The Creeping Kelp
Page 12
“Looks like they’ve woken up. We’re a threat now, right enough,” Noble said.
The Lieutenant wasn’t listening. He was making a visual sweep of the area.
“Over here,” he shouted. “Follow me.”
He led them to a squat structure to their left, one that had a small opening, big enough for the squad to pass through, and too small for any of the beasts to enter. The Lieutenant herded them all inside and put a man with an acid tank at the door. The Shoggoths slumped forward, but stopped in front of the structure’s entrance, showing no sign of any attack, no will to come any closer.
But it doesn’t look like they’re going to let us go anywhere soon.
The Lieutenant was in no mood to be caught in a trap. “Enough of this,” he said. “Let’s hit them and see what they’ve got. I won’t die hiding in a hole.”
Noble felt a tickle in his mind and immediately knew what it was and where it was coming from.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said. He pointed at the far wall. “Can we go through there?”
It turned out they could. It took a wash of acid and it sent out fumes that nearly choked them. But minutes later, they had made a hole in the wall. It opened out into a larger open area beyond, a long cavernous space that stretched away from them into the darkness. Noble, Suzie, and the Lieutenant hung back as the eight marines went through, but Noble already knew that it was safe.
It wants us to come. It’s waiting for us.
He didn’t know how he knew, he just knew. Just as he knew exactly which direction to head for.
The city seemed to have been built purely to accommodate this high vaulting space. They walked through it in silence, each of them unwilling to break the almost church-like silence. Dim light, multi-coloured and always shifting, came through from high above, as if filtered through stained glass. It only further reinforced the almost religious nature of the space.
Noble’s eyes adjusted to the light, enough that he started to see that the space was not empty. The Shoggoths had built more than just buildings. Tall shapes littered the floor nearby, shapes that looked like sculpture, but not of anything of this world. One shape above all dominated the space, a stocky barrel with a five-pointed appendage on top. There were hundreds of them, all in various stages of development. Some had what looked like wings attached, long wide expanses of gossamer thin plastic that seemed to move in the shifting light.
But somehow the statues didn’t seem worthy of too much attention. All Noble wanted to do was keep walking, heading in a straight line for some unknown destination. He felt dissociated from reality; strangely calm, while at the same time, screaming silently inside.
We’re walking into a trap.
He knew it and he suspected his companions knew it, but they all walked, eyes staring flatly ahead, heading for a point in the darkness at the far end of the space they had entered.
He was brought back to reality by a pain in his hand. Suzie had him in a grip so tight that he thought his fingers might break.
“Fight it,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “We must fight it.”
He found he was able to look around. They had walked further than he had thought.
Much further.
The entrance by which they’d come in to this chamber was lost in a dim distance. Light still filtered in from high overhead, but it was dimmer now than before.
The sun is going down.
The young Lieutenant walked just beyond Suzie. His jaw was set in a grimace and sweat ran down his forehead, but he did not seem able to stop walking.
Help me!
Noble tried to deviate from his path, to move towards the officer, but he found that, although he was able to move his head from side to side, that was all he was able to do. The compulsion that held sway in his mind had control and led him, and the others, onwards into the growing darkness.
It soon became apparent where they were going. At first, it looked like just another darker shadow, but as they approached, the rusted hull of a cargo ship loomed over them. It sat half-embedded in a thick sheet of rough plastic, looking as if it were afloat on a quiet, dark sea. But it was obvious that this vessel had not been seaworthy for a while—a hole in the keel wide enough to allow a truck to pass through attested to that. The hole was darker still than the surrounding chamber and Noble felt a chill seep into him as they were led inside.
He expected it to be fully dark as they made the transition to an interior space, but if anything, it was slightly lighter inside.
They walked into what had obviously been a cargo hold and suddenly, Noble remembered the words from more than half a century before.
I worry about breakages.
It was immediately apparent that the Shoggoths had built more than just the city around them. The hold was a cavern of ever-moving light, a luminescence that seemed to come from a spot in the centre of the space.
As they got closer, Noble started to make out details. It looked like nothing less than a blob of protoplasm, an amoeba grown to monstrous size. But as they approached, they could see that this was no natural construct. Its skin, if you could call it such, was a thin translucent sheet of polythene, ever shifting as the fluid contents inside flowed and swam. Deep inside, almost invisible in the viscous fluid, there was a darker spot the size of a football.
And that’s what has hold of us.
They were brought to a halt only six feet from the thing’s perimeter—all but one of them. One of the marines kept walking, straight at the thing. It surged and enveloped him in folds of plastic. He immediately started to melt. His face took on a contorted, pained expression, but no more than it would if he’d had a toothache. Even as his flesh sloughed off he kept walking forward. It all took place in complete silence and none of the marine’s companions moved to help him. Suzie’s grip on Noble’s hand tightened, but that was the only sign of anything amiss.
