, and his eyes took a moment to adjust from the bright light of day to the darkness within. He squinted, barely able to make out the outlines of a huge room, cloaked in silence. The air was stuffy, settling on his skin like a heavy blanket on a hot summer night. It pressed on him, the touch cloying.

As his eyes adjusted, he began to make out dark shapes placed in neat rows with a wide aisle down the middle. What were they making here? He made his cautious way closer as a sound pierced the silence.

Someone was snoring.

Confusion gave way to concern, concern to outright nerves. The dark humps resolved into beds, each one containing a sleeping figure. Some sort of illicit boarding house, perhaps? But what were all of the boarders doing asleep at three in the afternoon? It seemed rather… unnatural. After everything he’d been through in Boston, everything he’d seen, he didn’t like that one bit.

He drew closer to the nearest bed, pulling off the scratchy blanket to expose the huddled figure of a woman in a stained nurse’s uniform, her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. He put a hand to her forehead and snatched it back as she murmured restlessly. Burning hot. Was this some sort of sick ward? Some sort of tubing snaked from her arm up to the wall behind her. He covered his mouth with his jacket, hoping that he hadn’t caught something. At his age, he couldn’t afford that.

Then again, neither could Rudi.

Worry chilled his blood as he moved on to the next bed, leaning down to peer into the sleeping face. A teenage boy, rail-thin and gangly. His throat tightened with worry as he moved from bed to bed, torn between desperation to find Rudi and a wild hope that he was far away from here, safe and sound.

But Rudi was at the end of the row. Lu knew the shape of his shoulders in the night without even needing to remove the blanket. His partner had always slept prettily, cheek pillowed on folded hands like a praying child. Lu pressed the back of his hand to Rudi’s sleeping forehead, letting out a sigh of relief. Warm, but not as feverish as the others.

“Rudi?” he whispered. “Please wake up.”

“Lu?” Rudi’s voice was groggy with sleep, but he could hear the smile in it. “I knew you’d come.”

“And I always will. Come on. I’ve got adjoining rooms at the Excelsior.”

But Rudi simply mumbled something inarticulate, falling back into slumber once more. Lu would have shouted or switched on the lights, but he found himself loath to stir the other sleepers.

Rudi had an IV too, its outline dim against the blanket. Lucius stared at it in horror – Rudi had been so excited about his Dreamer friends, and now they’d drugged him? It was the only explanation, but Lucius could feel no needle when he groped at the juncture between tubing and skin. He yanked at the tube, which came free with a wet sucking sound. When he ran his fingers up its length, hoping to trace it to some device that would tell him what poison they were pouring into his beloved, he felt a moist row of twitching suction cups. Revolted, he dropped it.

His partner had always been solid in comparison to Lu’s rail-thin lankiness, and age had widened the gulf between their physiques. But fear bolstered Lu’s strength, and over the past few sleepwalk-filled years, he’d gotten used to maneuvering Rudi around. Sweating and straining, he escorted his dozing, stumbling partner out the door to the waiting cab.

Lucius deposited Rudi safely into the narrow hotel bed and tried once more to shake him awake, but the most he could elicit was a mumble. He wondered if he ought to call a physician, but Rudi’s forehead was cool now. Removing him from that stifling warehouse had accomplished that at least. All Lucius could do now was wait and see, pacing to and fro in the small room until his thighs ached.

As the sun dipped behind the trees, Rudi finally stirred. Confusion clouded his eyes as he took in his surroundings, but his lips curved into a smile as he saw who stood over him.

“Lu,” he breathed, holding out his arms.

They embraced, and everything was right again.

“Where are we?” asked Rudi after they finally parted. “Is there water?”

Lucius poured him a glass from the pitcher on the vanity, and Rudi drank greedily.

“The Excelsior Hotel,” Lu replied.

“You shouldn’t have taken me away,” Rudi chided. “I was doing so well.”

“Well?! What in the blazes do you mean?”

“Didn’t you read my letters?” Rudi frowned, toying with the edge of the blanket. “I’m fairly sure I posted them. What day is it?”

“Friday.”

Rudi scoffed until he took in Lu’s serious expression. Then he perked up.

“I’ve lost the past four days!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you get it, Lu? This is a sign of progress!”

But abject fear clutched at Lucius. He’d lost time too. It hadn’t boded well.

