Book of the Dead

by Greig Beck

  Matt held up his hands across his face, but Adira never flinched. She just turned side on into a wide-legged combat stance and let one of her own hands flash out. The compressed salt dagger shot at the tall being nearly faster than the eye could follow, burying itself into the center of its disgusting face.

  “Eat that.” Her face was calm as the whip snapped back from them. There was a horrifying eldritch scream that made Matt’s hair prickle on his scalp.

  Drummond looked panicked, and the hand holding the book snapped back. “What have you done?” He looked from the creature, whose face was now a knot of massed tentacles as they pulled at the dagger’s hilt, and then back to Adira Senesh. “He will be angry.”

  For the first time Adira’s lips curled up into a smile. “So, he can be hurt.” The Mossad agent spun, picking up momentum, as she crossed toward Drummond almost faster than the eye could follow. When she within three feet of him, she finished her turn, and in her hand was the long carving knife.

  “Ha!” she yelled as it flashed down with blinding speed and great force across Drummond’s wrist. The limb parted and fell to the ground, the fingers still clamped around the Book.

  Abrams had sprinted to retrieve the guns, and Matt leaped for the Book at the creature’s feet, a seed of confidence taking root in his chest.

  But then the unthinkable happened. One of the tentacles drew forth the dagger and dropped it to the ground. Black blood oozed, but the writhing settled and the yellow eyes glared balefully at Adira. The Father seemed to inflate slightly.

  Drummond grimaced in either shock or fear, clutching a wrist that spurted dark blood onto the even darker sand. “Heal me, Father, heal me.” He spun to scream at the trio. “You insects; how dare you?! When I am king, I will have you tortured for the rest of your lives. I will torture you, then heal your wounds, and then torture you again and again and again and again.”

  The Father seemed to grow another foot taller. The hand started to rise again.

  Abrams distributed their guns, and Adira immediately shouldered the rifle, a grim smile on her face.

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” Matt yelled, backing up, but flipping through the Book hurriedly, attempting to catch up to where he had stopped trying to understand the symbols. He read quickly while keeping one eye on the creature growing before them.

  The Father pointed again, this time the long boneless fingers dripped with black blood. “You will be stripped of your flesh, and boiled in the acid bath of my belly for eternity. But first, I will make you watch as I consume your world. By the time we have finished with the planet, there will be nothing left save the worms in the earth.”

  Drummond half turned, his bloody stump still extended. “Except for my kingdom. There will be subjects and some servants in my kingdom: you promised.”

  The yellow eyes shifted to the man, and the writhing alien face carried a look of such derision that Matt very clearly saw the moment Charles Drummond finally seemed to realize where he stood in Old One’s plans. His arms dropped to his sides and the color drained from his face.

  “You…promised.” The words were pitiful.

  Matt knew the man’s role had ended; his purpose had been served. He had spoken the words and broken the final seal, so that nothing could come between the new celestial convergence and the rise of the beast. His work was done.

  “You – fucking – promised.” Drummond ground his teeth. “I risked my life a thousand times. I gave you everything.” He stamped his foot like a child.

  “Not quite everything, Charles.” The Father reached out, fingers growing once again into long tendrils to wrap around Drummond’s neck and torso. It was then that the Father started to grow, taking the struggling man with it.

  The little girls by the cliff screamed and turned away, sprinting madly back along the dark beach.

  It lifted higher and higher, increasing in size, so that the shawl it wore shredded and burst from its expanding frame. With the Father’s form revealed, they could see that it hadn’t been standing on the sand at all, but was instead actually growing out of it.

  “I could have told them, I could have told them.” Drummond’s words were faint now as the thing lifted higher, pulling free more of itself that was buried beneath the sand. The huge pipe of flesh trailed into the water.

  Matt’s mouth hung open as he saw Drummond beating at the cords encircling him for only a few seconds more before he was simply pulled inside the pulsating mass, his yells of protest turning to a pitiful scream at the last.

  The Father tilted forward, its huge face looking back down at them.

