Session 02 - Carter Sloane

November 2^nd, 1934 CON'T 

We both sat alone in the interview room, just me and the Father. He still looked unnerved to me and I wasn’t feeling much better. The voice of Dr Keaton faded into the asylum hallway and as soon as I thought they were far enough I blurted out what I had been holding back throughout the entire disturbing interviews. “Marcus. What the hell is going on? What do you mean you saw the Thing?!”

Marcus told me about what he thought he had seen in a stinking, sagging, water stained smear on the asylum ceiling. “A mouth”, he muttered “a toothed horrific mouth. It just appeared as I stared into the stain and when I blinked, when I looked away, it was gone.” All this talk of mouths from the patients, Henslowe and Job, must have rubbed off on Father Marcus’s subconscious. “It’s just your imagination Father”, I assured him “This place will do that to a man”, but then he reminded me that he had seen the horrid thing well before the interviews began. My mind reeled, was Marcus insane? Was I going insane?

We both agreed we had had enough of this place and got up and stepped out into the hall, besides, Keaton and his orderlies had returned. The doctor was seeing us out and we were thanking him for his time and cooperation, explaining we would likely return, when a commotion caught our attention from behind. We were just in time to see an orderly thrown heavily to the ground by a large asylum patient, who then proceeded to stomp his foot down onto the nurse’s throat.

HIS GAZE FELL ON US.

In an instant the crazed inmate was looking around for another victim, a frenzied look in his eyes. His gaze fell immediately upon us and he suddenly bounded in our direction, hands outstretched. Instinctively, I moved to intercept him and with his attention fully focused on me, I managed to sidestep his clumsy grapple and trip him as he hurtled past us. He crashed to the tiled floor and I instantly fell upon him, intent on keeping the brute down. To my surprise, Marcus was beside me, throwing his weight on the insane patient as well. All the while Dr Keaton was yelling for his nurses and begging “Fred” to stop.

Even with the two of us holding him down, Fred managed to latch onto my bare arm, his teeth sinking viciously into my flesh. Pain shot up my limb and I reacted by grappling his throat with my good arm and brutally yanking his head back until he was forced to let go. Held firmly in the headlock, with Marcus still sitting on his chest, the orderlies were able to administer enough sedatives to finally tranquilize the crazed brute.

Fred’s limp bulk was dragged from me and he was fitted into a straitjacket. Dr Keaton apologized profusely and insisted he take me to his office for treatment. Once there, Nurse Hampton administered first aid, while Father Marcus berated Keaton and his safety practises. I downed two drinks in quick secession, one for my arm and one for me. The doctor explained that the patient, Fred Calver, although periodically violent had shown vast improvements of late and had no recent episodes, that is, until today. I was going to argue a point when Nurse Hampton painfully stuck me with a large hypodermic needle, a tetanus shot, she explained. It hurt like hell.

Marcus insisted that we would be forced to put in a complaint about the incident and Keaton look concerned by this. He reluctantly gave us the details of Dr Lawrence Teak, the hospital’s administrator. We left the place then and I was relieved to be finally outside again.

ST JOSEPH'S HOSPITAL

In the car, Marcus took the wheel and said he needed to get me to a hospital; a real hospital. I emptied my hip-flask to dull the pain in my arm and the one developing in my head. We drove to St. Joseph's, a large hospital downtown, and I was soon seen to by a physician. The doctor redressed my wound and assured me I would be fine, the nurse at Joy Grove had done a competent enough job. While the doctor worked, Marcus asked him about the drugs being administered to Douglas Henslowe. The doctor confirmed that the doses of Ampule Benzedrine and Hysocine, were particularly high, and intended to sedate and suppress a patient’s memories of traumatic events.

We returned to the hotel, where we took the time to clean ourselves up and gather our thoughts. We concluded that our only real option to move forward was to drive out to the Henslowe estate and try to locate Douglas’ handbook. Before we left, Marcus rang Mrs Winston-Rogers to inform her of our progress on the hotel phone. He discussed with her the possibility of having Douglas removed from Joy Grove and out of the direct care of Dr Keaton and she promised to arrange for some independent doctors to assess the situation. We were told to continue our investigation.

