Graham Masterton: The Manitou

"What is it?" said Lieutenant Marino hoarsely. "What are they?"

"Exactly what they look like," said Singing Rock. "They are the parasites that accompany the Great Old One. In a spiritual sense, he is verminous, and these are the vermin. It looks as if Misquamacus is using the hospital building itself as a gateway to summon the Great Old One, and that's why they're pouring down the walls like that. I expect they're assembling on the tenth floor. After that — well, who knows?"

Lieutenant Marino didn't say a word. He simply handed his computer code card to Singing Rock, and pointed to the number on it. He seemed to be shocked and numbed, but then we all were. Even the newspaper reporters and the television crew were silent and apprehensive, and we stared at each other with the haunted eyes of men who are trapped in a sinking submarine.

Singing Rock went into a small side office and picked up the phone. I stayed with him while he dialed, and I could hear the ringing tone, and the click of the recorded answering machine. Squinting closely at Lieutenant Marino's card, Singing Rock read off a series of numbers, and waited to be put in touch with Unitrak.

"What are you going to do?" I asked him. "How can you tell a computer that you need some help from its manitou?"

Singing Rock lit himself a small cigar, and puffed out smoke. "I guess it's going to be a question of using the right language," he said. "And also persuading the programmers that I'm not totally crazy."

There was another click, and a matter-of-fact WASPish voice said: "Unitrak. Could you state your business please?"

Singing Rock coughed. "I'm speaking for Lieutenant Marino of the New York Police Department. Lieutenant Marino would like to know if Unitrak has a spiritual existence."

There was a silence. Then the voice said: "What? Would you repeat that?"

"Lieutenant Marino would like Unitrak to state if it has a spiritual existence."

There was another silence. Then the voice said: "Look — what is this? Some kind of a joke?"

"Please — just ask the question."

There was a sigh. "Unitrak is not programmed to answer questions like that. Unitrak is a working computer — not one of your fancy university poem-writing gadgets. Now, if that's all?"

"Wait," said Singing Rock urgently. "Please ask Unitrak one important question. Ask it if it has any data on the Great Old One."

"The Great What?"

"The Great Old One. He's a — kind of a criminal ringleader."

"What division? Fraud, homicide, arson — what?"

Singing Rock thought for a moment, then he said: "Homicide."

"There was a silence. The voice said: "You're spelling 'Great' as in 'Great Grief?'"

"That's correct."

"Okay — hold on, then."

Through the receiver, I could hear distant whirrs and clicks as Singing Rock's question was punched on to cards. Singing Rock smoked and fidgeted, and in the background we could hear the terrible sound of that spooky wind. The floor stirred again, and Singing Rock covered the mouthpiece with his hand and whispered: "I don't think this is going to work. It won't be long now, and the Great Old One will be let through the gateway."

I hissed: "Is there anything else we can do? Any other way of stopping him?"

Singing Rock said: "There must be another way. After all, the ancient wonder-workers were able to seal the Great Old One in his own domain. But even if I knew what it was, I don't expect I'd be capable of doing it."

As we waited for Unitrak to come up with an answer, I began to feel an odd kind of nausea. At first I thought it was the swaying and rippling of the hospital floor, but then I realized it was a smell. A ripe, fetid, revolting smell that reminded me of a frozen rabbit I had once bought which turned out rotten. I sniffed, pulled a face, and looked at Singing Rock.

"He's coming," said Singing Rock, without apparent emotion. "The Great Old One is coming."

I heard shouting outside, and I left Singing Rock holding on to the telephone and went to see what was going on. There was a crowd of doctors and nurses around the CBS camera. I pushed my way through to Jack Hughes and asked him what had happened. He looked pale and ill, and his hand was obviously hurting him a great deal.

"It was one of the cameramen," he said. "He was holding on to his camera, and it seemed like he just collapsed. He was shaking like he'd had an electric shock, but it isn't that."

I struggled forward toward the cameraman. He was young and sandy-haired, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt. His eyes were closed and his face was contorted and white. His bottom lip kept shuddering and curling in a strange kind of snarl. One of the interns was rolling up his sleeve to inject him with tranquilizer.

"What's wrong?" I said. "Is he having a fit?"

The intern carefully inserted the hypodermic into the cameraman's arm and squeezed the plunger. After a few moments, the facial spasms and the shuddering seemed to die away, and apart from a few isolated twitches, the cameraman began to calm down.

"I don't know what it is," said the intern, shaking his head. He was a callow young doctor with carefully combed hair and a round, freshly poured face. "It looks to me like some kind of severe psychological shock. Probably a delayed reaction to everything that's been going on here."

"Let's get him out of here and try to fix him up more comfortably," called Dr. Winsome. Three or four of the doctors went for a trolley, while the rest of us, frustrated and frightened, dispersed in awkward silence to wait for whatever manifestation was going to make its presence felt on us next. I heard Lieutenant Marino talking angrily on the telephone to his reinforcements, and it was clear that they were still having trouble gaining access to the building. Mingled with the moans of Misquamacus's wind, I could hear more sirens howling in the streets outside, and I could see spotlights flickering against the windows. In an hour or two, it would start to grow light, if we survived long enough to see it. The putrid stench of the Great Old One was thick in the air now, and two or three people were retching. The temperature kept fluctuating from stifling heat to uncomfortable cold, as if the whole building had a raging and uncontrollable fever.

I went back to Singing Rock. He was scribbling down a series of numbers on the corner of a magazine, and he looked intense and anxious. I waited for him to finish, then said: "Do you think you can make it?"

Singing Rock examined the figures carefully. "I'm not sure, but there's something here. The computer programmer said that the machine had no police records on anyone called the Great Old One, and he combed back for ten years through every known criminal alias. But Unitrak did respond with a message and a series of numbers."

"What do they say?"

"Well — the programmer translated the message for me, and it says Call Procedure Follows Promptly. Then we get the numbers."

I wiped my forehead with my stained handkerchief. "Does that help? Does that mean anything?"

"I think so," said Singing Rock. "At least Unitrak answered. And if it answered — well, maybe it knows that we want."

I pointed to the numbers. "You mean these numbers tell you how to summon its manitou?"

"Possibly. We don't know until we try."

I sat down wearily. "Singing Rock, it all sounds too far-fetched for me. I know what I've done and I know what I've seen, but don't tell me that some publicly funded computer is going to tell us how to raise its own spirit. Singing Rock, it just doesn't sound sane. "

Singing Rock nodded. "I know, Harry, and I don't think I believe it any more than you do. All I can say is that the message from Unitrak is here, and that these numbers do tally with the appropriate ritual for summoning the manitous of manmade objects. In point of fact, it's one of the easiest of rituals. I was taught it by the medicine man Sarara, of the Paiute, when I was only twelve years old. I learned to raise the manitous of shoes and gloves and books and all kinds of things. I could make a book turn all its pages, without touching it at all."