Under the city of Dreaming Death

by Richard Cochran

  Under the City of Dreaming Death

  Richard M. Cochran

  Copyright ©2010 Richard M. Cochran

  Smashwords Edition

  “Upon its surface, the book has a variety of symbols etched into it.” Dr. Roberts began, “It is made of red leather and has a gold clasp that keeps it neatly locked. This book is not to be opened. Understood?”

  “Understood,” Lindbergh pulled a pipe from his outside jacket pocket and lit it with a match, “Why is it so important?”

  “The more questions you ask, the less inclined I am to compensate you for your time, Mr. Lindbergh.”

  “Also understood. But tell me of this creature that lurks at the cemetery,” he took a deep puff from the pipe, “What exactly is it that I'm dealing with, Doctor?”

  “It is of the darkest regions of imagination. The less you have to deal with it, the safer you will be. Just follow it into the caverns and it will lead you to the book. Once it has left, retrieve the tome and bring it to me. ”

  “Right,” Lindbergh laughed.

  “You mock me?” The alleyway was dark, but the Doctor's expression wasn't lost.

  “No, but you must admit that your warnings are a bit hard to stomach.”

  “Nevertheless, Mr. Lindbergh, do not mock that which you cannot possibly understand,” the Doctor warned as he smoothed out his beard, trying to regain his composure.

  “Duly noted,” Lindbergh raised his brow and snuffed out his pipe, “How much, exactly are you proposing to compensate me?”

  “Follow the creature to its source and procure the book for me,” Roberts explained, “and I shall make you a wealthy man. This is how you get into the caverns, look carefully,” he held a small map and pointed out the location in the moonlight...

  * * *

  Its hands dripped of a substance both black and translucent; as if it were covered in the very essence of Hell. It moved like a ghost through the cemetery, jumping from tombstone to catacomb and back to the ground when it sniffed out a location of interest.

  From behind a gravestone, Lindbergh watched as the creature poked around in the dirt on all fours, sniffing at the earth. In the shadows of a large oak, the beastly thing began to dig into a freshly covered grave. The length of its body dangled into the hole as it supported itself by straddling the opening. With speed and precision, it uncovered a casket and flung the lid to the side effortlessly. A body dangled from its grasp, swaying back and forth by its leg as the creature sniffed at the air.

  In an instant, the body was dismantled. Limbs popped and cracked through dismemberment like a chicken being butchered for display. Grizzly slurping noises issued forth as the creature began to feed, pulling parts from neatly stacked piles to its left. It lapped at muscle and cartilage with a thin, black tongue licking the bones clean and tossed the pearl white remains back into the coffin.

  Lindbergh held back the urge to vomit, covering his mouth with his hand as his eyes went wide. Paralyzed with fear, he watched as the abomination returned the lid to the casket and pushed the dirt back into the hole. The creature belched and turned on its heels.

  Lindbergh stood in shock at what he had just witnessed. He crouched down farther, afraid that the beastly thing might catch his scent and watched the creature as it returned to the tunnels. Along polluted corridors, it made its way with unearthly ease toward the series of crevasses etched out in the subterranean city. This hairless abomination moved with the grace of a dancer upon the tips of its clawed feet in a ballet of the dead; so smooth were its movements, so precise were its footfalls. With intensity, Lindbergh peered out into the darkness of the catacombs, crouched down low amongst archaic ruins in hopes of following the wretched freak into its lair.

  ‘I must be mad;’ he thought to himself, ‘for intruding upon such an atrocity with reckless abandon; for witnessing the very root of evil, itself.’

  The living atrocity hunched its back and cocked its wretched head, caught in a moment of sound that trickled through from leaking stone and rusted pipe in the depths of the subterranean borough. A look of disgust spread across its toothy maw and it let out a snort reminiscent of a wild boar.

