“Think whatever got the axe went down the toilet?”
“Or got dropped into the septic tank. It still doesn’t explain the concrete.”
“Would a rotting corpse stink up the house if the gasses came back up the pipes?” she asks. Her time with the FBI hadn’t been spent on death investigations.
“No, I don’t think so. Otherwise the stink from the septic tank would too. Let’s go see if we can find the access hatch for the tank.”
The two agents scan the yard and quickly find the access hatch to the septic tank. It is slightly domed, made of metal and secured with a padlock. Winifred moves to examine it more closely but Grendel holds her back.
“Let’s finish with one Pandora’s box before we open another.”
Back in the cabin Grendel opens the curtains to let as much of the pale pre-dawn light in as possible. Winifred works on the padlock that secures the large steamer truck closed. She unlocks it.
“Got it.”
She takes out a flashlight and begins to examine the lip of lid for any signs of a tripwire. Grendel joins her and leans in close, his pistol free from its holster, but held down and out of Winifred’s field of view. She slowly opens the truck a hair’s breadth and leans in to look around the edge for any signs of a trip wire or booby trap.
“I think it’s safe,” she says. She carefully lifts the lid. Inside is an alchemist’s workshop. There are glass vials containing colored powders. Beakers with strange fluids, sealed with lead stoppers and molten wax. Chalk, candles and a curved, ritual dagger are set atop a black robe covered in occult symbols. Resting on top of the supplies are two pages from an old book, sealed in thin plastic sleeves for easier handling. The pages are cracked and yellowed with age and hand-written in what appears to be a Cyrillic language like Greek or Russian. The ghastly illustrations could be from a book on human anatomy, but clearly aren’t. Taped to the underside of the trunk’s lid is a manila envelope. The only mark on it is a large green Delta symbol.
“This just stopped being low stakes,” Grendel says, trying to keep his voice steady. “I guess that envelope’s for us. You read it. I’m not in the mood.” Grendel sits down hard on the cot, his pistol dangling from his fingers. He looks at the floor. Specifically at the odd dark stain.
Winifred reads aloud. “My Brothers. If you are reading this note, I have died or become incapacitated before I had the courage to complete my final mission for our group. I have done a terrible thing. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. I just missed her so much. The formula must be incomplete. I only had a fragment of the book it came from. She came back, but she came back wrong. Bullets were useless. I had to dismember it. But the parts kept moving. I put the pieces in the septic tank out back. When I came to, I could hear it, calling to me. It begged me to let it out. It used her voice. It knew just what to say to stay my hand. I couldn’t kill her again. Not again. It must be burned to nothing. You will find twenty gallons of gas in the cabin. Pour them into the septic tank and ignite it. You’d be happier if you didn’t look inside. Please make sure the remains are kept from my children. I am so sorry. Please forgive me.” It is signed Clyde Baughman.
“Bastard!” Grendel shouts, making Winifred jump with surprise. “Fucking selfish bastard! How the fuck could you leave this for someone else to clean up? Jesus!”
“So he’s crazy?” Winifred asks, not sure if perhaps her new partner doesn’t have a little crazy in his pocket too.
“That’d be nice, but not the way my luck is running.”
“So, what then? He brought her back from the dead?”
“No, no, no! Not her,” Grendel spit the words out, trying not to trip over them. “Something that looked like her, sounded like her, but wrong! Something tainted!”
“Fine! Tainted, whatever. But you’re still talking zombie here, right? George Romero? Eating brains?”
“No, we’re talking about beating death.” Grendel hauls himself to his feet and begins pacing furiously. “Anyone messing around with hypergeometry does it for power, but what good is all that power if you can’t take it with you. The way to fix that, of course, is you just don’t ever leave. You never die. West. Curwen. Munoz. Mason. Waite. Prinn. They all wanted it. Some of them even got it, for a while. It’s the alchemist’s holy grail. Eternal life. But it always finds a way to fuck you.”
“He brought her back, from the dead?” Winifred says getting to her feet. “With a silly robe, some candles, and a magic wand?”
Grendel shrugs. “Looks more like a magic knife. Don’t look at me like I’m talking crazy. I thought you said you’d been out on four operas?”
“Yeah, sure, but what I saw was from another world, not from beyond the grave.”