THE SWAMPS OUTSIDE SAVANNAH

The drive out to the estate on Old Hope Road took longer than we anticipated. The further east we drove the worse the roads became and soon we were travelling along gravel roads surrounded by swampland. The air was oppressive and the day had turned overcast. Every tree we could see was draped with that cloying moss and often we drove in the shadow of its dangling tendrils. It took us two hours to find and finally reach the address. 

The estate lay at the end of a private road which ended abruptly in a wrought iron gate that pierced an old brick wall that encompassed the entire property. I stopped the car, but left it running, and got out to ring a bell that hung there. My arm hurt like hell. The bell tolled ominously and a cacophony of barking replied from within.

CURROTHERS

Shortly an old man and some dogs appeared at the gate, from behind the wall to the right. He looked us over warily and asked our business. I asked if he was Currothers the groundskeeper and he slowly nodded. Marcus was next to me now and we introduced ourselves as friends of Douglas, handing him the note, the old man’s demeanour changed and he opened the rusty gates and ushered us through, closing them after us when the car had past.

THE HENSLOWE ESTATE

From inside the wall we laid eyes on the estate proper, in the centre of which, sat a proud antebellum plantation home, gleaming white amongst all the green and brown of the swamp. The grounds themselves looked like they were slowly sinking into the morass that bordered all around. Old pillars stuck out of the high grasses, marking the site of some vanished building. Broken walls outlined the edges of old structures and a car lied rusting and drowned in the mud. Leaves, blown in on an old storm no doubt, were stuck to everything. The song of bugs carried out of the swamp beyond.

Currothers was dressed in a threadbare plaid shirt and big boots, his hair was a mess and he was missing teeth. He told us to call him John. His drawl made him hard to understand sometimes. Currothers was more than happy to show us around the property, commenting on the state of the place and pointing out the outlying buildings swallowed by the swamp. We noted in particular the old slave quarters and a half submerged chimney from the original house built in the 18^th century.

The conversation turned to Douglas and Currothers confided in us “Mr. Henslowe, if you’ll pardon me sayin’, has always been an odd one. Artist. Distracted by a butterfly, he’d be, and no head for the work he’d had to do. Except when he come back from the hospital the first time, in ‘32 — he was real focused then, on that book he was making. And then he’d wander the grounds with that camera of his. I’ll keep the grounds here for Mr Henslowe, should he ever come home, but I guess that I’ll die here one day, and that’s jus’ fine.”

Currothers saddened when he said “This was a great family, and long as Mother Henslowe’s still around, they still treat me right. I don’t know what that boy of hers is going to do. Day’s coming when she won’t be around no more. An’ that’ll be a sad day.”

THE HENSLOWE FAMILY CEMETERY

We walked through the small Henslowe cemetery on the way back to the house, where the ground sloped down into the watery mud at the swamp’s edge, and tombstones jutted from the weeds and reeds. Most of the memorials were modest old things, some tall stone crosses and there was even a weeping angel.

Up close the Henslowe house was streaked with mud and moss stains and had taken on a greenish tint, cast from the sullen light through the heavy leaves. Currothers asked us to wipe our feet before entering the house proper.  The ground floor was made up of spacious high-ceilinged rooms with large windows and fireplaces. There’s was a parlour, a main hall with stairwell, a kitchen, a dining room, a den, a servant’s stairwell, and three porches.

THE HOUSE LOOKED UNLIVED IN

We wandered through the house with Currothers in tow. The kitchen smelled of garbage and there was mouldy bread lying on the counter. The dining room was stiff and still and in the den, the animal heads that hung there were layered with thick dust. The parlour furniture looked like it had never been sat on.

