by Scott Shoyer
“You okay, babe?” Kate asked as Damien looked around the room. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Damien was about to answer Kate when he stopped. He wasn’t going to begin the day by telling her he thought a ghost had just walked through him. Instead, he forced a smile. “That sounds great you guys.” As the words left his mouth he felt a lump the size of a golf ball form in the pit of his stomach—a lump that was full of fear and doubt that staying in this town was the right thing to do.
“Come on, Dad,” Brandon said. “I’m starving.”
“I’m right behind you guys,” Damien said. He walked toward the hotel room door and knew that, instead of eating breakfast in the Derleth diner, he and his family should be packing up and leaving this town as soon as possible.
Damien closed the door behind him and walked with his family to the diner.
17
“Everyone is so nice in this town,” Kate said as they walked out of the diner. “I’d love to live in a town like this.”
“Just remember that living in a place like this also means giving up a lot of your privacy,” Damien pointed out. “Everyone knows everyone else’s business in a town this size.”
“Besides,” Brandon added, “small towns always hide some kind of horrible secret.”
“Brandon,” Kate said as she stopped. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Oh come on, Mom,” Brandon said. “Haven’t you ever seen a David Lynch film or read anything by H.P. Lovecraft? Terrible secrets and horrible things happen in small towns.”
“Well, I can see that I’m going to have to monitor what you watch and read more closely now,” Kate said with a smile.
“Whatever,” Brandon replied.
“What a beautiful day,” Damien said as he looked toward the sky. It was a perfect seventy-five degrees with a light breeze. Damien couldn’t help but scan the clouds.
Nothing unusual up there today.
“We should get packed up and head on out to the Grand Canyon since the weather is so nice,” Damien continued.
“No, honey,” Kate protested. “We did so much driving yesterday that the thought of getting back into the car fills me with dread.”
“Yeah Dad,” Brandon added. “Besides-isn’t the Grand Canyon still, like, two-and-a-half hours away? Let’s just hang out here today and explore.”
“The local paper is calling for this beautiful weather all week,” Kate said. “One day here won’t kill us. And remember that the folks over at the Hualapai Lodge are paying for the hotel. They said they’d pay for a few nights here.”
Damien stared at Kate and Brandon and felt conflicted. He also dreaded the thought of getting back in the car and driving another three hours, but he also felt uneasy about staying in Derleth. He was still uneasy about the experience on the mountain pass and wasn’t convinced that there wasn’t something alive in the clouds. Damien also had a general sense of dread about this town. He couldn’t put his finger on it. The people seemed nice, the weather was beautiful, and the scenery was gorgeous. But all those things felt like a false veneer that was hiding something dark, dangerous, and tenebrous.
Something evil.
Damien knew he couldn’t express these things to Kate and Brandon without them urging him to increase his meds and therapy sessions after they returned home. He looked at the small town around him and finally said, “Oh, what the hell. The Grand Canyon can wait one more day. What should we explore first?”
“I’d love to check out those ‘cyclopean structures’ right outside of town that the waitress told us about,” Brandon said.
“Okay, then,” Damien said. “Let’s go explore.”
18
Howard Montaigne impatiently paced around his house, waiting for a call back from the sheriff about the new family that had driven into town. He’d abandoned his cigarettes in favor of something that would last longer and chewed on a cigar as he walked from room to room.
The High One tried to think of all the odd goings-on over the last month. He felt all the pieces of the puzzle were there, but that he was still missing something.
The Ancient One has something planned, Howard thought. That much I know. But why now? Why is It suddenly changing?
Howard walked over to the small cabinet that served as his bar and took out a bottle of twenty-year-old Scotch. The reflection of a hooded figure dressed in black caught his eye in the glass door as he closed the cabinet. Howard dropped the bottle and jumped back. He immediately turned and was met with an empty room.
“Get a hold of yourself, Howard,” he said aloud as he bent to pick up the bottle of Scotch. As he stood, he saw a bright flash come from the kitchen and froze in place. He knew there was no use in running. If the Ancient One wanted him dead, he’d be dead.
“You don’t need to do this!” Howard shouted toward the kitchen. “I can help you with whatever it is you want to do. My family has faithfully served you for centuries. Just tell me how I can help.”
The iridescent light from the kitchen faded to a purplish-green glow. Fog started to creep out from the threshold and began to fill the house. It was a thick, unnatural fog that reached up to Howard’s knees. All around him were the howls and screams of alien-sounding creatures as they scurried and lurked within the fog. Foreign things ran between Howard’s legs and slithered over his feet.
“Please,” Howard repeated. “Just tell me how I can serve you, oh Great One. My bloodline has always been your loyal servant.” Howard jumped as something sharp and aggressive probed his left leg. “Please, Great One. Tell me what it is you need.”
Nothingggggg, hissed the voice inside Howard’s head. The words felt like tiny weights, and the sudden mental violation made him wince. You have nothing for me and never could give me what I wanted—needed—all these centuries. The voice felt like an icepick inside Howard’s head with every word it spoke. He felt the Ancient One probing his mind as It spoke to him.
