Arkham Horror- The Deep Gate

by Chris A. Jackson

  “Unless it needs me to fulfill that prophecy!” Silas gritted his teeth against the call of the sea that sang through his bones. “Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.” He closed his eyes and saw the grinning teeth of the old woman in Innsmouth. “I feel like if I go down there, I’ll never come back.”

  “Silas, I was the one who discovered this passage, not you.” Abigail thumped a finger to the text, and Silas would have sworn the figures in the margin writhed. “I asked you to help me, but I also asked about a dozen others. Everyone else thought I was crazy, and you believed me. That’s not a trick. That’s being human: a real, honest-to-God human being willing to lay down his life for someone he only met two days ago! That’s why you’re here—not because of some curse.”

  He opened his mouth but didn’t have anything to say. Her trust in him, her faith in his humanity, cut through his fear like a knife.

  “Besides,” she continued, “if that revolting old woman in Innsmouth tried to stop us from coming out here, we have to be on the right track!”

  Silas swallowed and nodded. She had a point. “All right.” He flexed his big hands, looked down at his scarred palms, and took a breath. “All right, then, come on. I need to get the mast and boom back in place, and show you how to work the compressor and lift.”

  Opening the engine compartment, he threw the lever that diverted power from the gearbox to the winch. An hour of dangerous labor later, the mast and boom were once again up, their cables cinched down tight. Finally, he stepped out on deck to show Abigail how to work the controls.

  “It’s just like a car. Pull the clutch and shift up or down to spool the line in or out. If there’s tension on the line, and you pull the clutch, it’ll spool out, just like a car coasting downhill.”

  “Okay.”

  “The compressor’s simple.” He jerked the pull start and it sputtered to life. “Keep gas in the tank there and it’ll run forever. Just don’t kink the air hose.”

  “Right.”

  “There’s also a telephone setup so we can talk.” He pointed to the simple box propped against the side of the cabin out of the rain. “You can tell me if anything goes wrong, and I can tell you what I’m seeing.”

  “Well, that’s a help.” She experimented with the phone as he shrugged into the heavy breastplate and massive boots.

  Silas clomped back inside the cabin and opened the locker, grabbed his heavy knife and clipped it to the belt of his dive suit. The light from Innsmouth lighthouse swept over the boat to glint on cold blue metal in the back of the locker.

  Better safe than sorry. Silas pulled the Remington from its bracket and a box of shells from the shelf. “You know how to use this?”

  Abigail looked at the shotgun dubiously. “In theory, but why would I need a firearm?”

  Silas nodded to the lighthouse as he broke open the breech and checked the loads. “Someone might see us from the lighthouse. If they do, and Old Man Marsh hears that there’s someone out here, they might send a boat out to run us off.” He propped the Remington in the corner just inside the cabin door. “If you have to use it, just remember to hold it tight against your shoulder and don’t aim below our waterline. Double-aught buckshot’ll put a hole right through her hull, and then we’ll be in a real pickle. Now, help me with the helmet.”

  Abigail bit her lip and nodded. “Sure.”

  They muscled the heavy helmet over his head and sealed it to the suit, but Silas left the faceplate open for now. He picked up the powerful dive lantern and briefly flipped the switch to check the battery while Abigail hooked the lift line to the eye bolt on the top of the helmet. He shuffled to the rail and sat down. With weights, boots, and helmet, the rig weighed about two hundred pounds, so he couldn’t go anywhere fast. Once in the water, he’d be able to move easier.

  “Check the telephone.”

  “Right.” Abigail cranked the handle and spoke into the microphone. “Can you hear me?”

  Her voice crackled in his ear. “Yes, I hear you fine.” His own crackly voice came out of the telephone speaker. “Okay, we’re in about sixty feet of water, and there’s two hundred feet of hose coiled on deck. I’ll have to search around, so if I come near the end, just let me know.”

  “Right.” She pointed to his nose and smiled weakly. “Don’t forget the faceplate.”