All throughout the house, the paint was peeling, the rugs worn flat, the bulbs burnt out. The place smelled of damp plaster, stale flowers, and cat litter, accompanied by the smell of the swamp coming in through the open porch doors and windows. Currothers showed us around the rooms in quick succession, before saying, “Mother Henslowe is in her room at the top of the stairs. Try not to disturb her. I’ll be in my cottage if you need me.” 

We convinced Currothers to accompany us upstairs and he knocked at an open doorway that led into a large bedroom. Mrs Henslowe put down the book she was reading and greeted us warmly as the groundskeeper introduced us as friends of Douglas, then excused himself and departed.

OLD MOTHER HENSLOWE

Mother Henslowe was a sweet, half-senile 80-odd year old with a modest silver wig, a flowery housecoat and a lovely drawl. She certainly did not get out of bed on account of us and remained there stroking her cat, Virgil, while she pleasantly chatted.

She talked a bit about the time when she thought her Douglas was going to recover, “Back in ’32 it was, when he did come home for a few months. He was writing letters to Walter Winston and spent most of his time holed up in his study, drawing and sketching, and sometimes yelling and a hollering. It got that I was afraid of my own son. He had wounds on him, like cuts and bruises that he couldn’t explain. Then he took to wandering the property near dark, poking around the grounds with his shovel and his camera.” 

I asked her about Frank Hickering, the name Douglas had mentioned in the asylum, and recognition seemed to gleam in her eyes, but she had no idea who I was talking about. When I did query her about the money she was paying to Joy Grove, she was adamant she knew nothing about being billed for the treatment of an Edgar Job. She was convinced she was paying for her son’s treatment only. In the end we reassured her that her boy was well, for the third time, and excused ourselves. 

We made our way along the landing looking for Douglas’ room and after opening a couple of doors we found it. The simple bedroom was undisturbed and dusty. Above the single bed a portion of the badly damaged ceiling gave Marcus the creeps. Two doors led from it, one

DOUGLAS' BOOKSHELF

to a stuffy closet and the other into a study with a desk and a sizeable library. Marcus began looking through the books so I cast my eye over what was left in plain sight, a dirt caked shovel, a flashlight that needed new batteries, an empty camera, a ball of twine, a jar of bluish ink, and a brush stained with said ink. The lid of the ink jar was dried shut and the brush was dried to the point of uselessness. Douglas must have used these before his return to Joy Grove.

Marcus was determined to do a thorough search through the books and I couldn’t find anything else of relevance, so I grabbed the shovel and headed downstairs, determined to find Douglas’ notebook. I told Marcus to yell for me if he needed me and left the priest to his books.

I stopped by Currothers’ cottage, the sounds of a religious sermon resonating tinnily from within. The cottage was a cramped, cluttered place, dominated by a worn-out easy chair and a console radio, from where the sermons emanated. Currothers invited me in and his three dogs hovered about, growling. The place was all hardwoods and layered, tattered rugs. Moths beat against the bare, dim bulbs. Fishing rods hung on hooks from the walls and mounted trophy fish took up the opposite wall.

“I need to have a look out there” I said gesturing behind me, “In the swamp.” He looked at me a little puzzled. “Douglas’ book,” I said, “It’s out there somewhere. I need to find it.” He didn’t argue or complain, but hauled himself from his chair and pointed at my shoes. “In them?” he queried and handed me a pair of old boots.

GATORS

We spent a good hour or more moving out beyond the house in that damnable marsh. I was real nervous about the gators. Marcus had noticed some of their tracks earlier and Currothers told me he had lost his favourite dog a while back to one. We looked through some of the derelict buildings that were still accessible, but found nothing except mud, reeds and biting insects. I considered heading out to the solitary chimney, but Currothers shook his head. “Too deep,” he said. "Gators.” 

