by K X Douglas
The nightclub was loud, dark, and crowded. Obnoxious EDM was playing, and the bass was reverberating through the floor. Despite being a Monday night, the club was packed with people, most of them apparently students.
Peter had to push his way through the crowd, looking around the whole time for a place to sit down. There weren’t many except for a couple bars on opposite sides of the dance floor; this was no pub.
When he arrived at the bar, he was surprised to see Heidi and Victoria ordering drinks. They were both wearing short, tight dresses and heels. He waved at them, and they waved back before approaching him.
Damn it! I was hoping nobody that recognized me would be here.
“Hey, Peter, what’s up?” Heidi asked. Despite being only a couple of feet away from him, she had to yell over the music in order to be heard.
“Nothing much,” he lied. “Just thought I’d get out, see what the night life here is like.”
“You’ve certainly been doing a lot of partying lately,” Victoria said. “I’m surprised you aren’t sick!”
“So am I,” he said. “Were you bored of the parties on campus or something? I’m sure there’s one going tonight.”
“She was in the mood to have someone make drinks for her, instead of drinking beer, and she dragged me along,” Victoria said. “How about you?”
Make something up, make something up, make something up…
“I’ve heard good things about this place, so I decided to check it out.”
“Oh, it’s great,” Heidi said. “The bartenders here made a mean Caesar.”
The bartender slid up to them and served two of the bright red drinks in salt-rimmed glasses with lime and celery.
“You gonna order anything?” Heidi asked.
“Yeah,” Peter said, “just gimme a second to think about what I want.” He turned to face the bartender. “I’ll have a Long Island.”
They waited as the bartender prepared Peter’s drink. He paid for it and downed it in two gulps.
“God, you must really want to get drunk tonight!” Victoria said.
“I had to buy textbooks today! The bill made me want to drink.”
“I’ll bet!”
Heidi took Peter’s hand and led him to the dance floor. It was more crowded than the rest of the bar, which meant that they were often pressed together by the lack of space.
“You know, it’s too bad we’ve already been drinking. Peter, I’ve got something planned for you, but we need to wait until we’re both sober. It’s not a good idea to do it when we’re both drunk.”
“But I’m not drunk yet.”
“That’s not the point. It’s for safety reasons.”
“I don’t get it.”
She held a finger to her lips and adopted a mischievous smile.
“Maybe we can do it Thursday. After class. It’ll be a school night, so we shouldn’t be drinking regardless.”
Shit, this isn’t going according to plan at all! I have to at least get a lead on what’s happening to these people, and I have to make sure Heidi and Victoria don’t get tangled up in it!
Once the song was over, he started looking for the bathroom. It was tucked in the back corner of the building and indicated with a tiny sign. He charged in and locked himself in one of the open stalls.
It took him a moment to register the presence of a human corpse, impaled through the heart on a vast icicle of water extending out from the toilet bowl. The blood was still wet. Peter immediately unlocked the door and backed out, looking around for anyone else in the bathroom. Luckily, he saw a couple of people.
“There’s a dead body in the stall! Someone get security!”
He then pulled out his cell phone and called 911 as the men ran out of the bathroom.
“Yes, there’s been another incident at the nightclub! A dead body in a stall in the men’s bathroom!”
He hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket as he ran out onto the dance floor in search of Heidi and Victoria. He saw them at the bar ordering another drink and sprinted up to them. People nearby took notice of his panic and stopped to stare.
“Peter, what’s wrong?” Victoria asked.
“I found a dead body in the bathroom! It looks like someone was murdered!”
“Oh my god!”
In a few minutes, the music stopped, and a voice rang out over the intercom.
“Sorry to say that we’re closing early tonight. There’s been an emergency. Police have been contacted and will be here shortly.”
Instead of leaving right away, the crowd began chattering. Everyone seemed confused. A scream could be heard coming from the direction of the men’s bathroom. Peter watched as a pair of bouncers made their way towards the bathroom and prevented anyone else from entering.
