The Abominations Of Nephren-Ka & Three More Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos

by McLaughlin, Mark

  - - -

  A few weeks later, one of the executives at Sea Bounty announced his retirement. Ezra Marsh had joined the company at age fifty, and at age sixty-seven, was leaving to devote more time to caring for his ailing wife.

  Marsh clearly suffered from the disorder. His pale-blue, watery eyes were bulbous and watery, and his loose, dry skin hung from his face like wrinkled fabric.

  The company held Marsh’s retirement party after work in the company lunchroom. A full dinner of baked fish and vegetables was served, along with a variety of taramasalata-based hors d’oeuvres. The party was over by 7:30 p.m.

  Derek returned to his office on the second floor to get his coat and briefcase. While he was there, he decided to check his email. It had been a long day – he’d come in early to work on a special project – and he’d enjoyed two glasses of champagne during the party. Before long, he fell asleep in his chair.

  When he woke up, the time was 9:15 p.m. He checked his cellphone, but Edie hadn’t called. He’d told her he might have to stay late at work because of an office function, but hadn’t given her a definite end-time, since he wasn’t sure how long office parties lasted at Sea Bounty.

  He looked out the window of his office, which faced the highway. All the cars were gone from the parking lot as far as he could see, so evidently the office workers had gone home. His own car was out of sight: he parked it in a tree-shrouded corner of the lot so that sea-birds couldn’t poop on it. That was a problem when you had to park near the ocean. No one else at Sea Bounty probably even knew he was still inside the building.

  He called his wife to let her know he was on his way home. He then turned off his computer, gathered up his coat and briefcase, and left his office.

  As he began walking down the stairs to the first floor, he heard the clatter of machines and a wet, sloshing sort of sound, like folks walking around in muddy galoshes. Two-thirds of the way down, he was able to see into the first-floor production area.

  Slumped grayish-green figures, dripping with slime, shuffled across the work area, their flat feet leaving muddy trails. All had bulging eyes and wide, downturned mouths, as well as gills lining the sides of their necks. Each carried a large plastic bucket with a hinged lid.

  He crept farther down the stairs. One of the workers noticed him and turned to stare. Other creatures followed its gaze. Before long, more than a dozen of them were staring his way.

  The thing to do, he decided, was to keep calm, calm – to act like nothing was amiss. After all, he worked there, just like them. He had a right to be there.

  He hurried down the rest of the stairs and strutted into the production area.

  “Good evening, everyone!” he said amidst the staring, frog-faced horrors. “I’m Derek Prince, Director of Marketing. Nice to meet all of you!”

  Derek then heard the steady creak of wheels approaching. From the back of the production area, a tall woman with thick, gray hair pushed an older, smaller woman in a wheelchair.

  “Good evening to you, Mr. Prince!” cried the woman in the wheelchair. Her voice was low and raspy, with a distinct Greek accent.

  Derek flashed his best smile, enough though he felt like running at top speed away from the horrid she-creature addressing him. She had a strange look to her: it was as though someone else’s young skin had been stretched over her old bones. Surely the long, golden hair that framed her face could not be her own – the hairline was completely wrong. She did not have gills, but she did have bulbous sly-blue eyes that stretched the lids that covered them. When she grinned, she showed an abundance of yellowed, needle-sharp teeth.

  “You’ll have to excuse my appearance,” she said. “I recently underwent a complex medical procedure – a regular part of my beauty regimen – and I am still recovering. Things haven’t quite snapped into place yet. But, the procedure does give me energy! I felt quite strong tonight, so I decided to stop by to see how things were coming along.”

  Her chair was now directly in front of Derek. She held out her hand, so he reached out and gently squeezed her strange, cold skin-glove of flesh and bones. “I am your boss, Mrs. Hamogeorgakis!” she said with a laugh. “This is my nurse, Kiwi.” She rolled her huge eyes up toward the woman behind her, who gave him a small, bored smile.

  “My, my!” Mrs. Hamogeorgakis said. “You’re certainly a handsome man! Such a pleasure to have a good-looking fellow like you on the payroll. As you can see, most of my production employees would not be mistaken for fashion models! Minerva tells me you are doing excellent work.”

