The Gathering

The Others

IV. Emma Kraft

The radio station had been abandoned since 1987. WARK-FM. The Voice of Arkham. Concrete bunker at the edge of town. Funding collapsed. The equipment rusted. Teenagers broke in to drink. Dead consoles. Broken glass. Urban explorers posted photographs of the decay. No one had transmitted from the frequency in thirty-nine years.

The signal was impossible.

Three amateur radio enthusiasts detected it at 2:34 AM. A clean sine wave. The old WARK frequency. Then a voice. Vocoded. German. The words came methodical and precise. Like reading a technical manual.

Two of them reached the bunker in twenty minutes. The door stood open. Lights burned inside.

A woman stood at the main console. Fifty, maybe. Maybe older. Silver hair cut short. Clothing that was neither vintage nor contemporary. Neutral. She adjusted the ancient equipment with the confidence of someone who had built it.

"Inefficient." She did not turn. "The capacitors have degraded. I will replace them."

"Ma'am, this station—"

"Has been closed thirty-nine years. Yes." She turned. Her face held no expression. Her eyes moved over them. Like a scanner. "The current date."

"July 23rd, 2026."

Two seconds. Her head tilted one degree. "Acceptable. The offset is within parameters."

"Offset from what?"

She stopped listening. Her attention turned inward. Her fingers twitched. Counting. Calculating. When she refocused something had shifted. Her posture softened. Her voice changed.

"Forgive me. I was calibrating. You have been helpful. I will not damage your equipment further."

"It's not our equipment, we just—"

"Enthusiasts. I was also an enthusiast." She smiled. The smile lasted one breath. "My name is Emma Kraft. I need to find Tindaloo. Probability point-nine-seven that I am expected."

"The café? Main Street. Won't be open until—"

"Opening time is irrelevant. The proprietor will be present." She moved toward the door. The concrete floor was cold under her feet. She paused at the threshold. "Document this. For your records. I was here. The signal was real. What happens next will be difficult to verify."

She walked out. Pre-dawn. The air smelled of wet grass and exhaust.

One enthusiast raised his phone to take a photo. The screen showed static. By the time it cleared, the woman was gone.

"What the hell was that?" his companion whispered.

"I don't know. But I'm going to that café when it opens."

"Why?"

"Because probability point-nine-seven is basically certainty. And she knew it."

V. Kamaskera Kamadan

The reading room closed at midnight. Marcus Webb worked night security. Twenty-three years in the building. He knew every creak. Every rattle of the heating. He did not know the sound at 3 AM.

Four voices. Male. Close harmony. African. Southern African, maybe. The sound came from everywhere. The stacks amplified it. The books vibrated.

He found the singer in Whateley Reading Room. One man at a table. Open volumes spread before him. Eyes closed. Mouth moving. Four voices from one throat. Marcus could see the throat working. The breath moving. One body. A choir.

The singing stopped. The man opened his eyes.

"Mr. Webb." One voice now. Measured. "I apologize for the disturbance. I was orienting myself."

"How do you know my name?"

"Your badge. Also your employment file. University archive." The man stood. Tall. His clothing might have been academic casual. Might have been vestment. The ambiguity held. "Kamaskera Kamadan. Graduate of this institution. Class of 1998. Historical Faculty."

"Almost thirty years ago."

"Yes. I have not visited since." He gestured at the books. "I was reviewing certain materials I remembered. My memory is photographic. I wished to confirm that the physical volumes matched my recollection."

Marcus approached. Old paper. Leather binding. The open books were from the restricted collection. The Necronomicon. Pnakotic Manuscripts. De Vermis Mysteriis.

"How did you get in?" Marcus asked. "Doors are locked. Windows sealed."

"I arrived." Kamadan's hands stayed at rest. "The method is difficult to explain." He closed the books. One at a time. His fingers moved with care. "I have been receiving premonitions. Warnings about others. People I have never met. Lives I am obligated to protect. Tonight, the premonitions stopped. Instead, I received a location. This library. This room. This hour."

"You're saying you were summoned?"

"I was expected." Kamadan smiled. Warm. Brief. "The university has always been a threshold. Armitage knew. Wilmarth knew. I knew it, even as a student. I simply did not expect the threshold to open for me."

He pulled out a paper. Old. Yellow. Handwriting Marcus did not recognize.

"Do you know a café called Tindaloo?"

"On Main Street. Phil Tindell's place. Good coffee."

"Yes. I believe the coffee will be incidental." Kamadan tucked the paper away. "Mr. Webb, I am going to leave now. You may report this incident or not, as you choose. If you report it, you will be disbelieved. If you do not report it, you will wonder for the rest of your life what you witnessed."

"What did I witness?"

Kamadan considered the question. His hands stayed still.

"A gathering. The beginning of one. There are others like me—others who crossed thresholds, who stayed too long, who returned changed. We are being collected. I do not yet know by whom, or for what purpose. But I intend to find out."

He walked toward the door. Paused.

"The singing. The four voices. I am the last of a lineage of Keepers. The voices are my predecessors. They have always been with me. Tonight, they were louder. I think they are as curious as I am."

He left. The smell of old books lingered. Marcus Webb did not report the incident.

Three weeks later, he saw a newspaper article about unexplained phenomena in downtown Arkham. He recognized the photo of the café called Tindaloo. In the background: four figures at a corner table. Two young women who looked like twins. A blonde in Victorian dress. A woman with a Polaroid camera. A silver-haired figure who might have been anyone.

Kamaskera Kamadan was not in the photo.

But Marcus knew, with absolute certainty, that he had taken it.