  Lindbergh crouched lower and pulled a pistol he kept in the waistband of his trousers. In the dim light that leaked in from the sewer grates above, he could see the weapon was loaded to capacity. He bit his lower lip, finding enough courage to peer around the immense stone slab that hid him just as the creature turned a corner and wisped away into the darkness. With reservation, he followed; dampness slurping beneath his feet as he hurried along the soiled stone pathway.

  Cautiously, Lindbergh peered around the corner of the next junction and waited as the beastly thing sniffed at the air, moving its head from left to right. With some unknown purpose, the freakish creature turned, jerked its putrid frame and made its way along the sewers, moving ever deeper into the abyss.

  Lindbergh felt the urge to abandon his reckless pursuit, to return to the surface and forget the madness in which he delved.

  ‘To hell with money,’ he thought, ‘To hell with this foolishness.’

  * * *

  Neither legend nor myth could have prepared him for the antiquity of that which lay beneath his feet; the inscriptions upon the ruins he now faced were of an age as of yet unknown to the men of science. Dark, sinister writing, scribed into the walls held an essence of something much more diabolical than he could fathom. Etchings of human sacrifice tore at his emotions, basked at the point in his minds eyes where his fear resided and tore through his courage.

  In hushed whispers, the inhabitants of the town above recited lore of time forgotten; recited passages of legend that told of a history before man. Had Lindbergh paid heed to the mysterious conversations of the townsfolk, he would have never ventured into the recesses of this abysmal place. Instead, he might have poured himself a bit of Brandy and sat by the fire in some comfortable inn and laughed at Roberts for suggesting such lunacy.

  But he was a hardy and reckless man who made his living by uncovering fortunes for men of means. His heart ached for adventure and his pockets yearned for fresh coin. He was the man known for looting graves and archaeological digs, not for venturing into caverns beneath the ruins of some forgotten cemetery in pursuit of some freakish abomination.

  “Follow the creature to its source and procure the book for me,” Roberts had said, “And I shall make you a wealthy man.

  And that was all that Lindbergh had needed to know. It wasn't odd for the wealthy to want old, dusty tomes for their eccentric collections. Nor was it out of place for the rich to send someone of lesser breed out to find the treasures they sought. But it was odd to meet with dark, shadowy figures in back alleys and have them tell you of demonic creatures that fed upon the dead; of creatures that guarded a centuries old book that held magical power.

  * * *

  Through narrow passages scribbled with a language uninterruptable, Lindbergh pursued the beastly thing, careful of every footfall, careful of every movement he made as to not arouse its suspicions. Bones were strewn haphazardly upon the floor, and he was forced to tiptoe over every one as he tried to keep up with the limber atrocity. If he could have stopped his heart from beating, from thumping with abandon within his cavernous chest, he would have without a second thought. He was sure the creature could hear his breath, could make out the faint movement of his blood as it coursed through his veins. But it made no such knowledge apparent.

  Lindbergh ducked behind each and every obstacle as he toiled over the movements of the creature, watching closely as it careened around corners and seemingly flew over the obstacles in its way. He had never seen such a nimble creature. It was as if this thing was
guided from the mysteries that lied within the book Roberts had described. Not being much for superstition, Lindbergh found it too incredible to believe. But there it was, only a few hundred yards away, leaping like a gazelle over stone markers that no man could ever hope to clear.

  He shivered from fear as it looked back with a grin, if indeed it were a grin that smeared across its miserable countenance. As if Lindbergh’s wishes were met, his heart stopped for merely a second when he thought the thing was looking his way. As quickly as it paused, it was off again through dark and dreary tunnels with a purpose that would confuse any onlooker. A subtle hiss escaped its mouth through sharp and putrid fang as it turned and continued along its destined path.

  The length of the creature limbs confused and astounded Lindbergh. In all of his days, he had never seen something so grotesque, so lean and unnatural. Even the fingers upon its hand led one to believe that it had been born of mysticism and lore, of chants retched out from the lips of the insane. The gray of its skin gleamed as it cleared the tunnel ahead with intent and purpose. A scowl graced its putrid mouth as it let out the slightest whine and continued along the tunnels on all fours.

