Careless Whispers

From the diary of nurse Agatha Pettenkoffer, Sunday, May 3, 1925

So, it was decided that we'd send poor Sergeant Edgar Broome up to some obscure town called Arkham up in Massachusetts. On the one hand, I felt really bad for the sergeant, since the rest here at the newly renamed Ashford Ranch seemed to do him good, but on the other hand, he'd benefit from being removed from the situation. I agreed to send him up to Arkham by train escorted by a couple of good men from the ranch, Mr. Charlie Ainsworth and Mr. Clive Beecher. We also sent a telegram to some of Lotus's friends in Arkham, requesting the best possible care for Sergeant Broome.

That being said, it was strange night at the Ashford Ranch. I still recalled the weird buzzing whispers from outside the ranch, and I could still recall sounds that seemed like my name being uttered together with calls for beckoning me to leave the ranch. Perhaps I was still hearing them in real life, or so it seemed. I had a dreadful time falling asleep, and my dreams were filled with these and other sounds and noises, leaving me tossing and turning in sweat-stained sheets. Are we just victims of stress caused by the several strange events we have faced, or are we actually hearing real voices from the woods surrounding the ranch? I would not go out at night, not at any cost, and I do not envy the ranch hands patrolling the Ashford Ranch at night. I do not fear the whims of man, but this feels so surreal and uncanny, and my usually sane and rational self seems subdued. I cannot stand living in uncertainty and worry. The general attitude of all of us at the ranch seems to have smitten the animals as well. The horses are skittish, and the dogs seem to bark at strange things only they can see. I keep a loaded shotgun next to my bed at all times, and I carry a holstered, but loaded, revolver at all times. 

***

The horror of the heights!

Following the successful landing of a pilot from Lockwood Airlines, Lotus Ashford, Bill McCloud, and Frank Cannon decided to greet the pilot, a certain Frances O'Hara. Mr. O'Hara had flied in the Great War, and he was more than happy to take up Lotus Ashford's offer of lodging. He was jolly fellow, quite social, and relived that he could get some help in maintaining and refueling his D.H.9 before resuming to carry the U.S. mail eastwards. Lotus, Bill, and Frank also took the opportunity to ask Father Bose about the strange book and its Greek text. The Three Amigos were joined by Frances O'Hara, and the pilot looked more than a little bit wary as Father Bose explained the translation. He claimed to have no knowledge of what Yog-Sothoth might mean, but he hinted at the potential connection between the Apache, the entity named "Yeeg", and a "realm of dreaming" or "Dreamlands" that the now quite dead James Gardiner was longing to visit. The incantation in the book seemed to be used to summon some other entity instead of enabling poor Gardiner to visit some "Dreamlands", and this is what may have killed Gardiner in the first place. The old Greek text was nevertheless quite valuable, and Frank Cannon added it to the small amount of disturbing texts that the Three Amigos had amalgamated. 

Frances O'Hara slept soundly while most of the inhabitants of the ranch had a disturbing night, seemingly struggling to fall asleep and then wishing that they could leave their surreal and uncanny dreams filled with buzzing and whispering voices. Next morning, Lotus Ashford and Frank Cannon asked Mr. O'Hara if he would mind taking Frank Cannon and Lotus Ashford on a trip over the western parts of the Capitan range, and more specifically around the mountain where they had seen a host of disturbing creatures some time before.

Cannon and Ashford found the former gunner's space in the D.H. 9 to be fairly spacious, all things considered, and after having some ranch hands unloading the mail, they were ready for takeoff. The would-be aviators were of course heavily armed, since they might have been anticipating a random landing. It was both weird and fantastic to fly over Lincoln and the Ashford Ranch, and after a couple of laps around town, O'Hara climbed in a northwesterly direction. Ashford and Cannon did bring a pair of binoculars, not to mention firearms, and they eventually noted faint outlines around the top of the Captain's Spike, the tallest mountain of the range. The outlines seemed to be geometric symbols of a most unsavory and dizzying quality. It seemed as if the lines varied in width and color intensity from different angles, and a few lines even seemed to pulsate in ways resembling the cardiovascular system of some ungodly entity. As the D.H. 9 circled the peak, it became increasingly sluggish, and the aeroplane started to lose altitude. O'Hara was struggling with the controls when Frank Cannon noticed long jagged claws tearing through the bottom of the aeroplane just by the rear gunner's seat. The plywood gave way, and Frank Cannon stared at a wildly shrieking creature straight from hell clearly intent on killing or maiming the native New Yorker. Frank Cannon had seen many horrific things, so despite shrieking horribly, Cannon emptied half a clip from his Browning Automatic Rifle into the vile creature. Chunks of putrid flesh-like matter were blown off the beast, and as it lodged into the undercarriage, Frank Cannon could not help notice that the flying obscenity bore some resemblance to one of the creatures mentioned in the unholy formulae that might enable travel in space. Uncanny indeed?

Meanwhile. Lotus Ashford noticed another beast landing on the outer edge of the starboard wing and clawing itself towards the pilot. Ashford was justifiably horrified, but he squeezed off several rounds with his pistol, and as several of the rounds hit the head of the abomination, it lost its grip of the aeroplane and cartwheeled to the ground. However, the plane was still descending, with the beast stuck in the lading gear providing much excess weight. Frank Cannon held on to Lotus Ashford for dear life as Lotus lowered himself through the hole in the fuselage to kick the beast off the landing gear. It was close-cut deal, but the monstrosity was dispatched off just second before the D.H. 9 would have hit the side of the Captain's Spike.

O'Hara managed to land without further incident, and as he re-loaded the mail bags into the back seat of the aeroplane, he swore that he's stay away from New Mexico in the future.