“Wh…what is it you’ve needed all these centuries?” Howard finally managed to ask N’Xabez. “I can get you anything, Ancient One.”
You and your bloodline and the bloodlines of the others could never give me release, the voice continued. I am trapped between two worlds, able to temporarily occupy them while at the same time belonging to neither. But now my time has come. I have found entrance into this world, and soon you will all bow down to me.
“Oh, Ancient One,” Howard carefully said. “We have always bowed down to you and praised you as the Elder God you are. We are your faithful, your chosen bloodlines.”
Not enougggghhhhh anymore, the Great One hissed. With these words, Howard felt as though his head would split into two. Howard grabbed his temples and balled his hands into fists.
I don’t want Derleth, N’Xabez hissed. I want this worlddddd.
“This world has always been yours,” Howard said. “You are Ph’nafh nagi’fhtagn—‘The One in the Clouds.’ We, the bloodlines you chose, have always served you and will continue until the end.”
Noooooo, N’Xabez hissed. Its words dripped like acid in Howard’s mind. I come. Soon. No more a prisoner between two worlds.
A cold, paralyzing chill ran through Howard. If It was right, then the Ancient One had found a way into the world. But why now? What had changed from last month? Last year? The last hundred years?
N’Xabez released its grip on Howard’s mind, and as he looked toward the kitchen, Howard expected to see the Ancient One Itself. But instead, hundreds of squamous tentacles reached out from the threshold. The purplish-green fog gave everything an eerie, antediluvian hue. All around Howard, ancient horrors raced through his house, hidden by the fog. It was then that Howard realized exactly what N’Xabez meant. The Ancient One hadn’t just found a way into this world for Itself, but a way to bridge Its world to theirs.
The blood drained from Howard’s face as he leaned over and threw up. Until now, the worship of the Ancient One had been safe—safe for the bloodlines, anyway. N’Xabez w
as confined to Its own realm and couldn’t penetrate into this world except when the ceremony of the Circle of R’lyeh was performed.
But now N’Xabez no longer needed the ceremony. It had found Its own gateway into their world. Once N’Xabez’s plans were fulfilled, the Earth would find itself in a darkness it had never experienced before-a darkness that had a life of its own and which concealed the horrors of an ancient, alien world. Nobody on Earth would be safe from the Ancient One’s reign. Humanity would be slaves and food.
The only consolation Howard had was that N’Xabez’s plans weren’t yet completed. If they were, then Howard knew he was already dead.
Gooooo, the Ancient One said. Tell the other bloodlines that the end is here. My beginningggg, your endddddd. The words dripped in Howard’s mind like thick molasses in the winter time.
A tentacle shot out from the kitchen and wrapped itself around Howard’s neck. Howard clawed at the deadly appendage helplessly. It raised him off the ground while other tentacles coiled up and around his legs. All the various appendages started to pull in different directions and Howard felt his joints being stressed to their breaking points.
“Nooooo, please!” Howard tried to scream, but the tentacle around his throat tightened. A darkness filled Howard’s mind, but this wasn’t a darkness due to the lack of oxygen. This was a vision from the Ancient One as it showed Howard what humanity could expect after It came through the gate. The skies were on fire and oceans and lakes were filled with the deadly gases and chemicals found in N’Xabez’s home world. Thick, noxious, impenetrable clouds and fog filled the world, all pregnant with the monsters that drove Man mad. Dead, bloated corpses of human beings floated in the deadly waters while half-eaten bodies littered the landscape.
Those human beings still alive sat, confined within their madness at what the world had become and what now ruled it. Enormous creatures occupied the skies, the oceans, and the land-horrible, indescribable creatures that defiled the living and the dead, and defied the physics of this world.
Howard felt his mind reaching the edges of sanity as the visions flashed in his mind. He welcomed the final embrace of death over knowing what the new world had in store for humanity. But just when Howard thought the tentacle around his neck would choke the life out of him, the thick, scaly appendage loosened its grip and he crashed to the floor. Hideous, loathsome creatures crawled all over Howard’s body, bringing him yet again to the edge of madness.
Howard closed his eyes, placed his hands over his ears, and screamed. He screamed until his throat was raw and he thought his own eardrums would rupture. When he opened his eyes, everything was back to normal. No fog, no creatures, no tentacles. All that was left was the bottle of Scotch next to him on the floor and a lingering madness that he fought back as if he was shooing away a cloud of angry bees.
He looked around the house for any proof of what had just happened. The Ancient One had sent him a message—a message that the bloodlines were no longer needed and had better steer clear of Its plans. Howard needed to contact the surviving bloodline members and warn them of what was coming.
But first, Howard opened the bottle of Scotch and drank deeply. The End was coming, and there was nothing he or the other bloodline families could do to prevent it.
19
Two miles outside of Derleth stood the five cyclopean structures the locals in the diner had told Damien about. Their descriptions, however, did no justice to the marvels that stood in front of he and his family.
Located in what was otherwise an empty field, the huge structures were a complete mystery to even the locals. Huge, over-sized, irregular stone blocks were stacked together to create makeshift houses. Local lore predate the structures to even before the founding of Derleth. The massive stones were hand chiseled-that much was obvious-but how the ancient architects had managed to move them around to create the stone structures was a mystery even researchers from local universities couldn’t answer.