  Sweat beaded upon Lindbergh’s brow and he wiped it away with a single swipe from the sleeve of his shirt. He refrained from fleeing, from screaming off into the moonlit night beyond the maze of tunnels and past the cemetery gates from whence he came. His courage was fleeting as he took into accord how this ghastly biped moved. If it were to turn upon him, it would surely outmaneuver him within a single step and seal his fate.

  The tunnel opened up into a large expanse of natural cavern, seemingly etched from the very fabric of creation. Lindbergh pained to focus upon the walls as his eyes desperately tried to adjust to the darkness. What he could see was frightening and immense. The vision unfolded before his eyes as he watched the creature scurry off into the blackness past coffers of stone and alters that seemed to be concocted out of the very ground, as if they grew there from their own accord.

  Something sinister flapped above his head, conjuring thoughts of demonic bats in his mind’s eye. He dropped to the ground as the ruffling noises grew closer, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. A stale wind confronted his senses, brought to fruition by horrible wings flailing above. As he dropped, the pistol fell from his hand, scuttling off into the darkness of the cavern. He groped at the dirt and debris, panicked by the loss of his only protection.

  A deafening screech pierced through the darkness like a knife across glass.

  Lindbergh covered the back of his head as he lay face down in the dirt. A faint whimper issued from his lips, dislodging a cloud of dust from the ground and sending the concoction into his nostrils. The bitter scent made him cough and sputter back into the dirt, creating a chain reaction of hacking and spitting the filth out his lungs. Terrible piercing sounds bombarded him from all around, sending chills up along his back. Like a child, he laid there, unable to move.

  And then there was only silence.

  A deep, penetrating quiet consumed his surroundings, making him think that he was dead. The flapping had gone, and the shrieking madness was all but a vague memory. He glared out into the darkness where his eyes were met by the simple nothingness of the cavern. After wiping the mess from his face, he stood and collected himself. An unnerving quiet issued forth from all around, calm and uncompromising.

  “Have I gone mad from witnessing the creature, or has Hell finally showed itself,” he asked in a whisper, “Surely, this is madness.”

  Lindbergh pushed forward through the pillars of stone; intricate patterns carved along their face, extending up through the darkness until he could no longer ponder their oddity. The creature was nowhere to be seen, had seemingly vanished during the onslaught of the screaming winged things that were all but a mystery now. He feverishly shook his head to extract the illusory madness from his mind, the terrible musings of his imagination, and tore out into the cavern in pursuit of this freakish abomination.

  Through sheer determination, he urged himself forward, bent upon extracting the book. An uneven stream of light played at the far end of the cavern, dancing about like the refraction of moonlight upon the ocean, coaxing wave-like patterns across the floor and upon the walls. Lindbergh slowly made his way through the center of the cavern past pyres and alters and into another system of sewers that led further down.

  Dampness transpired, inundating his senses with the smell of waterlogged earth and rotting vegetation. He coursed through the ever increasing muck beneath his feet, following the faint tracks of the clawed beast, venturing deeper into the abysmal reaches of what had only previously been in the soul confines of his nightmares.

  The farther he went into the ruins, the more intense the smell of rot became; grinding at him in such a way as to make his stomach lurch in disapproval. Tears rose in his eyes as it became ever apparent that the odor was of death and decay.

  He could only imagine what poor souls had wandered down into this pit and become lost within its lunacy. He wondered if Roberts knew of the evils that lurked within the caverns, if he had sent others into this misery.

  “Help me. . .” a voice whimpered in the darkness ahead.

  In vain, Lindbergh strained to find the source of the sorrowful cry. He brought his hand in contact with the sewer wall and ran it along to feel about for the slightest protrusion that might indicate where he was. With his free hand, he felt around in the darkness, desperate to find the source of the voice.

  “We’re here. Help us. . .” the words echoed faintly.

  “Where?” He asked aloud.

  “From all around,” the ghostly murmur replied.