  “Thank you so much,” Derek said. He flashed another smile, this time at Kiwi. “How long have you been helping Mrs. Hamogeorgakis?”

  “Good question!” Kiwi thought for a moment. “The years go by so fast! I’ll just say: too many to count! But each year has been a meaningful adventure.”

  Mrs. Hamogeorgakis gestured to one of the bucket-carriers. “You! Bring me your pail!” So saying, she pulled a long-handled ivory spoon out of a black velvet purse on her lap. She threw back the hinged lid on the bucket and dipped the spoon inside. She then pulled up a spoonful of a substance Derek instantly recognized: silkfish eggs.

  She popped the treat into her mouth. “Excellent! So fresh. It’s always best straight from the trench!”

  “Straight from the trench…?” Derek echoed.

  “Oh, yes! My darlings simply climb down the stone stairway, march straight into the trench and scoop up the eggs with their pails,” she said matter-of-factly. “Would you like some?” She extended the spoon to Derek.

  Derek took the spoon, dipped it into the bucket and dutifully consumed a mouthful. “Delicious,” he said. It was not a lie. The fresh eggs did indeed have a marvelous flavor – ‘That Tantalizing Taste You Will Never Forget.’

  “Minerva tells me you’d like to know more about Sea Bounty,” Mrs. Hamogeorgakis said. “Do you have a few minutes? Just a few short minutes to visit a lower level?”

  ‘A’ lower level, not ‘the’ lower level...? Derek wondered if that implied more than one. How many subsurface levels could there be? “Certainly, yes,” he said. “Just give me a moment to call my wife, to let her know I’ll be a little late.”

  “A wife!” Mrs. Hamogeorgakis cried. “The best ones are always taken!” She ran a grayish-pink tongue over her ghastly teeth.

  Derek called Edie and kept his voice calm and steady as he told her that he’d met the owner of the company and would be spending some time talking with her. It took incredible restraint not to add, She’s some kind of reupholstered monstrosity and you need to send a SWAT team to take me out of this freakshow.

  Derek followed Kiwi and Mrs. Hamogeorgakis to an elevator in the production area that he’d never seen before – probably because it was hidden behind pallets of product that had to be moved aside by the workers.

  The interior of the elevator was surprisingly stylish: opalescent walls and black, velvety carpet. The control panel indicated that there were three subsurface levels. Without hesitation, Mrs. Hamogeorgakis hit the bottom button.

  “This building is very old,” the woman in the wheelchair said. “Ancient, really. It used to be a church, and parts of it once belonged to the temple of a fertility god. I guess we’re still in the fertility business! We sell eggs, yes?”

  The elevator doors opened.

  Derek looked out over what appeared to be a huge, brightly lit hospital ward. This strange underground realm held row after row of occupied beds. When he saw what occupied those beds, he began to scream. He then felt a sharp pain in his right bicep. A moment later, he passed out.

  - - -

  When Derek woke up, he found himself strapped into one of the beds. He felt numb, disoriented, and still very tired. In the bed nearest to him, an unconscious Edie was also strapped in place. A long rubber tube led into her mouth.

  He raised his head and looked around. In other nearby beds reclined slime-coated, misshapen creatures, vaguely resembling human-sized tadpoles. These repulsi
ve monstrosities squirmed under protective sheets of clear plastic. Still other beds held gray-green, gilled people, like the ones who carried the buckets of silkfish eggs up from the sea. Like Edie, all of the ward’s occupants were fitted with feeding tubes.

  He heard footsteps. Minerva, dressed for a day at the office, was approaching his bed.

  “Hello, sleepyhead,” she said. “You’ve been out for about forty hours.” She nodded toward Edie. “She came looking for you, so Kiwi gave her a shot, too. Kiwi’s a nurse, you know. Always has the right medicine handy.”

  Derek opened his mouth but nothing came out – there was something in this throat. He rolled his eyes down and saw a rubber tube protruding from his lips.

  “I’m sorry,” his lovely visitor said, “but I’m afraid you saw things in the production area you were never meant to see. In time you would have figured everything out and then, you wouldn’t have been so eager to promote the product, no matter how much we paid you.”