  “I’d be in for a shock if I did.” He closed the plate and dogged it down tight. The outside world vanished from his senses. No howling wind, slashing rain, lapping water, only the echo of his fear and the siren call pulling him into the depths. Just do it, Silas. He adjusted the air flow, and said, “Okay, I’m ready. Lift me up. I can’t climb over the rail in this rig.”

  “Okay.” She worked the lever that engaged the lift, and he felt the weight leave his shoulders. The straps of the suit pulled him up, and he braced a foot against the rail to keep from swinging.

  The familiar tasks of getting everything ready had settled his nerves, but now that it came to actually descending into that inky blackness, terror rose up like bile from his gut.

  “Be careful,” Abigail’s voice crackled.

  “Careful?” Silas barked a nervous laugh, marshaled his flagging courage, and pushed off the railing. With nothing beneath him but water, he said, “Down.”

  “Down,” came her reply.

  Silas descended into blackness.

  He flipped on the light, but the beam vanished into the hazy distance no matter which way he directed it. He turned his head inside the helmet, but with only one eye he couldn’t see out the back left porthole. There was also no way to look straight down with the tension of the line keeping him upright. Cold crept up his legs as the suit pressed in on him like a chill embrace. He adjusted the air flow, yawning to pop his ears, and the chill receded.

  “Forty…fifty…sixty…” Abigail’s crackly voice called off the marks on the winch line, his only link to the world of air and light.

  His boots hit something, and he staggered as the weight of the helmet came down on his shoulders, less than it was on the surface, but still heavy. “Stop. I’m on the bottom.” He shone the light around. Silt billowed up around his legs in an obscuring cloud. A few sleepy fish and one lobster skittered among the algae-covered rocks. Nothing unusual. “I can see only about twenty feet. The water’s all churned up from the storm. I’m going to start walking a big circle, so give me some slack.”

  “How much?” He could barely hear her over the roar of the surf on the reef and his pounding heart.

  “Twenty feet at a time.” Silas began trudging forward. “I’ll walk out until it comes taut then do a circle.” His shuffling steps stirred up even more silt, obscuring his view. “If I don’t find anything, you give me twenty more and I do it again.”

  “Right.”

  Silas shuffled along until the lift line pulled him up short. He shone the light around, twisting back and forth in the cumbersome suit for a better view. With only one eye, he had to turn his whole body to look to his left. The inky blackness yielded nothing but indistinct shapes that flicked at the limit of his vision. Just fish attracted to the light. He swallowed the lump in his throat, turned to his left, and continued along, all but blind.

  Come to us…

  “What?” Silas stopped and rapped his helmet. “What did you say?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” came Abigail’s reply.

  “I thought—” He jerked to a stop as his light reflected off something silvery, snapped his head around inside the helmet to look, but it was gone. His heart hammered in his ears, his mouth suddenly dry. Silas swung the light around frantically. Nothing. “Talk to me, Abigail. I…need to hear a voice.”

  “Oh, okay. You’re between the boat and the reef. You didn’t walk in a circle. You walked straight toward the reef.”

  “I did?” He turned left to walk a circle.

  No…come to us…come home.

  He stopped. The voice wasn’t Abigail, and turning his back on it felt like pressing a kni
fe into his own flesh. His legs refused to take a step. He turned back and shone the light, but still there was nothing there.

  “Give me some more slack, Abigail. I can…feel it. It’s calling me.”

  “Silas? You sound strange!”

  He shook his head sharply. Sweat dripped off his nose. “I’m okay.” He wasn’t okay, not by a long shot. “Talk to me. Hearing your voice helps. Just give me slack.”

  “Okay.”

  The line slackened and Silas trudged forward, sweeping the light back and forth. Nothing…

  Abigail’s voice crackled, “Ninety feet…one hundred…”

  When she reached one hundred fifty, a dark wall of riveted iron loomed out of the blackness.

  Silas stopped. “I found something!” He shone his light up the wall to illuminate a porthole and a railing high above, bending his back to look up through the helmet’s portholes. “A shipwreck. A freighter, maybe.” He started toward it, but the line jerked him to a stop. “Slack.”

  “Okay, slack.” The tension eased. “Be careful, Silas!”

