by JG Faherty
And hadn’t my father described how fire had almost destroyed the demon? The same demon we’d driven back by setting the water aflame?
I looked at the oil lanterns several of the men carried. We had no kerosene left, but perhaps the fuel in the lamps themselves….
My feet were moving before I finished the thought, as if I, too, were possessed, my body under the control of an outside force. Much like the night I followed my father into Old Innsmouth, a foolhardy valor overtook me and I wrenched the nearest lamp away from an officer who looked barely old enough to shave. He gave it up without a glance, his attention focused on beating away the clutching hands of a corpse with his baton. I leaned past him and smashed the lamp against the creature’s back.
A burst of flame enveloped the monster and it let out an inarticulate howl. As the flames rose, I pushed the lich back with all my might. It stumbled into two others and they caught fire as well, their burial clothes igniting in a flash. Pink tentacles erupted from their mouths, snapping to and fro like dozens of fleshy whips while dead flesh melted around them.
The creatures fell to the ground and their evil comrades swerved to avoid the flames. Another officer swung his lamp into the horde and cleansing fire sprayed across several corpses.
Triumphant shouts filled the air as more men hurled their lanterns into the oncoming mass of bodies. Rivers of orange and yellow sprayed in all directions and the beastly cries of the burning dead drowned out the exultations of Flannery’s troops. Some of the officers fashioned makeshift torches, wrapping strips of their own shirts around the barrels of their guns and lighting them off the burning oil. While the torchbearers drove the undead back, other men fired round after round.
Just like that, the tide turned in our favor. The men sensed it and put even more effort into their onslaught, striking the creatures with nightsticks and guns. As the fight devolved into a bizarre brawl, I took the opportunity to skirt around the edge of the throng and head for where I’d last seen my father. I caught a glimpse of a misshapen form ducking behind an outcropping of stone and I put on more speed. This time he wouldn’t escape me; I’d give him a dose of his own medicine, my revenge for all ills he’d wrought upon me through his actions.
Wary of another trap, I had my gun at the ready as I circled the gigantic boulder. Empty space and a solid wall of stone greeted me and I scanned the ground for his tracks. They stopped a few feet from where I stood. I glanced around again, peering into the shadows for any sign of a hidden tunnel or alcove. Nothing.
And then a glutinous whisper reached me.
“I warned you, Henry.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Above me!
Too late, I comprehended his deception and looked up.
He clung to the rock, dark tentacles spreading out from beneath his folded wings, a mutant octopus with a man’s body and a shark’s face. I raised my pistol but one of those appendages struck my arm before I could pull the trigger. The gun sailed into the gloom. I cried out and clutched at my bruised limb.
He launched himself at me and we hit the ground with bruising force. His much heavier mass drove the air from my lungs. Muscular coils wrapped around my wrists and ankles, pinning me in place like an insect in a museum display. His knees pressed against my chest, preventing me from drawing in much-needed air. A high, keening sound filled my head, as if a thousand mosquitoes flew between my ears.
“You should have listened to me.” My father’s voice sounded far away. The thick tones carried no trace of compassion or humanity. “The Mother’s time has come and she and I will bring forth a new age. You could have been part of it with us. Instead, you will suffer the same fate as the rest of humanity.”
A sinuous shape rose up before me. The serpentine form swayed like some transmuted cobra. Sucker-mouths opened and closed, pointed teeth gnashing in anticipation. The darkness and the spots whirling in my vision made it impossible to see the needles in the center of those deadly orifices, but I knew they were there, waiting to inject his demon seed and turn me into one of his brainless slaves. I fought to move, to scream, but his attack had robbed me of my strength, my muscles weak as sodden paper, my throat useless without air to move.
A sense of déjà vu came over me. We’d come full circle to that night in the alley, only this time I was going to die, for I had no gun to drive him off with.