“Explain,” he demanded.

“I’m a Dreamer now. I spent four days in that bed, and I didn’t sleepwalk once! The training is working. I won’t lie; there are no words for how much that relieves my nerves.”

Some of the clenched tension bled from Lucius’ chest. Exorcising the dreams would be a relief, but that place – those tentacle-like tubes – still felt very wrong.

“What exactly is this training?” he asked cautiously.

“You’ll love it. It teaches you to harness the power of your dreams. We spend years of our lives in slumber, right? So why not make productive use of that time? I was searching for something in my sleep, and now I’ve found it.”

“What’s that?”

“Peace,” said Rudi.

Lucius tried to keep the hurt off his face. He’d always thought they’d found peace in each other. Rudi patted him on the shoulder.

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “You’ll see.”

“But it’s not,” protested Lucius. “Nothing is okay. The world is… not what I thought. If we don’t do something, I worry we could lose it.”

“Lose what?”

“Everything,” said Lucius.

Rudi clucked his tongue.

“That’s my Lucius, always carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Come, mon beau. You need sleep. It will feel better in the morning,” he said.

Perhaps Rudi was right. Lucius nestled into his loving arms. For the first time in weeks, he fell into a deep and restful slumber. Whatever happened, they would face it together.

Lucius woke alone. For a moment, he groped at the empty expanse on the other side of the bed. Rudi had slept all day, of course he would have gotten up. But Lu found the adjoining room empty too. There was no sign of his partner save the water glass next to the bed.

Heart pounding, Lucius threw on his suit and checked the front desk. No messages. A kind lady there phoned the police for him. A few minutes later, a uniformed police officer entered the lobby. Lucius tried not to be dismayed at the officer’s obvious youth. Dispatch must have sent the rookie to calm the hysterical old man, but Lucius was a wordsmith at heart. He would make this kid listen.

“Good morning, officer,” he said. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

“Lucius Galloway? I’m Tommy Muldoon – Officer Muldoon. You got a missing person to report?”

“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, and I’ll admit that the story is a little outlandish.”

“I’m listening.”

Lucius explained how Rudi’s letters had led him to the warehouse, lingering on the strange details – the rows of sleeping bodies, the strange tubing, his inability to wake anyone. As he spoke, Muldoon’s expression grew progressively tenser.

“That’s quite a story,” he said. “Most people would say you’re a nutter, but I prefer to keep an open mind. Let’s take a look at your warehouse and figure it out from there.”

The warehouse was empty, its interior flooded with light from a row of windows along the back wall. Lucius stood near the banging door and gaped as Officer Muldoon scowled.

“I should have known better than to believe such a crazy story,” he said. “I ought to have you charged with making a false report, but it’s not worth the paperwork.”

“But… but it was all right here!” exclaimed Lucius, pointing. “Look! You can see where the dust on the ground has been disturbed! In lines, just like I said.”

 “Did somebody put you up to this? The guys like to tease me, being the youngest and all. They think I’m prone to flights of fancy,” Muldoon grumbled.

“I’m telling the truth!” exclaimed Lucius, but then he pulled himself together. Muldoon had said it himself: he was just a kid. He’d fold in the face of the impossible things Lucius had experienced. Lucius would just have to go it alone. Brush the kid off before something happened to him. “Maybe… maybe I just spooked myself. Or it was all a dream. I’m sorry. I feel rather foolish the more I think of it.”

“Right,” Muldoon said uncertainly. “Could’ve happened to anyone.”

“Well, I won’t waste any more of your time. I’ll find my way back. My apologies again, officer.”

Reluctantly, Muldoon let himself out. Alone, Lucius searched the room, looking for something – anything – that might give him some clue as to what had happened here. He found a few dropped nuts and bolts that could have been from the beds, and a scrap of fabric that may have been torn from a blanket, but they told him nothing.

Then, in the corner where Rudi’s bed had sat, he spotted a scrap of paper. He picked it up and unfolded it with shaking hands.

In Rudi’s distinctive looping script, it said, See you soon.

His lips firming, Lucius stuffed it into his pocket. He would find these Dreamers and get Rudi back, or he would die trying.

by Carrie Harris

Read more from The Drowned City, Lucius Galloway’s poetry collection, in Tales from Nevermore: Triptych.