They all stood watching as the young marine was assimilated, broken down into first meat and bone, then further digested, until all that remained to show he’d been there was a scrap of khaki cloth and a pink stain in the fluid matrix. His weapon seemed to hang for a while in the fluid before sinking slowly towards the ground.
The last hint of pink slowly faded. In the far distance, the now-familiar chant went up again.
Tekeli Li. Tekeli Li.
Noble felt Suzie’s grip loosen on his hand.
She started to walk forward.
He screamed in his mind
No!
But no sound came from his mouth. Suzie was within touching distance of the plastic skin of the creature. The thing shifted, opening a passage for her to walk in so that it could then enfold her.
Noble remembered the scrap of burnt material in the jar back in the lab and the way it had recoiled from him when he concentrated. He filled his mind with a picture of the kelp burning as the acid hit it and threw it towards the darker spot inside the fluid.
It flinched.
Noble reached out and found he was able to move. He grabbed Suzie by the arm and dragged her backwards, just in time as the creature surged towards her. Wings of stretched polythene opened above both Noble and Suzie.
We’re done for.
But the momentary lapse in the creature’s grip on them had allowed the marines to move. The air filled with the tang of acid and the polythene wings melted away, thick viscous fluid washing to the ground.
“Kill it,” Noble heard the Lieutenant shout. More acid sprayed, but not quickly enough. Something small and dark scuttled away into the shadows. The grip left Noble’s mind completely and he was able to move freely.
“Incoming,” a marine shouted and they turned towards the shout.
A wall of kelp writhed wildly in the hole in the keel through which they’d entered and was pushing its bulk through into the hold. One of the men carrying an acid pack ran forward to hose the kelp down, but despite the fact that pieces of it fell, charred and smoking, the bulk of the thing kept coming
. It fell on the man from a height. He managed one last spray of acid before disappearing inside a mass of vegetation with a hiss and a stink of burnt meat.
The kelp came on fast.
“Get to the stairs,” the Lieutenant shouted. He pushed Noble and Suzie away from the onrushing vegetation. Noble hadn’t even noticed there were stairs, but now saw a flight of rusted steps leading up into the gloom. He was considering the risk of venturing onto a structure that had been under water so long, but Suzie had no such qualms.
“Come on,” she shouted. “We have to find it. Find it and kill it before it starts to grow again.”
That didn’t sound like much of a plan to Noble, but the continued surge of Shoggoth material and kelp in the hold made it a moot point. They were forced into retreat and the stairs were their only avenue of escape.
Noble and Suzie only just got there in time. The marines weren’t so fortunate.
They defended a line just at the foot of the steps, buying enough time for Noble and Suzie to escape. The kelp didn’t give them any respite. It came on in a tall wall, as implacable and unstoppable as a Tsunami. The Lieutenant was the closest to Noble and he was the only one to join them on the stairs. The other marines were all swallowed and swept away in a tide of writhing vegetation, with no hope of rescue. The last Noble saw was a single arm thrusting up through the fronds, a fist clenched around something round the size of an apple.
“Run,” the Lieutenant shouted.
They took the stairs two at a time and only just made it to the top when the grenade went off with a blinding flash and a blast that rocked the whole rusted keel and almost sent them tumbling back down into the kelp. When Noble’s eyes adjusted, he looked down into the hold.
The blast had left a smoking crater in the kelp, a hole some ten feet wide that was filling with seawater. The kelp was already moving pieces of plastic in to try to fill the breach, but the gush of water was too strong.
The hold started to flood.
Lieutenant Mitchell didn’t hesitate.
“Follow me,” he said. “We need to find the fuel tanks in this old girl and hope she’s still carrying a load.”
Noble didn’t need to ask; he remembered the young officer’s words just after the chopper crashed.
I’m carrying enough C4 to blow a hole in the planet.
Mitchell led them along a badly rusted corridor that was slimy underfoot with rotted seaweed. Noble watched it carefully, but it showed no signs of being alive. He was still holding Suzie’s hand, but she had a far-away stare. He thought she might be in shock at what they’d witnessed, so she surprised him when she stopped suddenly and spoke in a loud stage whisper.
“We’re going the wrong way. It’s behind us now. I can feel it.”
And now that she mentioned it Noble realised that he too could sense it, a feather-like touch probing at his mind. He pushed it away and it stayed away.
We’ve weakened it.
He didn’t have time to celebrate. The old ship lurched beneath them.
“Does this thing have lifeboats?” Noble asked, more in jest than hope. Mitchell took him seriously.
“I’m hoping so… for your sake.”
That doesn’t sound good.
Mitchell didn’t stop to explain. He looked Suzie in the eye.