Grendel stops his pacing. “Then it’s about time you learned there’s no difference between the two. It all comes from the same place.” He stomps across the room, sticks the road flares in his belt and grabs up a jerry can of gasoline in each hand.
“Bring the axe.”
Out in the yard the two agents cross to the septic tank lid, hauling their heavy load of gasoline-filled jerry cans. Grendel stops about twenty feet short of the tank lid and puts the cans down. Winifred does likewise. Grendel takes the axe from her and then hands her his handgun.
“Take the guns and put them in the car.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“No,” he says, his mouth as dry as sand. “Put them in the car. The note said bullets didn’t do any good. With all the fumes we’re going to kick up I don’t want a muzzle flash to ignite the gas while I’m pouring it in there. I wouldn’t like burning to death very much.”
“I can keep my head,” Winifred shoots back.
“Maybe I can’t. If it gets out of the tank we run back to the car and get the fuck out of here. In fact, turn the car around so it’s pointing towards the road. Leave the engine running and the doors open too. First one there gets to drive.”
As Winifred runs back to the car to prep their escape route, Grendel eyes the tank lid and the padlock. He lays his hand on the surface of the lid, then hefts the weight of the axe, taking the measure of both. Winifred turns the car around and comes running back.
“I can’t believe I left the guns in the car.”
“How’s this sound?” Grendel says, ignoring her. “I use the axe to punch a few holes in the top of the tank lid. Then I pour the gas in while you stand by with the axe. If it starts to force the lid, go for the hands. We’ve got to keep it in the tank. We don’t want it stumbling around after us on fire.”
“Sound like a plan,” Winifred grumbles. “The kind of plan a crazy person would come up with.”
“What so crazy about it?”
“The part with the undead wife in the septic tank.”
“No plan is perfect. Ready?”
“Fuck no,” she says. The look in Grendel’s eyes tells her he isn’t ready either, but there is no point in putting it off. Grendel raises the axe and brings it down on the lid with a resounding clang. He raises it again and again. The lid dents. A half-dozen blows later, the septic tank lid looks like a can opener has been at it. Grendel hands Winifred the axe and picks up the jerry can. Just as he’s about to pour the gas in they hear a woman’s voice, shot through with terror and desperation, from inside the tank.
“Hello? Hello? Who’s out there? Who are you?”
“Wait! Wait!” Winifred says. “Do you hear it?”
“Please!” the woman shrieks through the perforated lid. “You’ve got to get me out of here! That crazy bastard locked me in here! He thinks I’m his dead wife’s ghost or something! Please!”
“Don’t listen!” Grendel bellows. “It’s not human!” He starts pouring the gasoline through the holes he made in the lid.
“Oh my god, no! No please! What are you doing? Stop!” The shrieks rise to a crescendo of panic as the gas pours in.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Winifred shouts. “That’s a woman down there!”
“
No, it isn’t,” Grendel hisses between clenched teeth. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before. We’ve got to finish this.”
“She sounds normal!” Winifred reaches out to stay Grendel’s hand, but he turns his body to keep her from the can of petrol.
“It might not know what it is.”
“I need to know what it is. I need to be sure.”
“I know. I’m sure,” he grunts, refusing to meet her eyes.
“What if you’re wrong? What if Baughman went off his rocker and just kidnapped some woman and locked her in there?”
“He didn’t. What he did was worse. And now we’re going to fix it.” Throwing the empty jerry can aside, Grendel turns to grab the next one and comes eye to eye with the Glock .40 cal he’d handed Winifred back in the green box. Winifred points it right at his face, using the professional shooters’ stance they taught her at Quantico.
“That’s supposed to be in the car, Fred.”
“You are out of your mind if you think I’m letting you burn her alive. Not without being sure.”
“We don’t want to see what’s in there, Fred. I don’t want to see what in there.”
“What’s going on up there?” howls the voice from inside the septic tank. “Please! I’ll do anything you want. Please don’t burn me! Please!”
“Just a minute! There’s been some confusion. We’ll have you out in a minute,” Winifred calls back, using her most authoritative cop voice.
“Oh thank you! Thank you! I was so scared. I thought I was going to die!” weeps the woman. Or the monster.