Cursed Fate, she’s finally claiming what she’d been cheated out of the last time. I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable, the evil kiss of death my own father was about to bestow upon me. If only I’d ended his life that foggy night, I’d be home now, or better yet enjoying an ale with Flora and Ben. And poor Scott, who’d still be alive as well.
Time slowed and the world disappeared until there was nothing but the chorus of insects in my skull and the bass drumming of my heart. I wondered if I’d already been poisoned, the jab lost to my dulled senses. The ache in my chest blossomed into full-blown pain as my lungs conceded defeat.
Flora’s face appeared among the rainbow-colored spots and I wept in my heart, my body frozen so that I couldn’t even reach out to her, speak her name one last time.
A sensation of weightlessness came over me. Gone were the iron bands around my limbs, the tonnage upon my body. I floated, freed from my mortal constraints. This was it, then. I’d passed beyond the veil, my life stolen away. I’m sorry, Flora, I couldn’t save—
My chest heaved and my eyes flew open. I gasped and sucked in air. A thunderous roar battered my ears and red fire filled my vision. My body reacted instinctively, not so much rolling away as curling into a ball like a frightened child.
“Take that, ye dead meat.”
Flannery! I’d recognize his bellowing anywhere. Still fighting to breathe, I pushed myself farther away and saw him standing over me, a flaming torch in one hand and a mad grin beneath his mustache.
“Let’s finish this bastard, then.”
Flannery’s strong hand gripped my arm and pulled me to my knees. Dizziness threatened to send me right back down. Only terror kept me from blacking out.
My father. Where is he?
I held on to my unexpected savior while the cavern did another carnival spin around me. Other hands joined the inspector’s, helped me stand. Someone pressed cold metal against my chest.
My gun!
I clutched at it. Flannery nudged my shoulder, turning me toward the back of the alcove. My heart jumped and I barely stopped myself from pulling the trigger.
My father crouched on the ground, his membranous wings in tatters, his loathsome flesh blistered and smoking. Pain and fury filled his inhuman eyes. Two of Flannery’s men stood just out of reach of his abominable tentacles, which lashed back and forth, held at bay by the officers’ torches.
The situation was immediately clear to me. Flannery and his men had driven my father off me with fire before he could dispense his fatal injection.
And now Flannery waited for me to deliver the killing shot. Just like I’d asked him.
I raised my gun. My father saw the movement and went still, his limbs – human and not – spread out like a deflated squid washed ashore.
“Henry,” he said, his voice clotted with phlegm. “You don’t have to do this. It’s not too late. We can rule together. Father, son, and mother.”
If there’d been any doubt in me as to whether I could pull the trigger, his last word dashed it.
“You killed my mother and ruined my life. Go to hell, you evil bastard.”
My first shot took him square in the chest. He slammed back against the rock wall, tentacles writhing. I remembered the beasts in the morgue, feelers bursting from their midsections.
I fired three more bullets into him, right where that revolting creature nested within his body. After the third, he toppled over and went still.
The four of us stood there, eyeing the misshapen form. When it di
dn’t move, I pocketed the gun – Killed you with your own pistol, how’s that for justice? – and turned toward Flannery.
“We have to burn his body. And the cursed thing that started all this is still in the river somewhere.”
Flannery stared at me a moment. He must have heard the cold, emotionless tones of my voice. I know I did. I’d thought I’d feel something after putting my father in his deserved grave. Relief, joy, even just a grim satisfaction. Instead, there was nothing. Just an empty space where all my hatred had once been stored.
“Right. Let’s finish things and be gone from this damnable place. Me, I could use a good drink. Or three.” Flannery squeezed my shoulder and then motioned at the waiting officers.
“I want those explosives set along the edge of the embankment and against this wall. We’re going to seal this hellhole forever.”
He took the torches from the two men who’d been guarding my father’s corpse.
“We don’t have any oil left but I think this’ll do the trick.” Flannery held up a battered metal flask and used his thumb to knock the cap back. He took a swig and passed it to me. “One sip, and then the rest goes to him.”