  “You think I am simply the servant of the great Old One? You think I can be hurt?” The voice bubbled and frothed in its anger.

  “Good Christ,” Abrams said backing away. “The Father is not a servant of the Cthulhu: it’s a goddamn part of it.”

  Adira grabbed Matt’s arm, backing him up.

  “The vanity of the gods.” Matt was already out of breath. “They never thought we could read it. Never believed we were ever significant enough to be a threat. But there is something in here –there must be.” He looked up. “Abdul Alhazred, the Mad Arab, before he lost his life, took great pains to inscribe a warning, and perhaps his weapon or fortification against this growing horror. He hid it away, for us, for the next time that the beast attempted to rise. He must have.”

  Matt flipped page after page as the column of flesh that had been the Father moved out over the dark water. Whether the being was like an appendage of the great beast rising toward the surface, or some sort of intelligent symbiote that Cthulhu had picked up in its eternal slumber, they couldn’t tell.

  “This thing is not immortal. We have already proved it can be hurt.” Adira fired a full magazine into the dark flesh, but it absorbed the compacted salt bullets with little effect.

  “Ach, we need a cannon,” she said, ejecting and then jamming in another magazine. “Time to go home, I think.”

  “What home?” Matt said. “We die here or we die there. Unless we find an answer right here, right now, our home, our entire species, will be gone before we even make it back to the surface.”

  “Ah, shit.” Abrams backed into them. “Whatever you’re gonna do, now would be a good time, or we’re about to end up like Drummond.” From the cave mouths along the shoreline, the Shoggoth, the bloated bags of amoebic flesh, now poured forth. They came quickly, moving on slug-like pads, insect limbs, and in some cases the arms and legs of human beings. Adira and Abrams got back to back, ready to fight, and die.

  “Pick your targets,” Abrams said, and then half turned. “You’ve been a pain in the ass, Captain Senesh…and a pleasure to work with.”

  Adira snorted. “You too, Joshua…and I will save one last bullet for myself. I have no plans to end up like your Captain Tania Kovitz.”

  Abrams nodded. “I heard that.” He then half turned to Matt. “Come on, buddy.”

  Matt pointed to the red gates, and the huge symbols upon them. “The language of the Underworld, the Celestial Speech.” He looked at each of the towering glyphs. His altered mind now rearranged the huge symbols, making sense of them. He spoke the strange words:

  “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”

  “Huh?” Abrams frowned.

  The words would have sounded like gibberish to anyone else, but to Matt, and in this unholy place, their meaning had the weight of mountains – In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu lies dreaming.

  He read the next. “Hunwgli odururn wnghui Xastur.” Matt’s mouth dropped open at the implication: And with him dreams his brother…Xastur, the Unspeakable One.

  “Xastur – the Caduceus – the intertwined gods. We’ve seen this name before; I know it.” He looked up briefly. “There is another one.” Matt flipped pages and then stopped. The Enochian glyphs flared like neon lights before his eyes. He absorbed their meaning, symbol after symbol.

  “Great, so there are two of them.” Abr
ams shot several of the Shoggoth creatures, and Adira sprayed one of the approaching flanks.

  “Cthulhu is engaged in an eternal rivalry with another ancient creature, called Xastur, the Unspeakable One.” He looked up again, feeling a little crazed. “It’s his half brother.”

  “This thing has a brother?” Adira asked, firing another few rounds.

  Matt shook his head. “Yes, maybe, I don’t know if it’s a brother like we understand it, or if a single being separated in some sort of monstrous splitting and budding process. Only Cthulhu has sought to rule the universe by himself, without Xastur…that’s why he keeps trying to rise.”

  Adira fired another few rounds into the approaching mass of Shoggoth. “One is more than enough.”

  “No.” Matt shook his head. “Don’t you see? They held each other in an eternal embrace, an intertwining, waiting for the end of time. But somehow, the celestial convergence allows Cthulhu to slip way and…feed.” Matt looked up. “We need to release the brother.”

  “Are you mad, Kearns?” Abrams turned briefly to yell over his shoulder. “You want another of these things loose, because you think, maybe, just maybe, it will somehow help?”