  Derek tilted his head to one side… An unspoken Huh?

  “It’s very simple, really,” Minerva said. “The silkfish eggs nourish the genetic disorder in those who have it … and slowly instill a more primitive variation of the disorder in those who don’t. Folks experiencing the primitive variation go through a really interesting larval stage, and when it is complete, they end up collecting silkfish eggs for us. We’ll continue to use all your brilliant marketing strategies to promote the product as we open more production sites nationwide … along shores and by rivers and major lakes. Silkfish thrive in fresh water, too. Right now, you and Edie are enjoying our product through tubes down your throats. Once you‘ve completed the larval stage, the two of you can help collect silkfish eggs from the trench, hand in web-fingered hand. How romantic!”

  Minerva looked down at Derek with mingled affection and amusement. “Listen to me, rambling on and on!” she said. “You need your rest. You must be absolutely exhausted.” She stooped to kiss the tip of his nose. “Have a nice long sleep, sweet Prince. In time, you will make a marvelous frog.”

  Deathless Bride Of The Crawling Chaos

  By Mark McLaughlin

  Fleur found herself walking through a strange realm of black and silver: black marble floor below, a black abyss above, and shimmering silver fibers hanging down like a gently waving curtain, suspended from … what? She couldn’t see far enough to know.

  “Helloooo?” she said in a high, silly voice, hoping to draw forth whatever creatures were in charge of this eerie yet beautiful domain. “I’m friendly,” she said. “Talk to me, monsters! Come out, come out, whatever you are…”

  “Why are you not afraid?” said a low, melodious voice that seemed to come from every direction at once. “I thought that those like you were afraid of nightmares.”

  “Those like me?” Fleur sighed sadly. “There are no others like me. I gather that I’m sleeping and you’ve somehow pulled me into this cheap-ass nightmare that you’ve whipped together to … scare me?”

  The low voice laughed – a surprisingly warm and friendly chuckle. “Would you like to see the horror I’d cobbled together to make you scream?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Trot it out! Let’s see it.”

  From out of the darkness rolled a huge, glistening monstrosity composed of eyeballs and intestines, teeth and tongues, batwings and dollops of green, bubbling slime.

  Fleur clapped her hands with glee. “Gorgeous!” she cried. “I’m smitten! I’ll call the church and set a date.”

  The slime-thing slowly disappeared.

  “You sound like a teacher of mine from high school – Mr. Vincent,” Fleur said. “So tell me, Vinny Voice: who are you and where am I?”

  The voice laughed again. “I’m not your former teacher … but perhaps we can learn from each other. Your fearless nature intrigues me. Why is it that you are afraid of nothing?”

  “Well, let’s see…” Fleur thought for a moment. “My mother used to beat me whenever she’d polished off a few drinks. My father raped me at least a dozen times before I graduated from high school. Then he hit me with the car and I haven’t walked ever since … except in this dream. Thank you for that, by the way. My supposed loved ones have already treated me like garbage, so why should I be afraid of you? You’re just some dream-thing that may not even exist. I may wake up in a minute or two and poof! You’ll be gone.”

  A full minute of silence passed.

  “Helloooo…?” Fleur whispered.

  The black abyss turned into a clear blue sky. The silver fibers flew up into the sky, where they broke into sizzling sparks that recombined as soaring doves. A lawn sprang up around her and stretched out to the horizon in every direction.

  “What’s all this?” Fleur said. “Does this means you’re sorry for bothering me?” She smiled. “No, I don’t see you as the apologizing type. Must be … a reward? I imagine so. Thank you.”

  At her feet, flowers with silver petals rose up and began to sing.

  - - -

  The next morning, Fleur drove her motorized scooter from her three-room apartment to the drugstore down the street. There she bought a box of Warm Autumn Brown hair dye and a Ripe Cranberry lipstick.

  “What do we have here, sweetie?” said Denise, the sixtyish cashier. She had a big, friendly smile and Fleur always enjoyed talking to her. Unlike most other people, Denise actually paid attention to her. “Hair color, lipstick… Have a big date this weekend?”