“I don’t care where it is,” he said. “It’s on this hulk. That’s enough. If I take out the boat, nothing’s going to survive.
That doesn’t sound good at all.
They followed Mitchell through the rotting shell of the boat. Bits of it were in bad shape, and in places the Shoggoths had obviously tried to patch the damage with plastic, giving the whole thing a strange, patchwork appearance. He saw Suzie looking. In other circumstances, she would happily have spent hours investigating, but now, when he pulled her away, she followed.
They had to move quickly to keep up with Mitchell. They were moving fast along a badly rusted corridor when the boat lurched again and settled at a definite tilt. The sound of rushing water came from somewhere deeper in the boat, getting louder, more insistent.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast,” Noble said to Mitchell.
The officer looked towards the source of the sound and then seemed to come to a decision.
“There’s no time to look for the fuel tank now. Get up on deck and look for a lifeboat. I’ll stay here and take the thing down.”
To Suzie’s credit, she didn’t argue and Noble could see in the man’s eyes that to do so would be futile. She gave him a quick hug and Noble shook his hand. When they turned to leave, he had already taken off the backpack and removed several packs of plastic explosive and a small box of detonators.
“Get as far as you can,” Mitchell said. “It’s going to be one hell of a bang.”
Suzie stopped and turned back.
“We need to be sure you get it.”
Mitchell nodded.
“I know, Miss. I hope the bang is big enough.”
She shook her head.
“Hope won’t do. We have to lure it close.” She looked Noble in the eye. “We have to stay. It’ll come, if we tell it where we are.”
Noble knew what she was asking.
But I have another idea.
“We could lie,” he said and saw the dawning realization in her eyes.
She turned back to Mitchell.
“Someone still has to stay here, though,” she said.
Mitchell nodded.
“That’s my job. I’ve got my lads to revenge.”
She hugged him again and then took Noble’s hand. Noble nodded once more to Mitchell, then led Suzie away. He didn’t mention the tears in her eyes and she didn’t mention the ones in his.
They arrived on the top deck of the boat just as it took a violent lurch. The keel listed suddenly. Water lapped across the gunwales and there was a screech of tearing metal. There was just enough light to see that this whole area of the plastic city was being dragged down into the sea and the old boat was going to go along with it.
At first sight, there was no sign of any life rafts along the whole length of the boat, but a cry from Suzie alerted him to a solitary craft hanging by one chain on the starboard side. It took a matter of seconds to release it from its moorings, but by that time, the water around them was seething with a white churn and the old ship rocked and rolled.
Now or never.
He bundled Suzie into the life raft and was about to lower it into the water when he felt the tug in his mind.
Pain brought him back as Suzie raked her fingernails across the back of his hand.
“We don’t have time for this shit,” she said. “You know what we need to do.”
Indeed, he did. He lowered the life raft and Suzie started sculling frantically with an oar to maintain the small craft’s balance in the water. Noble jumped down into the water. The current tried to suck him away and he had a bad moment when he made a grab for the oar and missed, but seconds later, Suzie helped drag him into the life raft. They started to drift, slowly at first, then faster, the current taking them away from the badly listing ship. Pieces of plastic started to fall from above as the city came apart around them. Dark shapes surged and sped in the water, Shoggoths trying to repair the damage. But the sea was too strong, even for them.
Suzie touched his hand.
“Do you think Mitchell is still alive?”
Noble reached with his mind, searching for contact. It came immediately. This time he was ready for it. He sent an image, of the three of them in the corridor at Mitchell’s position, three figures standing, waiting. He sensed the creature’s eagerness, felt it speed through the hull.
Suzie took his hand.
Everything went white as the ship blew.
The aftermath was strangely anticlimactic. Their rubber life raft was tossed violently through surging waves and a large piece of thick plastic falling from above missed them by less than a foot ,where it could easily have driven straight through the dinghy.
While Suzie checked the on-board survival box, Noble probed with his mind, but nothing replied.
It was three hours before a chopper appeared overhead and they were lifted to safety. As they banked away, Noble took one last look.
As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a sea of plastic and a thought came to him that would never fully leave him, even years later.
William Meikle is a Scottish writer with fourteen novels published in the genre press and over 250 short story credits in thirteen countries. His work appears in many professional anthologies and his ebook THE INVASION has been as high as #2 in the Kindle SF charts. He lives in a remote corner of Newfoundland with icebergs, whales and bald eagles for company. In the winters he gets warm vicariously through the lives of others in cyberspace, so please check him out at www.williammeikle.com.
The print verion of this book is available in trade paperback, signed limited hardcover and collectable leather-bound Deluxe Thirteen editions from Dark Regions Press.
The print verion of this book is available in trade paperback, signed limited hardcover and collectable leather-bound Deluxe Thirteen editions from Dark Regions Press.