  Matt frowned, and pointed to the growing thing that was the Father, now joined with the massive trunk of flesh growing from the lake and disappearing up toward the invisible roof of the cavern.

  “What the hell have we got to lose?”

  Abrams looked to Adira; she just shrugged in return.

  “I’ve already made my peace.” She turned and fired again.

  Abrams gritted his teeth. “What do you need?”

  Matt turned another page. “I think I need to…call to him…just…call him.”

  “Where is he?” Adira asked.

  Matt pointed to the massive red gates. “Behind there, in the ancient city of R’lyeh. That’s where Cthulhu came from. That’s where he must be sent back to.”

  “You better hurry.” Adira backed toward Matt and Abrams. They now had a wall of the Shoggoth on three sides and the black ocean on the other.

  “Getting low.” Abrams emptied his gun, and smoothly ejected and jammed in another magazine.

  Matt looked around, beginning to panic. Fear was making his mind a fog of confusion. Everywhere he looked, the cliff walls, sand, and the dark water moved with hellish life forms. Things scuttled, lumbered, and slithered toward them. Monstrosities with too many eyes, thrashing limbs, and sucking or needle-fanged mouths like creatures from the bottom of the deepest ocean trenches, all now descending upon them.

  Matt looked down at the page of symbols, crushing his eyes shut and saying a silent prayer for his thoughts to clear. He exhaled and opened his eyes. The strange circles, dashes and dots formed sounds deep in his mind. He looked up at the huge gates and sucked in a huge breath, yelling the words.

  “En Dooain Bolape Page Od Aziazor Ph’anglu Dooaip Ananael…Ol Vinu Od Zacamc…Auriel Ol Bolape A Noco Eglo Olapireta Ark-Pi Unkwa Padda Enoch Xastur.”

  Matt waited for several seconds. Nothing – no sounds or emanations from the colossal gates.

  Abrams fired off three more shots. “I’m out.” He tossed his gun to the ground and pulled out his compressed salt dagger, the tiny weapon a joke against the approaching monstrous hordes.

  Matt looked down and read again. “Xastur Ug’lu Cthulhu.” Please, please, he wished. “Cthulhu Enk Unhug’li.”

  Matt looked up at the doors. There was still nothing. He felt his gut knot, but read again, louder.

  “En Dooain Bolape Page Od Aziazor Ph’anglu Dooaip Ananael…Ol Vinu Od Zacamc… Auriel Ol Bolape A Noco Eglo Olapireta Ark-Pi Unknown Apila Paid Enoch, Xastur.”

  He screamed the final two sentences.

  “XASTUR UG’LU, CTHULHU!!

  CTHULHU ENK UNHUG’LI, XASTU-UUUR!!”

  Matt fell to his knees, his head nearly bursting from pain. Blood ran down over his lips and chin, and he felt a warm dampness at his ears. He looked up through bloodshot eyes. The gates remained in place. He shook his head.

  “What did I do wrong? I said the words. What did I miss?” He punched the sand, feeling the harsh grains scour his knuckles.

  “Listen!” Adira had now backed all the way up to him.

  Matt lifted his head and held his breath. There was nothing – absolutely nothing – strangely, no noise, and no movement. Everything in the underworld had stopped, and had now turned…toward the mighty gates of red granite.

  Then there came a faint noise, but not from the column of glistening dark flesh that rose from the abyssal ocean. The noise came again, soft at first. There was a shifting, popping sound from behind the gates as if layers of pack ice were cracking and then breaking away.

  Matt got slowly to his feet.

  There was an ear-shattering boom, followed by another, and another. Footfalls of the gods, Matt thought. Another sound, louder than the first, and then unbelievably, the giant red gates began to bend outwards.

  “It’s…” Matt spun to his friends “…it’s working.” He grinned at Abrams, his fists clenched.

  The major made a fist and turned and grinned. “I think we –”

  The huge outgrowth of flesh, the appendage of Cthulhu that the Father had become, crashed down upon Abrams, flattening him to the sand. It then retreated back to the water with the squashed body stuck to it like some sort of tongue. A trail of glistening red was left behind in the deep furrow in the sand.