The stone was still a pure white and was difficult to look at without wearing sunglasses. Damien had noticed that nothing grew around the structures. There was no grass or even weeds around the base of the stone, but not ten feet past the buildings was lush greenery. It was like the stones prevented any kind of life from thriving around it.
Damien felt dwarfed as they crossed the thresholds.
“Some of these stones are as large as our house,” Kate said as she looked around the inside of the stone house. There was nothing inside any of the five structures other than dirt floors.
Damien again noticed the lack of any weeds or anything green inside the building. “Don’t you think it is odd that there’s not so much as a weed poking out of the ground?” he asked Kate.
“Maybe the locals weed out the insides of the structures,” Kate said.
“Maybe,” said Damien, unconvinced. “Do you think they weed and kill all the grass around the outside as well?”
Kate just looked at him and was about to say something when Brandon shouted from one of the other structures.
“Even the air smells old inside these things!” Brandon yelled. “It smells musty and moldy, but I don’t see any mold or even any moss.” Brandon hungrily explored each structure hoping to find some clue as to their origins and purpose that the locals had overlooked. “How the heck do you think they moved and stacked these stones on top of each other?”
“No one knows,” came a deep voice from outside the structures.
Damien, Kate, and Brandon ran out of the structures they were exploring and found Sheriff Landry standing among the buildings.
“Oh, hi, Sheriff,” Kate said. “I hope it’s okay we’re exploring out here? We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Sure, sure,” Landry replied. “Explore away. Donna, the waitress at the diner, told me you’d be out here.”
“Is anything wrong, Sheriff?” Damien asked.
“No, no,” Landry said. “We’ve recently had some animal attacks around town and I just wanted to make sure ya’ll were all right.”
“Animal attacks?” Kate asked. “What kind of animals?”
“Mountain lions and bobcats, mostly,” Landry explained, “but there’s also been a few bear sightings. Like I said: I just wanted to come out and make sure everything was okay.”
“We appreciate that, Sheriff,” Damien said.
“Do you really not know what these structures are or how they were made?” Brandon asked as he ran his hand along the stone.
“That is correct,” Landry answered. “These things were here, we’re guessing, long before the founding families settled and built Derleth. We’ve even had experts from the local university come out here to tell us what these things are. Those so-called ‘experts’ couldn’t even date these structures.”
Sheriff Landry followed Damien as he investigated the white stone around the structure. Damien hesitated as he came across a yellowish stone. Besides the color, the stone stuck out among the enormous stones due to its size. The yellow stone was only the size of a manhole cover. Just as Damien was about to point out the smaller stone, he touched it and immediately had visions of an alien landscape, and of strange creatures and tortured humanoid-looking people. The images carved a path in his mind that he knew led only to madness, and quickly pulled his hand away from the yellow stone.
“Well?” Damien heard Kate ask. “What do you think?”
“Think?” Damien answered as the images slowly faded from his mind. “About what?”
Damien turned around and saw that his wife and Sheriff Landry looked at him.
“Sheriff Landry here was going to take us to another place that has more mysterious structures,” Kate said.
“There are more of these things?” Brandon asked. Damien thought he detected a bit of distress in his son’s voice.
“Not exactly,” Landry answered. “What I thought you might be interested in seeing aren’t quite as large as these structures.” Landry pointed to the large stones in front of
them all and continued. “We like to call these structures our local Stonehenge. What I think you’d be interested in, though, are just as breathtaking.”
Damien looked nervously between his wife and son. His eagerness for an explanation for this place had faded as he had an overwhelming sense of synchronicity. Damien slowly realized that the unmentionable creature in the clouds, the visions he just had, the cyclopean structures before him, and even the town of Derleth itself were somehow all connected.
“I, uh… I guess. Sure,” was all Damien could say.
“Great,” Sheriff Landry said. “Just follow my patrol car. It is not far from here.”
“Hey Sheriff,” Damien said as they all walked to their cars. “Have you ever noticed the lack of green inside the perimeter of these structures?”
Landry stopped and looked back at the stone buildings. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Looks like that is just one more mystery to throw on top of the heap.”
20
The further they drove from the sightseeing location, the better Damien felt. He looked into the rearview mirror and watched as the colossal structures faded into the background. He then looked at the concerned expression on Brandon’s face. “Everything okay, buddy?” Damien asked as they followed the Sheriff’s car to the next sightseeing location. “You looked a little freaked out back there.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Brandon replied as he stared out the car window. “I’m fine. I just had some messed up dreams last night and I can’t shake them.”
“First your dad sees something in the clouds and then you have bad dreams,” Kate said as she turned in the passenger seat to face Brandon. “You two certainly are a pair.”
*****
Brandon looked up at the rearview mirror and saw his dad was staring back at him. Ever since he’d woken up that morning, Brandon had felt—knew—that something was wrong. The dreams had been too real. He remembered feeling the oily, murky alien atmosphere on his skin, and he couldn’t get the screams of the inhabitants of that world out of his head. But what bothered him the most were the words that were spoken in his head just before he’d woken up.