With the light fading quickly and the clouds gathering ominously, I returned to the house where I hauled off my borrowed boots. Before heading up stairs I stopped in at the parlour where, on an open barrel-top desk, sat a ledger in plain sight. The ledger contained the financials of the estate from the last four years. Flipping through it, I deduced clearly that the Henslowe fortune had been badly hit in recent years, with almost no attempt being made to recoup the losses. In about five years, I predicted, the Henslowes would be out of money. The most recent crippling expenses were from the costly treatments from Joy Grove Sanitarium. I think I needed to pay Dr Keaton another visit.

THE PHOTOGRAPH

I found Marcus still upstairs in Douglas’ study. He had found Frank Hickering it seemed, or rather a book by the author, Francis J. Hickering. The book was about death cults and inside he had also found a photograph. The photo was of a view from the back of the Henslowe house and on the back was a short list of people’s names. The view and the names led us both to suspect the cemetery in the yard below. 

We exited the home, armed with my shovel again, and as we headed into the graveyard, Currothers behind us, with a torch and his dogs, it began to rain. We paced amongst the headstones, searching for the names and found them one by one, the rain turning from a shower to a downpour, and soon we were drenched through.

The foundations of the headstones we sort were marked with ink, the same colour as the dried ink we had found on Henslowe’s desk. Marcus ran upstairs to investigate again and returned shortly with the ball of twine, marked as it was at intervals, with the ink itself.

It took us some time to string the twine from headstone to headstone, ensuring the ink stains aligned, the rain constantly beating down on us. The look on Currothers’ face mimicked my own thoughts. This is madness.

When we had deduced the location of Henslowe’s “map”, I grabbed the shovel and began to dig. Currothers gave me a stare and warned me that if I struck bones he would set his dogs onto us. I believed him. Luckily I did not.

THE BURIED BOX

The small watertight metal box was buried about 3 feet down in the mud. I dug it from the clawing earth with my hands, cleaned it off and carried it to the porch, where we opened it under cover from the rain and beneath the dim light.

The first thing we saw was a flat and jagged square stone decorated with a raised but worn symbol resembling a lidded eye. Beneath that was an envelope which contained a note from Douglas Henslowe to Walter Winston. Finally, beneath the letter, wrapped in plastic, was Douglas Henslowe’s notebook. When Marcus opened the notebook a small safe deposit box key, fell out from the front cover.

We thanked Currothers and took our leave, driving through the darkness and storm, headed back to Savannah in our sopping clothes. The roads were even more treacherous in the wet night and I navigated alone, for Marcus was pouring over Henslowe’s notebook by torchlight. At the hotel we ran hot baths and collapsed soundly asleep. My arm still hurt like hell.

November 3rd, 1934 

The next morning, in the light of the day, I looked at Henslowe’s letter and notebook. The letter was addressed to Walter Winston and detailed how Henslowe had destroyed all traces of the investigation apart from the notebook. It described the stone as having belonged to “E”, Echavarria we assumed, and that the safety deposit box contained all their materials, that “should be used wisely”.

HENSLOWE'S NOTEBOOK

The notebook was something else. A combination diary and sketchbook that detailed Henslowe’s memories of the investigation he undertook with Walter Winston and company in ’24, written in a mad shorthand in a jumbled stream of thoughts. It contained pages and pages of sketches, drawn presumably from Henslowe’s memory, of gruesome, violent images of figures dancing or writhing against huge, licking flames. Another disturbing theme throughout included various drawings of a multi-limbed, headless form with arms, or tentacles, or legs, ending in dripping mouths, biting off heads and tearing human figures apart. The notes also made mention of the three other members, Vince Stack, Katherine Clark and Franklin Cormac Kullman. 

Viewing the notebook had left me disturbed and a little unsettled. This had to be the ramblings of a mad man. This stuff couldn’t possibly be true? We both agreed we were done in Georgia and before we left the hotel I rang Frank Kearns to organise a flight to Los Angeles. We would be cleared to fly out that evening.