  Careful…right. Silas gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering and shuffled forward. The light illuminated a jagged hole in the side of the ship, the thick iron bent inward. Something glittered within, a flick of motion, silvery, then nothing. “There’s a hole in the hull. She must have struck a mine during the war.”

  The air hose yanked him back hard, nearly toppling him backward.

  “Slack on the hose! Is the boat drifting?”

  “I am giving slack, and no, I don’t think we’ve moved at all. You’re taking more air hose than rope. I don’t…” Her voice crackled and started to break up.

  “Abigail?” It didn’t make sense that he was taking more hose than rope unless the hose had gotten hooked on a rock or something. He grabbed the hose and pulled, struggling toward the ship.

  Yes…come home…

  Abigail’s voice crackled. “…don’t know…something…with the…”

  “Bad connection! You’re breaking up! Crank the phone again!” The hose went slack, and he nearly fell with the release. He lunged forward in the cumbersome suit, the dark hole yawning in his light like a toothed maw. Another flicker of silver within.

  “Something’s pulling…end of the…to do!”

  “What?” Silas tugged on the hose, lurching forward.

  Yes…come…come home…

  “Just a bit more!” Two more steps and he reached the gaping hole.

  Grasping the edge, Silas leaned in and raised his lamp to shine inside. The light scattered a school of small fish. Larger shapes filled the space beyond, a mass of pale bodies vague through the hazy water. They rolled and roiled in a confusing swarm.

  Come… Come to us… Come home.

  A shape darted forth into the light, and Silas’s breath caught in his throat. Bulging eyes and pointed translucent teeth, human hands with webbed fingers and claws. He panned the light, illuminating hundreds of the grotesque faces, all staring at him.

  Come to us!

  The call reverberated through his skull, drowning his panic, grasping his very soul, pulling him in, impossible to resist.

  Carefully grasping the edge of jagged metal, Silas hauled himself up onto the edge. A piercing, crackling scream sang in his ears, but he ignored it. He scrabbled over the edge into the wreck, finally answering the siren call.

  Come home… Home.

  Something jerked Silas backward so hard he cracked his forehead on the helmet. As he fell backward through the jagged hole, the beam of his light swept up into the rusty iron frames of the wreck’s hold. Something larger loomed there, something inconceivable, huge and writhing, eyes as big as platters, tentacles with clawed tips. At the center of the nightmare, a maelstrom of darkness within darkness swallowed his light like a hungry maw.

  Then he was lying on his back, a full ten feet from the opening. Before he could even try to get up, he was dragged back over the rough rocks then jerked upright toward the surface. A scream crackled from the telephone. Abigail? She was hauling in the lift line. Something must have happened.

  Silas surged from the water and into the air, his helmet clanging against the boom pulley as he jerked to a stop. A deafening boom split the air with a flash like lightning.

  Dangling like a side of beef in a butcher shop, unable to get down, Silas played his light over the deck. Abigail sat against the cabin bulkhead, the smoking Remington in her lap. Some feet away, a shape lay sprawled on the deck. Abigail stared wide-eyed at the thing, trembling, her finger still tight on the triggers of the shotgun.

  “Abigail!” he yelled, but either the phone line was out, or she couldn’t hear it. He considered cutting the lift line, but with the boom out over the water, that would send him plunging back down into the depths. Instead, he worked the dogs of his faceplate and swung the tiny window open. “Abigail!”

  She jerked and looked up at him as if stunned that he’d somehow levitated into the air. Realization dawned on her face, and she scrambled up. Her hands shook as she put aside the smoking shotgun and worked the crank to swing the lift boom inboard. As she eased the clutch and lowered Silas gently to the deck, he noticed that the engine wasn’t running. The sudden stop of the lift must have killed it.

  “Silas!” Abigail helped him with the helmet, her face pale and dripping in the rain. “Silas what is that! It climbed up your air hose! It tried to…to grab me!”

  Finally, the helmet came off and he could see. One of the creatures he’d seen inside the wreck lay splayed on the deck, a smoking hole as big as Silas’s fist in its chest. Once free of the cumbersome suit, he crossed the deck and knelt by the dead creature.

