by Robert Price
Sometimes in the dreams he would see something slowly moving down there, a dark shape that was more shadow than it was form. At those times he would half close his eyes, squinting down into the gloom. He saw…he saw…
After he woke up screaming Chris couldn’t bring the creature’s image up into his mind, but he knew it was monstrous. He stayed away from the workmen after that, but the dreams still haunted him.
Chris had felt ill and sick during most of the construction. He even noted how pale his mother looked, how Myra began to stay out more at her girlfriend’s house, and how his dad, usually patient, had become snappy and irritable. It was as though a thick fog of misery floated around the house and land. The open hole held such terror for him that he couldn’t even bear to go into the yard anymore.
There was a palpable change in the atmosphere when the iron doors were fitted on the shelter. Dad turned the key, locking the doors before the workmen had finished packing up their equipment and tools.
After that life returned to some semblance of normality, but Chris didn’t get any permanent relief. The discomfort was always there. The fear of some unknown bogeyman sat permanently in the pit of his stomach, and choked him while he slept. His Dad and Mom returned to normal, but Myra didn’t: she distanced herself still further from the family.
The strange thing was, Chris had never seen his parents open the door again. He even wondered if they had bothered to put emergency supplies down there. He sure hadn’t seen them do it. But of course he didn’t know what his mother did when he was out all day at school.
It was easy to forget his fears though because the benefits of their new position outweighed any of the strangeness he felt. The money was a big issue. They quite literally wanted for nothing and this did seem to make his parents happier.
“You okay, son?” asked Dad.
Chris snapped out of his reverie only to find Dad standing by the fridge, beer in hand.
“Yes,” said Chris because this was the expected answer.
“You happy?”
Chris nodded. He couldn’t choke out another ‘yes’ no matter how hard he tried.
Dad frowned, then turned and walked away.
The next day, on his official birthday, Chris drove his new car to school. As his friends gathered around the convertible in the car park, he briefly forgot his worries and fears and enjoyed the feeling of owning the vehicle.
“That’s a cool car,” said Elizabeth sliding up to him. “I’m looking forward to our date later. And I have a birthday present for you too, but that can wait until this evening.”
“You’re a lucky guy,” said Eugene, one of his new friends who happened to be the captain of the football team. “Here you go buddy. Happy birthday.”
Chris took the gift from Eugene. He opened it up to find a football shirt.
“You’re our new quarterback,” said Eugene, patting him on the shoulder.
Chris felt on top of the world for the whole day. He shook away the craziness that had followed him for the last six months. His life was changing so rapidly that he could barely keep up. No sooner had he done the try-outs and he was in the team, in the favored position. He had always thought he was no good at sports, but the try-out day proved him wrong. When he had gone out onto the pitch he could just play. It was easy. He just couldn’t believe his luck.
He thought back to the night before and realized that today he would have no trouble saying yes if his dad asked if he was happy. He was. All that he had ever wanted was miraculously coming true for him.
It’s ridiculous to be worried by our good fortune, he thought. Things happen because they are meant to.
He went into history class and sat down to take the test. As he turned the page, and glanced down at the first question, Chris knew the answer. In fact the test went extremely well. He knew ALL the answers and he finished long before everyone else. As the bell sounded, he packed up and the thought crossed his mind that his paper would be graded an ‘A’.
I feel that lucky today.
In his next class his math teacher took him aside. “Chris, I’ve noticed how hard you’ve been working lately. You seem to have natural talent with figures.”
It was all so easy. Maybe he did have talent and had only just realized it. Everything he did that day just went right, without any apparent real effort. So, when he got into his car and drove home, he was on a high that he had never experienced before.
“So what’s this movie about?” asked Elizabeth.
“It’s called The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” Chris said.
“Sounds scary.”
Chris put his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulder, “Hey…I’m here if you get scared.”
The movie started after twenty minutes of adverts. During this time Chris bought popcorn and soda for them both and they were settled and ready when the credits began to roll.
He noticed how Elizabeth tensed silently when the creature first emerged from the sea but other than that she wasn’t really scared. Chris, however, found the concept to be utterly terrifying. He couldn’t quite place why, but the idea of a government experiment creating a monster seemed to be such a possibility.
Chris’s mind drifted away from the film for a while. An idea formed in his mind, a terrifying thought about his father’s job. What exactly did they do out there in the desert? His mind’s eye imagined the base even though he had never seen it and his father working in some sterile lab, experimenting on a large creature in a huge tank.
A surge of panic rushed into his face and cheeks. His heart began to pound and he had a brief flash of memory of the monster in his nightmares: it was a large tentacled being of grotesque shape and size.
“You okay?” asked Elizabeth.
Chris snapped back into the now and realized that he had fallen asleep during the film. He hoped he hadn’t been snoring.
“Sure,” he said sitting upright.
Elizabeth smiled at him and turned her eyes back to the screen.
After the film finished, Elizabeth let Chris kiss her lightly on the lips before they followed the other cars out of the drive-in.
“Do you think our government would be capable of that?” Chris asked her as they drove back through town.