Winifred fishes the key-ring out of her pocket and holds them out to Grendel. “Find the key to the padlock and get it open.”
Grendel carefully puts the gasoline can down and starts to take a step towards her to take the keys.
“That’s close enough! Here!” Winifred throws the keys to him. Grendel catches the keys and immediately turns and throws them deep into the brush.
“I’m not going to help you kill us,” he says grimly.
It takes a moment for Winifred to tamp down her anger. “That’s not going to stop me. Get back. Move over to that side of the lid.”
“Fred, it’s not a woman! You have to believe me!” Grendel tries to sound brave. He doesn’t.
“We’ll know for sure in a minute. Now back off. Way off.” Grendel steps back a few feet.
“More. More. Keep going. Okay, stop. Now, turn away from me, put your hands behind your head and interlace your fingers.” Grendel does what she orders him to do. “If you turn around, or put your hands down, I will kill you. You got that?”
“Fred, if you let that thing out it’s going to kill you.”
“You just stay put.” Winifred fishes her lock pick set out of her jacket pocket. She puts the pistol down while keeping an eye on Grendel. She takes out a pick and begins working it into the padlock. Grendel is not looking at her. He’s looking at the car just twenty feet away, the doors open and the engine running. It won’t be the first time he’s left someone behind to die.
“What’s going on up there?” the trapped woman wails. “Why did you pour gasoline in here? Oh god, the fumes! Please, it’s burning my eyes!”
“Just hold on, I’ve almost got it.” Winifred pops the padlock open and pulls it free. Just as she does, the septic tank lid explodes open and the dead thing inside snaps out like a trapdoor spider. Swollen, blackened, slimy hands with long cracked nails caked in dried shit grab both of Winifred’s hands. The thing in the tank laughs, joyous and sadistic and louder than she could have believed. Winifred pulls but its grip is as firm as the grave. Her eyes dart to her pistol lying only inches away. The lid lifts more. Winifred screams as she looks directly into the eyes of the dead thing wearing Mrs. Baughman’s corpse. Its visage is bone and meat smashed by an axe and re-knit by something that only vaguely understood human anatomy. Even so, it knew where to put the teeth. It starts to pull Winifred in.
The lid slams shut, Grendel’s weight atop it forcing the horror back down into the tank. The steel lip of the lid bites into the soft, rotten flesh of the corpse-thing. The shock causes it to loosen its grip enough for Winifred to break free. The thing’s arms, caught at mid-forearm, don’t immediately have the leverage to force the tank open again.
“The axe!” Grendel screams. “Get the axe! Use it!”
Winifred scrambles to get the axe from where it lays just a few feet away. Even as Grendel uses all his weight and strength to hold the lid closed, the thing in the tank presses itself up, lifting him. “The arms!” he screams. “Chop ’em! Chop the fucking arms!”
Running on little more than adrenaline and panic, Winifred swings the axe down onto the thing’s right arm and severs it at the edge of the lid. It flops onto the ground, trailing something black, thick and ropey, but not blood. Its wrist and fingers continue to move without coordination, but with a lively awfulness. Winifred swings again and lops the left hand off at the wrist. Grendel rolls off the lid and lets the screaming thing jerk its twitching stumps back under the lid. As soon as the lid closes, Grendel throws himself back on top to hold it closed.
“Get the gas!” he screams. “Come on! Pour it in!”
Winifred turns and snatches up the can of gas. When she turns back and sees Grendel is blocking the holes in the lid, she hesitates. The thing in the tank howls. It bangs against the lid as Grendel struggles to hold it closed. His eyes are wide with panic. If there is a smarter plan he can’t think of it.
“Just do it! Come on! Do it!”
Winifred, her face a mask of white terror, pours the gasoline through the perforated hatch, getting plenty on Grendel, but most gets in the tank. The thing pounds against the lid, screaming incoherently about how it is going to kill them both. When the can is empty, Grendel rolls, gets to his feet and starts running. Winifred needs no encouragement. She runs too. Behind them the lid flies open again. Grendel stops, pulls a flare from his belt. He then realizes that he’s wet with gasoline.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!”
Winifred stops running and turns. Grendel throws the flare into her hands. She catches it reflexively.
