by Greig Beck
A military technician at another bank of screens shook his head. “No, it detonated. It just…” he stood back “…I don’t know…but the device definitely triggered.”
“Jesus Christ.” Decker felt like his head was going to explode. “Give me the VELA feed from the time of the drop – back it up.”
In a few seconds, the data froze and then swapped back to a silent view from space. A timer at the bottom of the screen counted down from the bomb release until it reached zero – impact. The digital counter continued, but this time it measured progress as the massive B83 bunker buster drilled its way down through the rock and soil. But just when it was milliseconds away from its target depth, the ground below it appeared to open. There was a surge as something huge grotesquely blossomed like a gargantuan tentacled flower, and then the counter stopped. There was an orange glow, and the oily smudge of the underground monster visibly swelled, but then, nothing.
Decker fell back heavily into his chair. “It…swallowed it.” He leaned forward and clawed his fingers up through his hair. He looked up into the screen, now back to real-time, and his mouth dropped open. “Oh god no.” As he watched the earth became a window into Hell. The massive stain was still there, closer and now with substance. A miles-wide head could be made out, and surrounding it, titanic arms moved beneath a surface that was still as yet unbroken. But what horrified Decker the most was the giant single eye the size of a city block.
General Decker opened his mouth, ready to issue his next orders. Instead, he stayed silent, his mouth hanging open for several seconds. He slowly closed it. He had no more options.
Chapter 26
Adira was first down at the base of the enormous pit. With the small lights they each had, there was no way to really judge its size; they could only estimate based on the winding stone steps they had come down. About a hundred feet away, there was the faint shine of the dying glow stick. Its lemon yellow was incongruous on the black stones of the cavern floor.
Matt took a single step before a muffled boom, like the beating of a titan’s drum, thundered down through the huge cave. He, Adira and Abrams were thrown flat to the ground, as car-sized boulders hit the stone floor around them, followed by showers of dust and debris.
The tumultuous echoes pounded away into the deeper tunnels, and the trio stayed down, hugging the stone floor.
Abrams was up first, then Matt on one knee first, before getting warily to his feet. He dusted himself down.
“We’re still here.” He looked confused. “The detonation was a long way away, but still, we shouldn’t be.”
“And if we’re still here…” Adira stayed down “…then so is our problem.”
Abrams coughed as the rock dust created a fog of fine silica particles that floated in the beam of their lights. He looked down at Adira, still prone on the stones, one side of her face pressed to the floor.
“Must have only been a partial detonation. You okay?”
She shushed him, and held up a palm to them. Both men froze, waiting.
She sprung to her feet and wiped her face. “The floor; it’s hot, very hot.” She wiped her cheek again. “And there’s movement below us – grinding and sliding, like something heavy being dragged across rocks.”
“Must be the deeper effects of the nuke.” Abrams shook his head. “Can’t be Cthulhu, we’re miles away from Mammoth Park.”
“We don’t know that,” Matt said. “We have no idea what the true physical form of this thing really is. Sure, we’re a long way from where we think it will emerge, but for all we know the thing stretches below the earth like some sort of giant worm and spreads for miles – hundreds of miles.”
Matt shut his eyes. “And the leviathan that is Cthulhu, the oldest of the Old Ones, will rise. The Earth will crush, and the seas drain as the flesh of mortal beasts will be but paste for its bowels.”
“What the hell was that?” Abrams asked reaching out to steady Matt, who was about to topple over. “Was that in the book?”
“Yes and no. I mean it was in the book all the time, I just didn’t know it because I couldn’t read it,” Matt said, steadying himself.
“The symbols…now you can read the symbols,” Adira said.
Matt nodded. “I think so.”
“Now you get it?” Abrams asked incredulously.
“Must have been the Shoggoth’s touch.” He looked across at them. “I can feel it now – the celestial convergence – it’s like waves of energy, pulling at everything on the planet, drawing these things from below the earth. It’s all focused on this place, right here, right now.” Matt pointed. “We need to go lower and find the gates…and then find the Book. The answers must be hidden in its pages – I must see them again.”
“I thought you didn’t need it?” Adira asked.
“The symbols: I didn’t read them all. I skipped most of them. I couldn’t understand them so they were useless to me – that was then. It’s like some sort of Rosetta Stone, converting the language of the Old Ones into a physical form. These things respond to sound, and the words when spoken create that sound.”
“The Celestial Speech; the language of the gods?” Abrams asked.
“Not of our god. This is what Abdul Alhazred found out. He also managed to decipher the words. There are the words of worship that smooth its path and let it know that now is the right time for it to rise, and…feed again. There are also mystical locks, and words are the keys.” Matt wiped at his brow, feeling like he had a fever coming on. “There must also be words that do the opposite. Tell it that it’s not time – they must be there.”
“And these words can send it back?” Adira asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but if it can be called, then it can somehow be denied. Alhazred must have said something to stop Cthulhu rising.” Matt grimaced. “But by now, we might be too late to send it back. It has almost broken through, and once it does, then it’s all over for us.”