“No, of course not. I wouldn’t put it past the Russians though,” she said.
Chris noted that she spoke like his parents when discussing the government. They all felt that President Eisenhower could do no wrong and that the enemy still lived overseas. Since the war, patriotism was the norm. The movie showed a different view though, one that made him think that their world may not be so perfect and it had fed somehow into those ridiculous dreams he was having.
“We’re so lucky,” Elizabeth said. “We live in a great country that cares about its people. My dad says times are better now than they have ever been. He thinks we’re going to ‘prosper’.”
“What do you mean?” Chris asked.
“Well I heard him say something to my Mom, about how almost all the sacrifices have been made. Now we’re all going to reap the rewards.”
Chris felt that odd prickle that irritated his nerves and sent a shudder up his spine. He didn’t like the way she had used the word ‘sacrifice’.
“Did your folks mind that you were coming out with me?” he asked changing the subject.
“No. Dad said that somehow it was fitting,” Elizabeth said.
He parked up at the Penrose house and walked Elizabeth to the door. It was ten pm, the time her father had said he wanted her home and Chris didn’t want to make the mistake of upsetting him on their first date. He wanted to be the perfect boyfriend. Elizabeth deserved that.
“Goodnight,” Elizabeth said as she opened the door. Then she was gone and Chris was left standing on their porch looking at the screen door.
He felt somewhat deflated as he climbed back in his car. It was only a short journey home but he noted how quiet the streets were. He had never seen them this empty before.
His
mind flashed back to the movie, his short sleep, and the dream creature. The image of it hadn’t faded like it usually did. Chris could see it clearer the more he focused on it. He tried not to think about it, but failed.
As he turned the car into his street he felt a strange and irrational terror. I should turn around now. Drive right out of this place and never come back.
He pulled the car over to the curb and looked down the street at his house. He could see a light on in the lounge as he might expect at this time. His folks weren’t on the porch though and the rest of the house was in darkness. Even Myra’s window was in full darkness and she often stayed up late reading.
Palpitations, anxiety and total panic rushed through him in a matter of seconds. What’s wrong with me? Am I losing my mind? He knew his fear was irrational but he couldn’t shake it.
He waited for a few minutes longer. The street was eerily quiet. He turned his head to look at the house beside him. It was in total darkness and it was only ten fifteen.
Mentally shaking himself, Chris put the car in gear and slowly moved forward towards his drive, but again an unreasonable panic consumed him. Sweat poured from his brow as he parked the car. He felt paralyzed with terror as he looked up at the porch screen. He couldn’t understand why the thought of being home frightened him so much. Surely he had nothing to fear here? Despite his rational thoughts he was incapable of getting out of the car and walking inside the house and he just didn’t know why.
He placed his head in his hands and wept.
“Come on son,” said Dad from the door.
Chris looked up, but his eyes were misty and the shape in the dark didn’t quite look like his Dad.
“Come on, Chris,” said his mother.
“Don’t fight this,” said another voice and Chris turned his head to find Abraham Penrose at the side of his car.
They were wearing strange clothing. Long black robes that had hoods and as Chris looked around he found he was surrounded by all of his neighbors.
Penrose opened the car door and took his arm. Chris didn’t have the strength to fight, even though he didn’t understand what was happening on some level he still realized that this whole thing was wrong, unfair. He hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
They didn’t go inside the house as he expected, Penrose led him round the side and Chris came face to face with his mother as she opened the gate.
“Mom…?” he pleaded but she turned away and said nothing.
They walked over the lawn. Chris thought he could feel something under the earth, a vibration. His anxiety increased to brain snapping levels. He was surrounded now by all of his neighbors and as they entered the yard they spread out into a crescent around the front of the fallout shelter.
Chris tried to resist when he realized that Penrose was taking him towards the heavy lead doors; he didn’t want to see inside the shelter. That curiosity had long since passed. But Penrose wasn’t letting him go. He tugged and pulled, bruising the skin on Chris’s arm as he all but dragged him over to the doors.
“Brethren. We are gathered here to honor our god and to make good the promise we gave,” said Penrose as they reached the doors, he turned around making Chris face the rest of the neighborhood.
Chris could see that his neighbors were all wearing black robes, some of them had pulled up the hoods, but most hadn’t bothered and they stared at Chris with eager expressions, their eyes gleaming with something akin to madness. He recognized the old widow from number three, the newly-weds from number twelve and an array of other people who he had known for most of his life.
“This night is an important night for us,” Penrose continued. “It is the start of the next phase and a completion of the old one. All of you will reap the rewards for your efforts.”
“Dad?” said Chris as his father joined the row in front. “What’s going on? Is this some kind of joke?”
“Sorry, son,” said Dad. “You’ve had your fun and now we have to pay the price.”
“I didn’t…I haven’t done anything wrong…”
Chris turned his head and looked at Penrose. He had never noticed the insanity in the man’s gray eyes before and it was reflected in all of the faces that watched the proceedings.
“Time to go into the shelter,” said Penrose.