“I can’t light it! I’m covered in gas! Fucking light it and throw it! Now! Now! Now!”
Winifred pulls the cap, strikes it and the flare ignites instantly. Grendel runs away from her and the sputtering magnesium flare. Winifred tosses it and it arcs right down into the open septic tank lid. There is a dull thud as the gas ignites. A fireball rises from the open lid followed by boiling flames and thick black smoke. The screaming goes on and on. It screams until its vocal cords blacken and snap. As the thing dies, it calls for its husband.
Winifred turns and walks back to the car, a little unsteady from the adrenaline. She turns off the motor. On the other side of the yard, Grendel bends at the waist and pukes. She comes back to see if he’s okay. She puts her hand on his shoulder as he’s spitting the last of it out.
“You all right?” she asks.
“It’s just the fucking gas fumes… and the adrenaline. When the fire dies down I’ll go get his resurrection kit and toss it in there. The bits you chopped off will have to go too.”
“No. I’ll get them.”
“They’re still moving.”
“If they’re still moving I need to see,” she says. “I need to see what I’m going to be facing the rest of my life.”
Grendel spits again and straightens up. “Welcome to the club, Fred. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going see if I can wash some of the gasoline out of my clothes before the trip back to L.A.” Grendel leaves Winifred alone to police up the bits and pieces and drop everything down the open septic tank lid. Eventually Grendel emerges from the cabin with the steamer trunk and together they drop it, the letter, the axe and even the bags of cement are dropped into the septic tank. Winifred picks up her gun and lock pick tools, even though the fire has damaged both beyond repair. It is well after sun up when two agents drop the last cans of gas into the septic tank and ignite them wi
th another flare. By now they are dirty and sweaty and covered with soot from the fire. They get in the car and drive away as the fire continues to burn underground. Even with the windows down, the stink of gas fumes rising from Grendel’s clothes is only bearable at highway speeds.
They drive back to L.A. in silence. Grendel pulls up in front of Winifred’s car, still parked on the street across from Jumbo’s Clown Room. It’s mid-morning and nothing much is moving in Hollywood.
“This is your stop.”
Winifred doesn’t move. Grendel looks away, straight ahead. He knows he’s supposed to say something, but it doesn’t come. He presses ahead anyways.
“Once you get out of this car, we won’t see each other again unless A Cell puts us together on an op. That could be next week or next year or never. If you’ve got something you want to ask me, do it now. You won’t get a chance until much—”
Winifred cuts him off. Her face streaked by soot and sweat but not by tears.
“Why? Why the fuck would he try to bring her back? You worked with him. You know he saw stuff. Real stuff. He should have known what would happen if he tried to bring her back. So why did he do it?”
“Fucked if I know. People do stupid things. The stupidest things usually happen because of love and hope. He loved her. Maybe he loved her so much he allowed himself to hope that this time he would be the one to get it right? That’s all it takes, you know? Just a little bit of hope. With a little bit of hope you can end the world.”
“You make hope sound like a weakness,” she says.
“It is.”
Winifred looks at Grendel with an expression of revulsion. Disgusted, she reaches for the door handle.
“Be seeing you,” he calls after her.
Winifred slams the car door. Grendel pulls off before she takes five steps. She never looks back to see him go.
“Be seeing you,” she says, hoping she won’t.
A few hours later, Grendel enters his apartment. It looks uncomfortably like the one he searched the previous night. He crosses straight to his desk and turns on the lamp. He reaches for a half-empty bottle of bourbon atop the desk and pours two fingers into a dirty glass. He flops into the creaky office chair and leans back. Raising the glass, his eyes are drawn to the framed photograph of an older, attractive woman on his desk. The frame is gilded by a black ribbon. Locking eyes with her, he hesitates bringing the drink to his mouth. Putting his glass down Grendel pulls open a desk drawer and removes a heavy, badly tattered medieval grimoire. The script on the battered cover is barely legible Cyrillic. Opening the book, he turns to a series of pages that have been torn out. Reaching into his jacket he pulls out the plastic-sleeved pages that he and Winifred found at the cabin. Pages he told Winifred he’d burned. He places them into the book. The torn edges match like pieces of a puzzle.
Shotguns v. Cthulhu Page 13
