ELDRITCH HORRORS: DARK TALES

Rest in Peace, Jeremy Crandall

by Gary Hill

(Excerpt pp. 97-98, Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales)

“There’s something wrong here. This can’t be right,” he muttered to himself. Then he noticed my questioning gaze. “No, see, this date, 1954—No one even knew about the effects of these chemicals in the atmosphere then, so why would they be monitoring the atmosphere and the effects? I’ve never seen data like this dating so far back. And this is weird, too. These are projections. See, look—” He pointed at at a section of the chart, “This shows projected amounts of chemicals like methane in the air with target and actual, leading up to the date of the report. Then, it shows projections going all the way to 2075. I don’t understand why anyone would have created something like this, let alone how they knew to measure these things back then.”

We started digging further through the box. Many of the papers in there were personnel files, business statistics, supply inventories and requisitions, but we also found more of these kind of reports. There was one from every month of that year. And as we dug back through the papers we found that there were similar reports for every month going back all the way to 1946. One other odd thing we noticed was that all of the reports had been sent to a governmental agency—one of which neither of us had ever heard. It was an agency called ‘Transmigration Relations Project Administration.’ The address put it right on Capital Hill in Washington, DC. This surprised both of us. Clearly we had something big in our hands. We gathered all of the papers we had found, John made copies of them for me, and I told him that I would hold off on having him explain this stuff until I had checked out a few things. This was fine by him, as it was he was a little baffled by our discoveries anyway. I asked him to give my love to his wife Lori and their kids, and made my way back to my office. That was the last time I ever saw my friend.

When I got back to my office it was nearly 4:00; 7:00 on the East Coast. I knew that no one I wanted to talk with would be in. I decided to call it a night. I made a few notes and headed home. I was getting up to leave when I glanced at the stack of papers from AtmosResearch on my desk, and something told me that I shouldn’t leave them in the office. So I put them back into my briefcase and went home.

I was enthusiastic that the story might become a project with Pulitzer Prize potential, but until we had a clearer picture of what this was all about, I wouldn’t have a good night’s sleep. So although I did fall asleep, it was a light, disturbed sleep.

The next morning I was on the phone to several people I knew in DC. I had them looking for information on this ‘Transmigration Relations Project Administration.’ I also checked in at the department of public records here in LA, looking for company records on Air Level Monitoring Agency. That part was fairly easy. The company had been formed in 1945, right after the end of World War II. It had been based in the industrial part of the city, but had offices all over the globe. The board of directors included several former military leaders from all of the countries that had been the allied forces in the war. In 1974 they ceased operations, and all of their assets were acquired by AtmosResearch. I decided to try to get in touch with some of the people who had been on the board. I was curious as to how they had the foresight to monitor this activity.

(...)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Paul S. Kemp:
One Thousand and One Words

W. H. Pugmire
Recompense of Sorrow (brand-new Sesqua Valley!)

Ron Shiflet
Out of the Frying Pan

Don Webb
The Jest of Yig

Gary Hill
Rest in Peace, Jeremy Randall

Simon Bleaken
Ashanna's Whispers

Leigh Blackmore
The Return of Zoth-Ommog

Thomas Strømsholt
Devouring Darkness Hovers

Benjamin Szumskyj
A Haunting From Beyond

Linda Navroth
The Specimen

Dan Clore
The Dying God

Blake Wilson
The Door to Nowhere

Paul Mackintosh
The People of the Island

Henrik Sandbeck Harksen
The Bibliophile