Penrose pulled Chris round once more. This time they were facing the doors and, as if by magic, they were opening up on their own. I’m dreaming, thought Chris. I’m still at the drive-in.
There was a dull grayish-green light shining from the depths of the shelter and a sickly stench floated out on a thick miasma of mist.
“What is this?” Chris cried. “I’m not going in there.”
A fanatic’s smile widened on Penrose’s euphoric face. “But you have to Chris, you belong to the god.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We entered into a pact with a new and powerful god. He will give us everything. We are safe from war, will have unending prosperity for as long as we uphold our part of the bargain. We give him our first born, on their sixteenth birthday.”
“What?” Chris gasped.
“Alomoth rehath elimore dyseth. I call on the god to come to us and accept our sacrifice,” said Penrose.
“D…Dad?” Chris said trying to look back over his shoulder. He was shaking now. His legs buckled beneath him but he felt himself lifted back up by Penrose and another robed figure that he didn’t recognise. They pulled him towards the door.
The stench was worse than ever. It stank of stale sweat and rotten fish tinged with sulphur. Chris gagged on the fog that rushed up into his face. It was as though an invisible hand was exploring his features. He felt cold fingers prod and poke his cheeks like an adoring grandparent.
The smell was all over him now. He felt that he had become one with the fog, dissolved into the rot and he noticed that Penrose and the other man were no longer holding him. They had backed away as though they were afraid of the mist.
The strange, foul gas pulled back and away into the depths of the earth, and Chris found life returning to his limbs. He turned around slowly to face the people. They were laughing and smiling now, the insanity seemed to be gone and Chris felt a tremendous relief.
It’s all some kind of joke. Any minute Myra will come out and start laughing at me for being taken in. Sacrifice indeed!
A smile broke out on his face. He wouldn’t let them win. He would pretend he hadn’t been scared but had guessed all along.
“Very amusing, Dad. I didn’t realize you had such a peculiar sense of humor.”
Dad’s sad eyes turned to him at the same moment that Chris tried to step away from the fallout shelter doors. Then the nightmare began again. He felt the mist rush up at him again. It surrounded him, grabbing at his ankles, his arms, his neatly trimmed hair. He saw the slight frown on his father’s face, the guilt that danced in his eyes and then his Dad turned away and walked back to the house.
Chris tried to scream but the sound strangled in his throat. His eyes bulged as the air was squeezed out of his lungs. Blood pounded into his ears. He thought he heard his mother crying but the sound was lost in a rush as his eardrums burst. Red moisture poured from his eyes, nose and mouth and his internal organs exploded. His stomach seemed to be forced up into his mouth. White bile, mixed with blood seeped out between his lips. His teeth crumbled in his mouth and then, mercifully, he was pulled back into the shelter, his body too crushed to fight anymore, and the doors slammed shut with a sonorous crash.
The robed figures stared at the doors as Penrose hurried forward and turned the key in the lock. They were shocked into silence. They had expected it to be more symbolic and less horrible, but the creature from the other world had clearly wanted them to see what they had done. It was a message. No—it was a warning.
“Prosperity will be ours,” said Penrose, raising his arms to the sky but he was afraid.
The creature would be satisfied, for now. But more sacrifices would have to be
made or each one of them would pay the price. And his daughter Elisabeth. His own first born. She turned sixteen next month.
ELDRITCH LUNCH
BY ADAM BOLIVAR
October 15, 1951
Mexico City
Dear Allen,
Time to get out of Dodge. Joan and I were doing the old William Tell routine and I put a bullet right between her eyes. You should have seen the look on her face. She was out like a light. Not a bad way to go. Dope on a rope. Nine bag a day habit. Did her a favor if you ask me.
Remember that professor of anthropology I told you about? Barlow? We met for drinks one night and he ended up blowing me in the bathroom. Then we went back to his place and did it again. He offed himself last New Year’s. Overdose of goof balls. Vomit all over the bed. I can’t see this suicide kick. Left me a clay figurine. Obscene little thing. Half man, half octopus. Looks like it’s shitting tentacles out of its mouth. He’d showed it to me the night we spent together. I hated it the minute I saw it. Said he’d made it for a friend, some hack writer named H.P. Lovecraft. Guess they had a thing back in the thirties. H.P. Lovecock, more like.
That statue was bad news. Weird shit started happening the day I got it. I started having nightmares about a city. Like what Barlow told me in bed that night. The Black City. Some kind of Mayan legend. Barlow had come to Mexico looking for it. Never found it, but he dreamt about it every night. Now I dream about it too. Sometimes I see it in the daytime when I close my eyes. Junk is the only thing that gives me a respite, an island of heaven in an ocean of hell. But the junk always runs out and then it’s back to the city.
I wish I’d never met Barlow, never laid eyes on that damn statue. I’d break it into a million pieces if I could. Throw it in the lake. But it’s become a part of me now. I couldn’t get rid of it anymore than I could get rid of my own cock. Speaking of which, it’s time to head down to El Sapo, the local dive. The only thing I found lurking in the men’s room last night was some day-old shit floating in the crapper. But maybe tonight I’ll get lucky.
