In 1924, COMMISSIONER CARPE of the Vermont State Police mourned the death of his daughter under mysterious circumstances. The official report stated that the girl had died of suicide by drowning at a woodside lake in the Green Mountain National Forest, but the body had never been recovered. The loss turned Carpe into a wreck for months, and it was only by the good graces of the governor that he retained his post. He was consoled by his friend DETECTIVE RYAN, a private investigator whom Carpe had hired to look into his daughter’s death—or disappearance.
As Ryan conducted his investigation, it became apparent that something was afoot in the Green Mountain National Forest. There were reports of mysterious ailments among the local residents of Somerset Village, an old logging community near Somerset Reservoir. The local water supply was suspect. The Vermont Water Board had launched a geological survey of old mineral deposits, allegedly left by a meteor that had fallen in the area long ago. But Ryan suspected that it might have something to do with the water supply.
The new head of the Vermont Water Board, Lucas Strong, was an old acquaintance of the commissioner. In June 1925, Carpe was roused from his melancholy when Lucas summoned him to his office in the town of Bennington. Lucas’s daughter, Jane, had been best friends with Carpe’s departed child. Jane was kidnapped a few days ago by criminals who were hiding in the Green Mountain National Forest. An attempt by local police officers to exchange her for ransom money was thwarted. Two of the criminals brought the girl to the meeting place, but they were spooked by something, leading to an exchange of gunfire. The criminals were injured, several of the officers were wounded, and two officers were killed. Lucas begged the commissioner to look into the situation personally and bring his daughter home safely.
Carpe summoned Ryan and together they formed a small posse with a few more old friends who would be helpful in their mission: a physician named DR. HIPP O. TRAY and a psychiatrist named PROFESSOR AARON BECK. Hippotray was a field medic and also an amateur hunter, while Beck was Lucas Strong’s personal therapist. With luck, Beck would be able to calm the nerves of the kidnapped girl when they eventually found her. Unbeknownst to the others, Beck also knew that Lucas was hiding something about the geological survey, though patient confidentiality prevented him from revealing his suspicions to his companions.
Day 1, Saturday June 20, 1925
The posse set out from Bennington and headed to the site where the police had last encountered the kidnappers. They dressed in browns and greens to better blend in with the woodland surroundings. From there, they began tracking a trail of blood and prints left by the criminals. Unfortunately, none of them were proficient trackers. Beck tried to take the lead, but he soon strayed from the group and found himself alone in the woods. Suddenly, he was shot at by a rifle, the bullet grazing his left shoulder and ruining the fabric of his suit—an heirloom left behind by his dear departed father. The incident unnerved him, but he kept his wits about him and called out to his companions. It turned out that the assailant was a hunter accompanied by a 14-year-old boy, who introduced themselves as Alistair Lawson and his son George. They had mistaken Beck for a dear.
The father and son had come from Boston with their neighbors to go hunting in the Vermont wilderness. Their neighbors had gone back to town early after several fitful nights of bad dreams. Ryan was suddenly reminded of the reports from Somerset—many of the sick residents had also reported nightmares. Alistair was remorseful for nearly shooting the professor dead. When he heard about the party’s mission, he offered to help them track their quarry.
Together with their new companions, the group plunged deeper into the forest. The land around them was eerily quiet. The doctor recalled the rumors that he had heard about these woods—how the local hunters avoided certain areas where there was an unusual dearth of game despite the abundant flora, food and water for wildlife. While Alistair tracked the trail of blood, Ryan’s keen eyes noticed a body far from their trail. The group went to investigate and discovered the remains of a young man. He wore overalls splattered with paint and had a vicious knife wound in his side. Through a quick examination, the doctor learned that the young painter had been fatally stabbed on the previous day and had wandered through the forest before succumbing to his injury. The investigators were loath to leave the corpse unattended, but the urgency of their current mission convinced them to leave the scene.
They continued until nightfall and then set camp. Professor Beck, perhaps wanting to feel more useful, offered to take the first watch while the others rested. In the night, Beck was disturbed by the noises he discerned. Far in the distance, he heard the faint sound of a truck. Later, he heard a wild volley of gunfire, still far away but a little closer, Beck suspected. A moment later, he heard a frightful scream, this time coming from his own camp. It was Carpe, rousing all of a sudden from a terrible dream. And immediately after the scream rang out into the night, the gunfire in the distance ceased.
The commissioner had experienced a terrible dream. He saw a monster in a black, polluted lake, and there were dark figures all around him. George the hunter’s boy also had a nightmare. In his dream, the boy saw a dilapidated cabin from which dark figures emerged. “They” seemed to be calling out to him in the dream and beckoning him to follow, but George was frightened. He wanted to escape from the forest as his neighbors did. Now, Alistair was of a mind to leave the posse so that he might take his son to safety, but he felt beholden to finish what he had started. He offered to help the posse seek out their next location, but only for the rest of the day. Alistair and his son would depart for Bennington before nightfall.
The group decided to diverge from the trail of blood and follow the sound of the truck that Beck had heard in the night. Beck suspected that it may have something to do with Lucas Strong’s geological survey, and regardless of whether it would lead them closer to discovering the location of Lucas’s daughter, Beck’s curiosity compelled him to seek out the source of the noise. The sound of a truck from such a great distance implied that it was a very large vehicle, carrying equipment far heavier than needed for a simple geological survey.