I kept the promise to myself and dragged Marcus back to Joy Grove Sanatorium to confront Dr Keaton. When Nurse Hampton stalled us at the front desk I pushed abruptly past into his office and slammed the door behind us. Keaton called for security and proclaimed his innocence, until I produced the evidence to him and he confessed that he was charging the Henslowe’s for Job’s treatment. His excuse was that no one else would pay for it and it was part of Douglas’ treatment. Marcus interjected, calming me down and told Keaton that his treatment of Henslowe was over. He was to expect an appointment with Mrs Wilson-Rogers and to cooperate with the doctors she would send. Keaton was pleased by the promise of aid for Joy Grove from the Wilson-Rogers estate.

With time to kill and my belly rumbling, we decided to take a breather and get something proper to eat. We made our way downtime to a well to do eatery, where we picked a nice place with lots of people. Lots of normal people. I needed a crowd.

We ate and read the papers, while considering our next move and discussed quietly the contents of Henslowe’s notebook and the strange square stone. When a shadow fell across our table I was surprised to see a large well to do man in a suit standing there. I was about to ask what he wanted, when he handed me a note from his inside pocket. The note read simply “Drop the CASE. GO HOME”.

When I looked up from the note to the man in the suit again, he motioned to a table close by where sat three rough looking Oriental types. One of them pulled open his jacket revealing a machete hanging there and he nodded towards a child at a neighbouring table. The Orientals were heavily tattooed all up their arms. I had failed to notice these men come in.

THE MAN IN THE SUIT

I slowly stood up and told Marcus we were leaving. He was totally oblivious and protested, but I shot him a look and he complied. We paid the bill and headed for the car, all the while the men watched us go. Showing him the note in the car, I told the priest how the men had threatened to hurt the child. Marcus began arguing that we needed to find out more about these men, when they appeared in front of us.

Grabbing my revolver from the glove box, I thrust it visibly into my pants, and I got out, telling Marcus to stay in the car as I left. I confronted the man in the suit as his Oriental goons moved out to flank me. The man ignored my questions totally and raised his head slightly to the side and let out a stream of moaning, unintelligible words. It was a strange noise and totally unnerving.

Suddenly Marcus was next to me and he was demanding to know who the men were. The suited man didn’t flinch and when he made the eerie noise again, one of the Orientals moved purposefully back into the diner. I had had enough and moved for the car, expecting the priest to follow, but the fool stood there exchanging glares with the man.

I shouted for Marcus to get in and pushed hard down on the horn to break the tension. When he still didn’t move I drove the car abruptly beside him, opened the passenger door and physically hauled him in. The priest was yelling at me to run the man down. I of course didn’t and sped away from the scene.

We shouted at each other as I drove, the adrenalin getting the better of us. I explained that I would not put innocents in danger or take on four men without the chance of any help, let alone run a man down in the street. Marcus doubted it was a man at all. By the time we had reached the airport we had calmed down.

Hours early, we thought to inquire about the men who had assailed us. We figured that the Orientals were foreigners, distinctive enough with their tattoos, and would have passed through this very airport on their arrival to Savannah. Our inquiries turned over some disturbing truths.

After some time our well-greased informant behind the airport desk informed us that the three Oriental men, whose obscure Thai names were lost to me, had traveled with a "John Smith" on an open ticket, having departed from Bangkok and having arrived in Savannah, Georgia in July of 1931. Three years ago! The ticket had been paid for by a Daniel Lowman in Bangkok and the men had been apparently staying in the Hotel Adelphi.

The cab driver informed us on the way to the Hotel Adelphi that it was in a bad part of town. I waited on the street as a lookout while Marcus went in to ask some questions of the caretaker. When he returned he had a key and I followed him upstairs. We went into John Smith’s room first. It was a typical hotel room, but it certainly didn’t have that “I have lived here for three years” look about it. We found an old telegram from Daniel Lowman ordering John Smith to watch Henslowe and Job. The room that the Thais occupied was disgusting, like animals were stabled there, not people. We were tempted to sift through the filth but the stench was over bearing.We left the Hotel Adelphi and returned to the airport ensuring we were not followed.