  Panicked, Lindbergh ran, sloshing through mud and debris, past rusty chains and hallucinations concocted out of fear, “You’re not real,” he proclaimed, panting through exertion.

  The partially dismantled bones of some tragic death hung from the wall by shackles mounted into the stone. A skull was cocked to the side with its mouth agape as if in the final throws of pain. Hallow eye sockets pleaded into the dark, pulling illusions of torment and suffering to the surface of Lindbergh’s emotions. He gasped and retreated to the far side of the sewer, slamming his back hard against the uneven surface of the wall. Pain shot up along his skin as the rock bit into him. And as quickly as he retreated from the hanging corpse, he propelled himself deeper into the shaft out of fear.

  Shrill laughter filled the tunnels ahead of him as if from an amused demon in the midst of torturing some sinful victim. Lindbergh’s eyes went wide with fright as the hackle receded into a distant hiss, becoming the faintest whisper of an echo.

  Ahead, a pathway opened through dangling roots that hung like lengths of withered sinew. The tubers blocked the sides of the tunnel, masking the walls in such a way as to make them look like some long forgotten jungle of decay. Lindbergh pushed at the remaining obstructions, slowly making his way into the unknown. The growth restricted his movements, caught his clothes and tore into his flesh. He bit his lip until the pain subsided and desperately pushed his way through the obstructions.

  The faintest shimmer of movement refracted against unnatural light, showing the silhouette of the creature as it turned at the next junction. With racing heart, Lindbergh pursued, roots slapping against his face, stinging his cheeks as he scurried after the figure. He could swear he heard it laugh as it glanced back over its shoulder.

  'It knows that I am following it,' he thought and stopped in his tracks.

  In the distance, he could hear the creature’s footfalls like scraping talons upon rough clay. Lindbergh garnished enough courage to follow, but only at a distance. As he turned the next corner, he noticed the abomination waiting for him. It extended a single finger and beckoned him closer. A series of shark like teeth protruded from its mouth as it smiled, turned and scampered out of sight.

  He could feel the tunnel descend as he continued into the blackness. A few hundred feet ahead, a glimmer of light revealed an
other sharp turn. Lindbergh took a deep breath to calm himself. With the cautiousness of a cat stalking its prey, he continued after the abysmal menace, fearful of making the slightest sound.

  Static, electrical moans wheezed in the distance, followed by a grinding inhale that rattled the very stones beneath Lindbergh's feet. Something enormous breathed in the distance. It was large enough to create a movement of wind inside the sewer tunnels, to shuffle the clothes upon Lindbergh's back. He quaked with fear as he neared the next junction. He peered around the side of the tunnel and looked left along the intersection.

  Crouched on all fours, the creature hesitated in a room illuminated by a dim, red light. Its head tilted like a questioning dog as its body swayed slightly in the opening. With its long, thin fingers, it seemed to signal something with a type of sign language. A quick nod of its head, and it looked back at Lindbergh with a grin and jerked its neck, indicating for him to come closer.

  Lindbergh turned on his heels, ready to run. Behind him, more than a dozen yellow eyes blocked his path. Fear spread across his sweat stained face as he peered back toward the cavern. A massive smile spread across the creatures face; an impossible smile filled with sharp, jagged teeth that looked like polished thorns. It flared its nostrils and let out a snort before beckoning Lindbergh again.

  “Come,” it hissed.

  Panicked, Lindbergh looked for another means of escape, another route to flee from the horrible beasts. His mouth went dry and stale when he realized he was trapped.

  “Come now,” the creature hissed again.

  He made his way towards the abomination, keeping his eyes locked on its slender frame. From deep within the tunnels behind him, he could swear that he heard the others laughing, mimicking his fear, growing agitated as he drew closer to the one he had pursued.

  The creatures head tilted at an angle as it pointed to the rear of the cavern and extended its long, bony finger. Gaseousness escaped its mouth which brought an acrid smell of rotten fish and bile. Lindbergh followed the direction for which the creature was pointing and nearly lost his footing when his eyes met the object of its designation.