Day 2, Sunday June 21, 1925
Unfortunately for the party, Alistair was not up to the task of tracking the source of a sound he had not himself heard, with no trail or tracks to go by. He led the party astray until they arrived at an old decrepit cabin, not unlike the one that George had seen in his dream. In fact, so closely did it resemble that haunting edifice from his vision, that George began to shudder in fear. Professor Beck, only more the first to muster up the courage of all his companions, or compelled by his inquisitiveness, approached the cabin.
Almost immediately, he was fired upon by the cabin’s hidden occupant. A rifle bullet grazed his right shoulder and tore the fabric of his suit. Beck was appalled by what had happened to his precious heirloom, but there was nothing to do for it now. He called out to the person hiding within the cabin, but all he heard were fearful shouts of “Get away you monsters! You won’t take me too, not like you did that girl!”
The party determined that they had found at least one of the kidnappers, though Jane was clearly not with him. They still needed to approach him to get some answers that might lead them to their quarry, but the man was clearly distressed and no amount of reasoning would convince him to abandon his fortress, where he was nigh unapproachable without great risk. The party decided to fire upon the cabin with their revolver from all sides, announce themselves as members of the authorities, and convince him to step out in an intimidating fashion. Though they failed to scare him into submission, the man was ultimately convinced that they were not whatever monsters he had feared, but officers of the law. The man stepped out, wielding his rifle and pointing it ahead. As soon as he was within sight, Carpe shot at the man’s hand, causing him to recoil and drop his weapon. Swiftly, the rest of the party kicked away the rifle and laid hands upon the man, subduing him.
A quick interrogation by Ryan yielded mostly mad ravings with occasional bouts of clarity. Through the moments of lucidity, the party determined that the man’s name was Eugene Clayton and he was one of the kidnappers as suspected. He was the source of the gunfire that Beck had heard on the previous night. He claimed to have been firing upon a host of pale figures that glowed with a queer green light. But no matter how many bullets he put into them, the creatures kept on coming. It was only when they heard a scream coming from the distance that they departed from the cabin and left Eugene alone.
Meanwhile, Carpe had discovered an old Civil War era musket and an aged leather-bound journal in the corner of the room. Strangely, neither seemed to be covered with dust or cobwebs as might be expected from such artifacts. Rather, it was as if someone had brought these relics here purposefully. In fact, an examination of the cabin itself revealed that it had been inhabited recently but a group of occupants, before Eugene had taken him residence therein. Furthermore, Carpe’s cursory reading of the journal revealed that it was written by a man named Joseph Turner, a captain of the Union army who had led a group of deserters into hiding, only to be drawn to this forest by dreams that seemed to beckon him thither. More disturbingly, the journal made mention of a “god” known as “Gla’aki” that had called to Turner and promised him everlasting life in exchange for his service in an important task: free the “god” from its crystal prison so that it might ascend once more to the stars.
While the other examined the cabin and its contents, the doctor had been keeping watch outside the cabin. As the sun started to set, the doctor began to see shadows of dark figures emerging from the shadows, encircling the perimeter of the change. There were far more of those figures than the party, even with the hunter, his son, and the kidnapper combined. The doctor counted dozens of shadows approaching menacingly from the darkness. He fled into the cabin to rejoin the rest of his party. Everyone readied their revolvers and rifles, expecting a horde of monstrous figures to assail their fortress. But the attack did not come. Instead, a cold and hollow voice rumbled outside, beckoning them to step out and join the figures.
Intrigued by the invitation, Beck stepped outside the cabin, careful not to look into the faces of those creatures. Hoping to buy some time for his companions, he bravely offered himself up to them if only they would let the others go. The creatures accepted his offer and took him away, leaving the rest of the party alone in the cabin.
On the following day, the place where the sound of the truck came from at last. It was the base of operations for the geological survey team sent by Lucas Strong, which consisted of several buildings. The place appeared utterly deserted at first glance. But upon examining the buildings, the party discovered Jane Strong and two others being held captive. Jane appeared to be unharmed, and she was most relieved to see Carpe, her father’s friend, having arrived to rescue her. Her fellow captives were amateur painters who were part of a group of artists that had been hiking through the forest, one of whom had somehow wound up as the corpse that the party had seen earlier.
Fearing that the captors might return, the party made haste and escaped from the premises, leaving the forest and heading toward the town of Bennington. In their haste, they had forgotten all about poor Aaron Beck, remembering him only when they arrived in town. They were relieved to be reunited with him on the following day, when he was escorted to town by a member of the geological survey team, seemingly unscathed.
Epilogue
Little did the survivors realize that Beck had been taken to the lake, where he was bound alongside numerous other victims, to become hosts for the consciousness of Gla’aki, just as Joseph Turner and his soldiers, and now the geological survey team, had been converted. The members of the survey team had used industrial equipment to dig up the crystal prison that had fallen centuries ago, drawing it up from the bottom of the lake. A queer lake hummed from beneath the surface of the lake, and then the sound of glass shattered rang in the air above the water. Then out of the putrid waters of that stagnant lake, there arose the hideous manifestation of Gla’aki, tentacles reaching, each ending with a hideous eye surrounded by vicious spines. But Gla’aki spoke to Beck in the voice of his lost parents—his mother who had died in a tragic accident, and his father who had perished as a result of electroshock therapy—promising their return and everlasting life for the whole family should Gla’aki be freed. From that moment on, Beck became a servant of Gla’aki and dedicated himself to destroying the remaining fragments of the crystal prison scattered throughout the world. For only then might he be reunited with his parents forever.
Investigators
- State Police Commissioner Carpe, lawman (이정은)
- Detective Ryan, private investigator (김도영)
- Doctor Hipp O. Tray, physician (김상희)
- Aaron Beck, psychiatry professor (강우호)