“You should call a cab before the rush,” Peter said.
“What about you?” Victoria asked.
“I’ll call one in a bit,” Peter said. “I actually came here to look into the disappearances that have been happening here. I’m going to investigate. I’ll see you both later.”
“Wait, what do you mean by ‘investigate’?” Victoria asked. “You’re going to go back to the murder scene?”
“I’m going to have a look around. I got a few clues from the murder scene before I called the cops. I’ll be back by morning.”
“Stay safe,” Heidi said.
Peter ran towards the bathrooms, against the tide of people, looking for a way in. An idea came to him, and he looked around for a place to hide. He found one in one of the bars; now that the bartenders had left, they were empty.
He ducked behind the bar while nobody was looking and, once he was hidden, began to transform.
I hope this is convincing. I’m actually thankful that I ran into them today.
Within seconds, he transformed into a very convincing doppelgänger of Heidi. He emerged from the bar in his new form and sprinted towards the women’s’ bathroom, which was still unguarded. Slipping inside, he made for one of the empty stalls and locked the door behind him.
Shit, what am I going to do with my clothes? I’m probably going to come out the other end naked.
He ended up hanging his clothes over the bathroom door. Stretching his jaw like a snake, he swallowed his wallet, cell phone and keys before reverting to his shoggoth form and diving into the toilet. His form twisted to conform to the sewage pipes, and he swam forward until he found himself in the city’s sewers. They weren’t as spacious as depicted in movies and video games; a human would likely have trouble moving around.
Peter slithered along the surface of the river of sewage, listening for any signs of life. The sewers were labyrinthine and monotonous, with few signs of life beyond the occasional mouse or insect.
Eventually he found himself outside, having been dumped into the river. He looked around for anything suspicious, using his countless eyes to survey the area as quickly as possible. It wasn’t long before he came across a strange set of footprints on the nearby riverbank which resembled those of an overly large human or another primate. They were too large to be anything mundane, even a gorilla, and the toes were far too long.
He climbed onto the bank and began following the footprints, taking advantage of his shoggoth form to move almost silently. It wasn’t long before he found their source.
The creature was as big as an animal could be while still being able to squeeze itself within the confines of the sewage system. It was a furry, six-limbed thing, that walked like an ape and had a single great horn jutting from its forehead.
He saw a couple of human corpses on the ground near the beast, thoroughly blackened from frostbite despite it being the first week of September.
As Peter approached the beast, he felt the air grow cold. It was as if the temperature had dropped nearly two dozen degrees across a distance of a couple of feet. The wind quickened its pace, and a miniature blizzard formed around the beast.
Suddenly, the ground ruptured, and a large icicle erupted f
rom it towards Peter. He formed a hole in himself so that it passed through, breaking up on one end to unwrap himself from the icicle and reform his body.
“Look,” he said with all of his mouths at once. “I’m going to get to the bottom of why you’re here, and why you’re killing people. If that means I have to kill you, then so be it.”
Peter rose up and returned to a humanoid form, but did not adopt the appearance of a human; rather, he appeared as a shoggoth poured into a human-shaped mould, iridescent black ooze covered in eyes and mouths and grasping tentacles.
It’s too big for me to try eating it. The best I can do is break its bones or wrap around its head and try to suffocate it.
The creature turned to face him and ambled forward on all six of its limbs like an insectoid ape. He met its charge and ducked under a swiping claw aimed for his head. However, it had swung at him with multiple limbs at once, and one of its claws embedded itself into his side.
Peter barely felt it. He leapt for the beast’s face and shoved an appendage down its throat, attempting to suffocate it. The creature thrashed about, trying to throw him off, but he managed to hold on.
He continued to cling to the creature as the air temperature dropped further. A breeze picked up, steadily intensifying in speed, which made the cold feel much worse than it actually was.