  “I don’t know what it is, Abigail, but…”

  Half-fish, half-human, it reminded him of the illustrations in Abigail’s tome. My nightmares… Its thick lips, wide mouth, bulging eyes, and sloped forehead bore an unsettling resemblance to the old woman in Innsmouth. The main Marsh family… Silas poked the cold, scaly flesh with a finger and shuddered. He couldn’t deny what he’d seen in the wreck now, not with the proof lying before him. He wasn’t crazy. The family curse isn’t madness, it’s this!

  “It tried to grab me, Silas!” Abigail whirled and snatched up the Remington, snapping open the breech and loading two more shells from her pocket. “It climbed up your air hose!”

  “There are more of them down there, Abigail.” Silas gritted his teeth against the call echoing in his mind, the memory of those writhing shapes. He strode into the cabin, pulled the bottle of spiritus frumenti from the cupboard, and wrenched the cork free. The whiskey burned a line down his throat. “Here.” He traded the bottle for the shotgun.

  Abigail drank down two swallows, coughed, and said, “More of them?” The bottle quaked in her hand as she handed it back. “How many more?”

  “I didn’t count them! A lot more.” Enough to drag us down there. He handed her the Remington and took the bottle back, the memory of what else he’d seen screaming through his mind. Got to get the hell out of here. Replacing the bottle in the cupboard, he went back on deck and started hauling in the air hose. “And something else. Something bigger and…darker. I don’t know. I only got a glimpse.”

  “Bigger?” Abigail stood in the doorway out of the rain, the shotgun steadier now in her grasp.

  “Yes, a lot bigger! And some kind of…maelstrom, or something.” When he had the air hose hauled in, Silas killed the compressor and glared down at the slimy corpse on the deck. Loath to touch it, he pulled on a pair of thick gloves and heaved the disgusting thing over the side. The rain would wash the vile creature’s blood and slime away by the time they got back. He threw his gloves overboard and stepped past Abigail into the cabin. “Keep an eye out while I get the engine started and haul anchor. We’ll be out of here in ten minutes!”

  “What? Where are we going?”

  “Home, Arkham, anywhere! As far the hell away from here as possible!” Silas heaved open the engine room hatch, flipped th
e transfer coupling back to the drive shaft, and cranked the engine to life.

  “Wait!”

  “For what, one of those monsters to come up here and drag us down to Davey Jones’s Locker?” He slammed the hatch and started forward.

  “Listen to me!” She followed him to the pilothouse, still holding the shotgun. “Nothing’s changed, Silas! We still have to stop this!”

  “Stop it?” He whirled on her. “There’s no way, Abigail! Those things are huge! We’ve got to get away!”

  “Away where? Don’t you remember the passage? All the works of man will be cast down! Everything! You can’t run away from that!” She wasn’t exactly pointing the Remington at him, but at the deck between them. Her finger rested very near the triggers.

  This is crazy! She’s crazy! Silas’s nightmares had become real. There were monsters beneath them right now, a seething mass of horrors that called to him even as they argued, and she wanted him to dive down there and take them all on with nothing but a belt knife! Terror pounded through his veins, drowning out the siren call. If he moved quickly, he might get the gun from her before she blasted a hole through the deck and maybe even the hull, but what then?

  The end of the world of man… Armageddon. No place to hide.

  “How, Abigail? How do we stop this? I can’t go down there again!”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because, damn it! You remember the beach! Remember me walking into the damnable ocean? They called to me when I was down there, Abigail, and I couldn’t resist. If you hadn’t pulled me up, I’d have walked right into the whole swarming mass of them!”

  She stumbled back half a step, her face as white as a sheet. “Then the world’s doomed, Silas. I can’t do this without your help, and you won’t help. You’re dooming millions by doing nothing.”

  “There’s nothing to do!”

  “Isn’t there?” She stepped forward. “You’re telling me there’s no way to blow that wreck to hell? Gasoline? Dynamite? Anything?”

  “We don’t have anything like that!” He needed to make her see reason. She hadn’t seen what he’d seen. “And even if we did, we don’t know if it’ll work! If I go back down there, I’ll die!”