  “Nothing gets past you!” Fleur said. “Just decided to freshen up my look, that’s all.”

  “I’m not too sure. You’re blushing! If you’ve got a minute, I’d like to suggest a few other things to add. The whole beauty package. Are you in?”

  “Oh, certainly!” Fleur looked down at her hands. They looked so dry, and her nails were uneven. “I could probably use some hand cream, and a nail kit, too. Is the nail polish supposed to match the lipstick? Yes, you’d better help me with all that.”

  Later at her apartment, Fleur dyed her hair and applied all the other niceties she’d acquired. The change, she decided, took ten years off her appearance. Would Vinny Voice even notice? He was, after all, only a fantasy voice in a realm of dreams. But still, there was no harm in indulging the fantasy.

  For the rest of the day she worked on her latest project. Her employer was best-selling author Ellis Baxter, who wrote horror and suspense novels. He emailed her sound files of his dictation and she typed them up. He drank sometimes while dictating, and when he did, he slurred his words. Still, Fleur was always able to make out what he was saying. Because of his drinking, she sometimes had to fix his grammar and trim some of his rambling text.

  It dawned on her that her boss was mostly a voice to her, just like Vinny. Of course, Ellis did pay her the occasional visit, usually about every other week. Would Ellis notice her new look? She’d stopped hoping that he’d fall in love with her long ago. Still, it would be nice if he thought of her as attractive. It would be nice to have one flesh-and-blood admirer in her life.

  - - -

  Another night, another dream.

  Fleur found herself standing in a huge, empty ballroom with pale-blue walls. She wasn’t overweight anymore. She was lean and garbed in an evening gown of bright silver and midnight-blue.

  A silvery reptilian humanoid entered the ballroom and began to stagger toward her. The creature sneered with a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth.

  “I’m not afraid, you know,” Fleur said. “Can we just get past this part of the dream?”

  “Of course,” said the reptile-man. “You’ll have to excuse me. Old habits die hard.”

  With that, the creature’s form began to blur and shift. Within a minute, a new being stood before her: a tall, dark man with a proud, angular face. He was dressed in the elegant garb of ancient Egyptian royalty, with black paint outlining his silver eyes.

  Fleur stared at him. “This won’t work. I can’t be with a man who’s prettier than me. Even a dream-man.”

&n
bsp; “Should I go back to being ugly?”

  “I suppose not. I will just have to learn to accept your intense masculine beauty. So who are you?”

  “My name is Nyarlathotep,” the dream-man said, “and I have a special gift for you. Tomorrow you will be able to walk in your waking world.”

  “Oh!” A tear rolled down Fleur’s cheek. “Don’t say it if it isn’t true.”

  “You will be able to walk, dance, run … whatever you wish. And you will be fit, as well.”

  “In exchange for what? Nothing is free.”

  A smile spread across the dream-man’s sculpted face. “Always the cautious one. Always poring over the fine print.”

  Fleur sighed. “I’m sorry. I just can’t help but think that I’ll need to do something in return.”

  Nyarlathotep reached out and stroked her chin. His fingertips were smooth and warm. “You are not obligated to feel affection for me … but it would be nice. Can you do that? I think there is warmth in your heart for me, but I feel it is streaked with the chill of doubt.”

  “I’m already very fond of you,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about that. You astound me.”

  “Then kiss me,” said the silver-eyed one.

  So saying, he gathered her into his arms.

  - - -

  In the weeks that followed, those who knew Fleur were amazed by her sudden transformation.

  As the dream-man had promised, she was now able to walk. She was more than thirty pounds lighter and she looked at least fifteen years younger. The motorized scooter was a thing of the past.

  Her friend Denise took her shopping a few times, and soon Fleur compiled a whole new wardrobe of stylish outfits. She had the money to afford new clothes, since Ellis paid her well. She’d just never had any enthusiasm for spending it before. That was why she lived in such a small apartment. Her belongings were few and most of them were outdated. She didn’t even own a DVD player. Her TV was hooked up to a VCR, and she only owned a dozen movies.