I nodded and gulped a mouthful of the fiery liquid. Brandy, which surprised me. I’d pegged Flannery for a whiskey man. I went to hand it back and he shook his head.
“You can do the honors. You earned it.”
My eyebrows rose. That was twice now he’d deferred to me when it came down to disposing of my father. My long-held distrust of him left me wondering if he’d really changed his opinion of me or if he just didn’t want to soil his own hands and soul with what, in the eyes of a court, could be construed as murder.
Still, my doubts didn’t stop me from emptying the contents of the flask over the foul corpse at our feet. Flannery took the flask back, handed me a torch, and retreated a step.
I gave the body one last look, trying to find any guilt or regret inside me. I felt none; just gazing at the monstrous thing my father had allowed himself to become was more than enough to wipe out any pity that might have remained within my heart.
“Good riddance,” I whispered, and dropped the torch onto him. Ethereal blue-orange flames flowed across the body. Half-man, half-beast, all evil. And now he’d be sent to the fires of hell that he deserved.
One of the tentacles convulsed.
I didn’t even have enough time to shout a warning. Burning appendages lashed out and then I was flying through the air, my chest racked with pain and stars filling my vision. I landed on my side and heard a sound like kindling snapping. Voices cried out and then a terrible scream reverberated through the cave. Blurred figures tumbled past and a broken, twisted body in a blue uniform came to rest in front of me. Someone fired a gun.
Ignoring the stabbing knife in my ribs, I pushed myself up in time to see a flurry of black streak through the shadows toward the river. Flannery was on his knees shooting at the speeding target, but either he missed or his bullets – Like mine, damn my father! He’s tricked us yet again! – had no effect. The dark form went over the edge, limbs spread like a spider’s, evil incarnate brought to life once again. Water splashed.
Flannery turned and stared at me, his eyes wide. I knew he was thinking the same thoughts as I.
If he makes it out to sea….
We had only one chance to stop him. Seal the cavern. Bury him and his dark mother under tons of rock.
“The explosives! Now.”
Flannery’s men didn’t even wait for him to repeat my order. They rushed forward and put flame to fuse. The moment the lines ignited in a shower of sparks the officers ran in the opposite direction. The remaining members of the squad joined them, heading back the way we’d come.
One of the fuses went out.
Flannery tugged at my shoulder. “Move it, man.”
I pulled away. Would two bombs be enough? The great beast had already survived one colossal explosion, as had my father. Both of them seemed to have more lives than a damned cat.
Curse you to hell, Silas Gilman.
I grabbed a torch and dashed toward the bombs.
With every step, I expected the fuses to reach their inevitable conclusion and my life to end in an explosion of fire and fury. Yet somehow I reached the devices while there were still several inches of fuse untouched. I hefted the torch and touched it to the failed wick.
A line of flame burst to life and raced down the fuse, much faster than I anticipated. Acting on pure instinct, I picked the bomb up and threw it as far over the edge as I could.
Then I ran.
I’d only made it about a dozen yards when thunder shook the cavern, vibrating the floor so hard I fell to my hands and knees. Dust and mud rained down on me. I got to my feet and staggered forward, choking, blind and deaf, knowing I had only seconds before the other bombs exploded. Praying I didn’t run over the edge of the cliff, I closed my eyes and kept moving.
If not for Flannery, I’d likely have run right past the side tunnel and died in that cursed place, but he grabbed me and pulled me into the opening as I passed. I opened my eyes and saw his mouth moving but I might as well have had cotton in my ears. No sounds reached me except ringing bells. He pushed me forward and we ran through the blackness.
I never heard the second explosion but I knew when it happened. This time the walls and floor didn’t just shake; the entire world jumped and twisted around us. The ground disappeared and I fell at full speed onto my chest and face. Rocks battered my back and legs and I half ran, half crawled forward, terrified the entire ceiling would collapse and crush me.