Abrams raised his gun, ejecting the clip, checking it, and then smacking it back in before re-holstering. “If the Book can help, then let’s go get it.”
“Wait.” Matt felt more images slide greasily into his mind. “Drummond is waiting for us…and he’s not alone.”
“As far as I’m concerned, Drummond is just another slug.” Adira looked along the barrel of the HK-MP5N, as though lining the businessman up in her sights. She pointed. “That way.” The light from Hartogg’s barrel-mounted flashlight illuminated huge glyphs carved into the curved stone lintel of a train-tunnel sized archway. Adira lowered her gun and looked to Matt.
“What does it say?”
“I am forever.” Matt snorted. “Worship me.”
“Not fucking likely,” Abrams said.
Adira smiled humorlessly. “Hmm, vanity? A mortal weakness we perhaps can use.” She headed for the tunnel, gun held loosely in her arms, her finger on the trigger. “Let us meet these vain gods, and introduce ourselves.” She turned to Abrams, her face severe. “But remember, Charles Drummond is mine.”
Chapter 27
Captain Gerry Hensen looked up at the sky, feeling tears dry on his cheeks. The moon, huge and yellow, had risen, and was only a few hours from reaching its zenith. The darkness and the pull of the celestial convergence were reshaping the world – tides were lower than they’d ever been, the ground was hot to walk upon, the air smelled weird, and there was a gentle tug he could feel at his metal fillings and even on the bones in his body – it all felt wrong.
He looked along the dark street – it was all so quiet now. The intial wave of panic had overwhelmed police stations, councils, hospitals, and anywhere else that could possibly provide protection or refuge. But there was no such thing any more.
People had initially fought back, but their bravery was rewarded by them simply vanishing. They’d left then, by road, sea, on foot, but only ended up being trapped in long lines of stalled traffic, or in their march to safe havens, encountering people coming the other way. Those who were stuck out
side at night just proved easy pickings for the things that now owned the darkness.
There were few people on the streets, and those who remained huddled inside their houses were locked in rooms, basements, or even garages. But these refuges were not secure, because the things that boiled up from every subway, drain or cellar were able to reach in under locked doors, and even thread themselves through keyholes.
The army had deployed, and those that had only been issued standard ammunition managed to keep the Shoggoth at bay for a few minutes at best, before they too were overwhelmed and either eaten or converted to become the next lump of amoebic flesh to terrorize the neighborhood.
As a final insult to the human race, men, women and children were now being herded together, guarded by rings of the massive blobs of protoplasmic flesh. And herded was the appropriate term – Captain Hensen had dated a cattle farmer’s daughter when he was in high school, and one weekend he had visited her family’s ranch in the holidays. This is what the people gathered there reminded him of – cattle, in pens, awaiting shipment to the abattoir.
Hensen’s squad were some of the lucky ones – they had taken delivery of the compacted salt ordnance – the hardened salt rounds worked a treat, clearing the disgusting creatures from their path. Those that were too slow and took a hit either exploded or melted away, leaving nothing but foul-smelling black puddles of goo.
They’d freed hundreds of people, and many were now being led back to secure camps. But in their eyes was shock and horror. As in all of the guarded fields Hensen and his squad came across, the people inside this ring of monsters were listless and resigned to their fate. They had obviously seen what happened to those who tried to rebel or escape. He knew what would happen as well – he’d seen it with his own eyes – the horror of the things feeding.
Hensen wiped his eyes and held up a fist to signal the next move to his soldiers. For every ten souls they freed, there were thousands more being consumed, or led down into the bowels of the Earth to suffer whatever fate these monstrosities from Hell had in store for them.
*
Adira held up her hand, causing the small group to halt. “You hear that? Smell it?”
“For the last few minutes – water lapping…” Abrams sniffed deeply “…salt water. But we’re miles from the ocean.”
“Miles from any ocean we know of,” Matt said. Up ahead he saw that the tunnel looked different.
“Wait here.” He approached slowly.
“What is it?” Adira lifted her gun.
The air shimmered in front of him, like a curtain hanging across the passageway. He held out his hand. His fingertips touched the wall of distortion and passed through it. The air swirled around his fingertips as if it was a sheet of floating oil.
He pulled his hand back, looking at his fingers, rubbing them together – there was nothing on them. Matt leaned forward, pushing his face into the swirling wall – beyond he saw a watery landscape with a twilight atmosphere. He pulled back, shaking his head.
“In there is not, ah, here any more.” He stepped back. “In there is not really our world at all. It is some other place. Perhaps another dimension entirely.” He stared at the shimmering barrier, but his vision was turned inward as his mind worked. “I think this is why these things can exist below the earth, but not be found. That world, their world, is beyond the physical, and maybe partway between here and some sort of metaphysical existence – what some would call the beyond.” He turned. “And what others would call Hell.”
“You mean it’s always been here, below this building?” Abrams asked
“No, no. I think this place that Cthulhu comes from has always been in the same place, but the entrance is different. This time it’s America; last time it was the Middle East. It might even open below the ocean.”
“It’s the planetary lineup, the convergence, isn’t it?” Abrams asked.
