“You come here stark naked and pretend nothing is wrong!” said the redheaded man.
She smiled slowly, shaking her head. “If you disregard my footwear,” she said. “But that is not disgraceful. Didn’t you see the signs?”
The redheaded man looked at the clothed woman with a puzzled expression, and the husband kept his unblinking gaze pointed out toward the sea.
“What signs?” I said. I knew what signs. But I meant, what do the signs mean?
The woman turned to see me. “Why hello again,” she said. “I am glad you took my advice. I was hoping you would.”
I realized this was the woman from the hotel desk who had advised me to come to this spot.
I said, “You told me I would see an extraordinary view. You did not lie.”
She smiled broadly at this and nodded in acceptance. “The clothing optional signs,” she said.
“Why I never!” said the clothed woman.
“Not ever?” asked the naked woman, “if I may quote Gilbert and Sullivan.”
“Here they are!” said the redheaded man, pointing behind me to two uniformed police officers approaching. “Officers, arrest this woman!”
“What has she done?” asked the taller of the two.
The clothed woman sputtered, “But-but can’t you see! She’s naked and she is beautiful. There has to be a law against it.”
Both officers regarded the naked woman closely. “You may be right,” said the shorter.
“If you disregard my footwear,” the naked woman said again, with an amused and inviting smile.
“I don’t know,” the taller officer said. “Your footwear has a kind of charm of its own.”
“Surely such things cannot be legal in this city!” the redheaded man said, obviously a tourist himself.
“Well, it’s funny you should mention it,” the taller officer said. “The city council had quite a debate. One side insisted the signs not say ‘clothing optional’ as it would scare off some shy or conservative tourists. But they failed to convince the — lets call them the more radical council members — to omit the signs all together. They compromised on leaving the signs up with only the word ‘optional.’ But they never said or defined or compromised on what that word meant. Which is kind of a shame, because now there are some cases tangled up in court.”
“Well, what are you going to do!” the clothed woman demanded to know.
“Mostly,” the taller officer said, “we are going to sit back and wait for the legal system to try to untangle what the city council messed up.”
“You can’t do that while this cougar preys upon innocent victims in her stark everything.”
“Disregarding the footwear,” I put in helpfully.
The naked hotel employee and I exchanged warm smiles, and then she frowned cutely at the redheaded man.
“Have you been preyed upon or molested yet?” the shorter policeman asked him.
“No,” the redheaded man said. “But it is only a matter of time. And look at this poor woman’s husband.” But you could only look at the back of the head of the husband in question. “And I think this other gentleman is in trouble already.” I think he meant me.
The naked lady said, “Shouldn’t you wait for the other gentleman to file his own complaint before you leap to that conclusion? And speaking of leaping to conclusions, what is with that cougar crack? How old do you think I am?”
The redheaded man turned away from her to the two police. “What do you think is going to happen? Don’t you feel you need intervene?”
“We have to wait for the courts,” said the taller policeman.
“And the city comptroller estimates this uncomplaining gentleman and his friends and ilk are going to come back often and bring much revenue with them to the city. It all has to be taken into consideration.”
“What is spent in our fair city stays in our fair city,” the other officer said.
“So is everything to your liking so far?” the nude woman asked me.
“So far I am as happy as a bug in a Persian rug,” I told her.
“Why don’t you come with me for a swim and ditch that unflattering old swim suit now that you understand the sign?”
I grinned. “I am not used to doing certain things in public.” In a crowd of cultists, yes, but in front of strangers?
She smiled undeterred. “Very well for now. Fortunately, you know how to find me if you feel like a drink later.”
“I’ll sue,” the redheaded man said.
“We’ll all sue,” said the clothed lady.
The taller cop smiled grimly. “The city comptroller said a lot of people might sue. Any idio— any person can sue.”
“And our lawyers can use the money too, he said,” the other cop said.
The naked lady (who turned out to be named Sue Beth Lee) and I left them arguing while the two of us compromised and went for a mixed swim — she very politely did not mention again that I was overdressed for the activity. The warm sea water was just what I needed at that moment, and we had a lovely conversation about the Festival over a picnic lunch on the sand.
Two nights later things became even more intense in the moonlight.
Ay-ee yah! Iä! Shug Niggurath!
Kirsten Brown
LE CIÉL OUVERT
I always have to stop and look at the sky over the University, at the lenticular shape torn in reality that hangs above it, pulsing black and empty over silent causeways and high over Administration, First and Second Science, and the Art Wing donated sometime in the past century by the Pickman family. Over trees that never infloresce or sprout leaves anymore, lawns that remain grey and tangled and desolate. The whole area is like this, most of Arkham proper and Innsmouth are walled off and patrolled by the military. Even some of the surrounding rural areas have been evacuated. Arkham itself has been a ghost town for the five years since the accident in the basement labs, that I was once supposed to be a part of.
There is an eclipse every day, here, when the sun passes behind this rip, and night falls for a brief time, fifteen, twenty minutes at most. We have not so far been able to record what happens in this shade; sending a person failed spectacularly the last time, and it seems that even electronic equipment can’t really handle it.
I try to be back at the van when this happens, a brief respite from the containment suit and the proximity display, my load of sensory and recording equipment. There’s time for lunch, maybe, and some nervous joking with the military guys who drive the truck full of expensive equipment there and back to a safe distance. I know that my presence makes them a little uneasy, especially after the first attempt to ask me out, when I told Dennis or Daniel or whoever-politely, mind you-that I wasn’t interested in men. They also don’t know what to make of me because I initially volunteered for this though I am getting quite a bit of hazard pay.
I don’t talk to them too often. Just enough to not make it worse for everyone.
I’m a little bit of a pariah at the lab at the other end of this, too. I’m The Student, the one who’d actually lived in the town and whose parents worked at this school and sent her there, the one who made it out alive and relatively whole, the one who wasn’t driven mad by the things in this desolate space, or at least not permanently and disablingly so. My chaperones simply think I am mad or odd, but the scientists are afraid. I can’t fathom why, and stopped trying a while ago.
“How’s it going out there, Cait?”
“No aberrant readings, yet. EM fields are the same as usual, maybe a little high, air pressure a little bit lower, but it looks like the weather might be planning something interesting to make up for how quiet everything else is. Out for now, Andy.” I squint up at the sky around the tear, and try to judge where the sun might be, behind building clouds. Usually the direction of light is enough, but today it is ambient, scattered by a Fresnel lens of stratus clouds stretching between horizons. The timer on my suit’s display reads a little before noon, and my estimate gives me maybe an hour or two before an enormous shadow, cast by nothing, by a hole, sweeps across the town, and I shiver at this thought. One of the readouts in my periphery jumps, settles, jumps again, as if in sympathy.