A different kind of noise reached me through my deafness, more felt than heard. An all-encompassing rumbling groan that came from all directions. The hail of rocks grew heavier and I urged my body to move faster. My eyes were useless in the ebon world through which I moved. With no sense of direction I ran with my hands out before me. Several times I struck walls at full speed, scraping skin and bruising flesh but never slowing in my race against certain death. I surely cried out in pain and terror but no sounds existed in that place, just the subterranean rhythm of collapsing earth.
I collided with hard stone and something snapped in my hand. Arrows of pain shot up my arms. My feet slipped and I fell sideways, frigid water and muck soaking through my clothes.
Water?
We’d reached the sewer tunnels! Hope blossomed in my heart and gave me the energy to pull myself up and keep moving. I only went a few dozen steps before encountering another obstacle, but this time I struck relatively soft human bodies rather than unyielding rock. With a start, I realized I could see the shadowy forms of officers gathered around something. Their mouths moved but I remained deaf.
Bright light burned my eyes and I ducked my head. The bodies around me surged forward, pushing and shoving in a desperate attempt to move. My worst fear realized – we’d run into a dead end!
Peering through my fingers, I made out men suspended in midair. It took my brain a moment to comprehend what I was seeing.
They were climbing.
The ladder!
I threw myself forward but the men were pressed together too tightly for me to make any headway. The ground still trembled and boomed as thousands of tons of rock shattered and fell, providing plenty of impetus for people to climb fast.
A chunk of stone caught my shoulder a glancing blow and sent me reeling into the men ahead of me. No one paid me any heed.
Then a space opened and hands pushed me to the fore. My chest hit rough metal and I clutched at it, gripping the rusted bars. I climbed, clinging tightly as my feet slipped and caught purchase again. Up, up. My head struck the feet of the person above me but I didn’t stop. I had to be out of there!
Someone gripped the back of my coat and pulled me over the lip and I was free! I stumbled to my hands and knees and crawled away from the opening, crawled through a fores
t of legs until I reached open space. I rolled over onto my back and gazed upon the gray sky. Never had Innsmouth’s fog been such a welcome sight.
We did it. We defeated the beast!
With that, my eyes closed and oblivion claimed me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I woke on my own bed. There was an awful moment of déjà vu where I felt sure my father had just carried me back from his lair, only this time he’d planted one of his demon eggs in my belly.
Then the events of the previous evening returned in all their horrific glory.
But we did it! We put an end to him. To both of them.
Those words eased my soul as I forced my stiff, aching muscles to move. Every piece of me felt bruised and battered. It had taken Flannery and another man to help me into a carriage after they revived me with smelling salts. From there we’d gone to the stationhouse, where a surgeon attended to the wounded, including me. A dislocated finger and at least two cracked ribs, but I’d been lucky compared to the ones who never made it back.
Once I’d been wrapped and bandaged, Flannery had two officers escort me to my house, where they managed to keep me on my feet long enough to get me inside and onto the nearest couch. How I got from there up the stairs to my bedroom I couldn’t remember. I hadn’t even removed my shoes before collapsing onto my bed.
Now I made my way to the bath, where I stripped off my clothes, which stunk to high heaven of decayed flesh and despicable fluids, and tossed them into a corner to be disposed of later.
After scrubbing myself with soap and cold water, I took a closer examination of my injuries. Several cuts on my arms, hands, and forehead. A good dozen welts. A fair-sized bruise around one eye. Thankfully, nothing that would require stitches. All in all, I looked like I’d gone ten rounds with a boxing champion.
A second washing removed most of the offal stench from my body and hair. I considered heading into town to treat myself to a public bath, but my strength was already waning and the ache in my ribs rapidly advancing to real pain. I decided that the best cure would be to spend the day in bed, so I slipped into a nightshirt, stripped the befouled sheets off the mattress, and lay down again.