“Yes; this place only exists in our imagination, or race memory, until it wants to be seen.” Matt nodded. “The convergence is the catalyst, like a chronological lock and key that lines up a maze so we can enter.”
“So the gateway only exists while the convergence is taking place. What happens when this convergence, the planetary lineup, starts to break away?”
Matt smiled without humor. “Then I think whatever happens, we need to be in and out before the convergence concludes or we could be trapped in there forever.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Adira stepped through.
Matt grinned and shook his head at the woman. “Sure, after you, Shrinking Violet.”
Abrams was next through the shimmering curtain. Matt briefly looked over his shoulder and then followed.
*
Matt almost fell to his knees from the heat. While it had been extremely warm and humid as they descended the pit, beyond the shimmering border it was like an oven.
“Oh god.” Matt pushed his hair back of his face. “It’s got to be one-twenty degrees in here.”
Together they stood on the shore of a dark beach under a sky of blackness. It was impossible to tell whether there was a cavern roof overhead or if they had instead crossed over into another dimension that had a starless sky stretching away into infinity.
There was a body of water before them; its far edges were hidden in darkness so any other landfall could not be made out.
Abrams stood with his hands on his hips. “Lake or ocean?”
Matt walked a few paces towards the water. “Whatever it is, it’s extremely salty; I can smell it.”
The surface of the oily water was only at times still. At other times the surface bubbled and rose as small waves lumped up from hidden things that moved beneath its surface. Far out from the shore, perhaps at its center, the water, or whatever it was, rose in a huge column many miles wide, and disappeared into the air. It twisted and pulsed with a strange life.
Matt turned to look along the cliff walls surrounding them. In the far distance he could see multi-colored waterfalls emptying from many caves on the cliff walls for as far as he could make out – there could have been hundreds of them emptying into the dark water.
Matt frowned. “Can anyone else hear that? Weird sounds, like howling wind, or…voices?” He turned slowly. “The voices of the damned in Hell.”
Abrams nodded. “I hear it – yeah, like wind blowing, but there’s not a breath of it down here.” He panned slowly. “I have no idea what it could be.”
“Shit.” Adira jumped aside and pointed her rifle at the ground.
What looked like a long-legged trilobite had lifted itself from the coal-dark sand and proceeded to scuttle toward the water.
“Just like in the terrorists’ camp,” Matt said.
The thing only managed to wade in about a foot before something rose up from out of the depths and, using a long talon, speared it, and then silently pulled it back out into deeper water.
“Jesus.” Matt backed away from the water.
“You’re right, this is not our world any more,” Adira said softly.
Abrams switched off his flashlight. “Save your lights: there’s enough illumination for us to see.” He swiveled. “Nothing, no plants, no mosses, nothing growing at all.”
Adira snorted. “You must have missed that thing in the water.”
“No, I mean, there’s nothing as the basis of the food chain – no sun, so no life should be able to exist,” Abrams responded.
“I wish that were true,” Matt said. “There are other forms of energy that can cause life to spring up. Deep-sea thermal vents are one. We have no idea exactly what’s below that water.”
“And I, for one, have no interest in finding out,” Adira added.
“Me either.” Matt pointed into the distance. “We need to go there – close to the first waterfall – I think that could be a structure.” He frowned, trying to understand the weird fluid in the falls. There was a constant stream falling from the caves to splash into the dark water beside the massive barriers. The sea b
oiled and frothed as it was struck.
Abrams lifted his compact field glasses. “Well I’ll be damned. Looks like doors.”
They walked quickly, their feet sinking into the dark granules. As they neared, they could see now that set into the cliff wall stood a massive pair of red granite gates. Each of the doors would have towered half a mile in height and twice that across.
Matt stopped. “Gates of red granite so huge they could hold back an army. Remember Alhazred’s poem.” There were raised glyphs carved into their mighty edifices. “It was all true.”
They could just make out a pinprick of light at the base of the portal.
“That light – it’s got to be Drummond,” Matt said.
“He’s waiting for us.” Abrams lifted field glasses to his eyes again.
“If he’s expecting us, he’ll be ready for us,” Adira added.
“Can you see anything?” Matt asked.
“No, no movement.” Abrams responded evenly and turned just as beside them the sea thrashed: something heavy rose and fell back below the surface. Matt had the impression of a whale breaching and then dropping back, but doubted it would have been anything as benign as one of the giant sea mammals.
Cautious now, they edged along the rock face bordering the sea – sometimes there were expanses of sand, and others the beach nearly disappeared entirely, forcing them to walk within inches of the inky water. Together they moved in a crouch, shoulders hunched, as if expecting something to land upon them at any moment.
As they hurried forward, Matt was sure he felt things shifting beneath his feet. He ignored it, hoping it was nothing more than movement in the silky grains.
“We’ve got company,” Adira said, matter of factly.
“Where?” Abrams had his gun in a two-handed grip, and had it pointed at the water, and then spun to aim it behind them. “I’ve got nothing back here.”
“It’s not up here, it’s below us – keeping pace with us under the sand.” Adira was keeping the barrel of her gun pointed at the ground.