  “No, no, no.” Matt grabbed at his head. “Not now, please not now.”

  The towering Father seemed to shiver in delight, ominously leaning over them.

  “Move.” Adira turned to fire as a cacophony of screams burst through the huge cavern.

  As if from a signal, every manner of beast rushed toward them – worms burst from the sand, huge scuttling beasts descended from the rock walls, and the loathsome Shoggoths were pouring down from the caves like so many bloated army ants intent on doing their master’s bidding.

  Matt bumped into Adira, who had stopped running. He spun and saw why – they were trapped.

  “And so, we have run out of places to go, and luck, my friend.” Adira wore a grim smile. He admired her courage and perhaps even loved her a little at that moment. There was no braver warrior than this woman who had literally fought her way into Hell for him.

  She had the HK-MP5N rifle held in one arm, and in the other a revolver. She lifted the handgun, and looked at Matt, her eyes level.

  “I lied; I have saved two bullets – it will be painless and far quicker than what is in store for us.”

  She waited. Matt knew that one word, or even the hint of a nod, and she would put a bullet in his brain. He smiled at her, feeling a calm come over him. I’ve had a good life, he thought. He drew in a deep breath.

  A sound like planets colliding physically knocked them off their feet. The giant red gates of R’lyeh cracked open. Matt turned and threw a hand up over his face, but nonetheless saw the magnificent hideousness of the city beyond those titanic barriers.

  Bioluminescence shone from within, revealing greenish stone blocks of an incomprehensible age. Matt’s face went slack with dread, and he beheld visions that were never meant for human eyes. There were great carven statues of weird shape and form; the geometry of R’lyeh was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart. Everything Matt could see was gigantic, towering and colossal, insanely so. And then, the pale light of the hidden city was shadowed as something vast made its way to the stone gates.

  Matt remembered more of the secret language of The Book of the Dead, or whatever people had called it over the millennia, and he whispered the words:

  “That is not dead which can eternal lie – and with strange eons, even death may die.”

  Massive things like monstrous hands gripped the gates, and pushed them wide. Matt got slowly to his feet, pointing.

  “Behold, Xastur.”

  Chapter 28

  The world was at war, and Deck
er led them all.

  Rows of big howitzers, tanks, and mobile rocket launchers ringed the far edges of the park in a circle of steel and fire. Eric Ford had worked overtime on the munitions and the front lines were fully armed with hardened salt shells that they loosed in a constant barrage into the seething masses of Shoggoths.

  Like a wound bursting open to spill its infection onto the skin, the site of Cthulhu’s rise was a many-miles-wide lump that had broken open to spill bloated monstrosities across the Earth’s surface in wave after wave. The soldiers, Decker hoped, didn’t realize that at one time the creatures they fought so hard were once their fellow human beings.

  Countless Shoggoth ran, crawled and slid on slimy pads toward the soldiers. For each hundred that were turned to lifeless jelly, more simply boiled to the surface to take their place. And in among the Shoggoth, other huge monstrosities came to fight, feed, and throw themselves at the lines of humanity.

  Soldiers scrambled about, firing at anything that moved, but still, many of the creatures made it through.

  Huge towering spiders, centipedes as long as trains ending in vicious scorpion stings or suckering mouths, and ambling towers of pustulant flesh bulging with sightless eyes also fell among the troops, simply toppling forward onto the men like mighty redwood tree trunks, squashing them flat and then absorbing their bodies.

  General Decker stood in his command center, watching the mayhem. High overhead surveillance planes circled delivering him multiple spectrums of his battle – none of them was promising. The plane passed over the ground-zero crater once more and he felt his stomach lurch. The thing, “Cthulhu” they were all calling it now, had finally riven the earth. Mile-long fissures were unzipping as it broke free. Decker didn’t feel fear. Instead his stomach knotted with frustration that he couldn’t simply stamp it out with all the traditional firepower he had.