Peter heard a gunshot. A large chunk of flesh detached itself from the creature’s shoulder, and it reeled. He sloughed off of the beast and slithered back.
CHAPTER SIX
The beast let out a confused scream as blood gushed from its new wound.
“What are you gonna do now, you fat frosty cunt?!” a voice said in a thick Scottish accent. “I dinnae ken why the two of you are fightin’, but I’ve got a spat of murders to solve here.”
Peter looked towards the source of the voice and saw a man pointing a tactical shotgun at the strange ape-thing. His thinning hair was styled into a mohawk, and he wore aviator sunglasses over his face. A lit blunt hung from his lips, a stuffed parrot sat on his shoulder, and he was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts.
“Solomon, I found it! It was a fuckin’ gnoph-kei! It’s fighting some other beastie!”
Another man crept up to Tadhg’s side. He was tall and gaunt, with close-cropped brown hair and a morose expression on his face. Unlike his companion, he was dressed in a button-down shirt, tie and slacks. It was as if he had just left an office building, except for the rifle in his hands.
“Curious,” Solomon said. “I wonder if they were both summoned by the same person?”
The gnoph-kei turned to face Tadhg and let out a roar. It broke out into a gallop and charged the man, but he fired again, this time hitting the beast’s face. It slowed down slightly but did not stop, and once it was close enough it swiped at him with one of its larger forelimbs.
Both of the men were caught in the blizzard which seemed to follow the beast, and it was obvious that they felt it; they were dressed for summer.
Solomon retreated while the creature was preoccupied with trying to kill Tadhg, and once there was enough distance between him and the gnoph-kei he shot at it.
Now that the creature was no longer paying attention to him, Peter stood and watched the two men fight it.
Should I try to help them? Or would they still think that I was trying to kill them and shoot at me, too? It’s not like I have anything to fear from being shot.
Peter ran towards the gnoph-kei from behind and jumped onto its back. It staggered and thrashed about, attempting to throw him off.
“Shoot it now!” he called out with all of his mouths. “While it’s distracted!”
He saw then that Solomon had to reload his gun; it looked to be an old bolt-action rifle. However, Tadhg did not. He shot at the creature again, this time hitting its centre mass and exposing some of its ribcage.
“Is that other creature trying to help us?” Solomon asked as he finished reloading his rifle. “How peculiar.”
“Don’t be fallin’ for it, Solomon,” Tadhg said. “You have no idea what that thing could be schemin’.”
I knew that gaining their trust was going to be an uphill battle, but seriously? Come on.
The gnoph-kei reached onto its back with its longer limbs and grasped at Peter, but he bent his body and avoided its grip. Its wounds continued to ooze blood, but it didn’t seem to be slowed down at all. It was as if the creature could feel no pain.
Peter opened several mouths along his body and tried to gnaw at the creature’s flesh while simultaneously extending a limb and bludgeoning its head. He managed to strike a blow to its cranium, causing it to double over.
He felt the cold intensify; the air had to be at least forty below zero in the immediate vicinity around the gnoph-kei. Several large icicles burst forth from the soil, most of them aimed towards Peter. They pierced his flesh, but barely, and the wounds did not hinder him.
“You should both get to safety!” he yelled. “You’ll die in a matter of minutes from the cold if you get near the beast!”
Despite all of his eyes, his visibility was greatly limited by the blizzard winds that had formed, and the roaring sound against his ears prevented from hearing any response from the two of them. He could see them as distant shadows, and their movement suggested that they got the message.
Peter heard the bang of Solomon’s rifle even over the screaming frigid winds. Next, he could hear several shotgun blasts. The noises stopped, and he surmised that they both had to reload.
The beast continued to paw at him, and he tried to dodge as best he could while still clinging to its back. He climbed down to a lower section of its body and extended several appendages out around it, searching for bullet holes. It grabbed onto him with one of its larger hands and pulled him free of its back. Holding him out in front of itself, the beast surveyed the multi-eyed nuisance before lifting him up and impaling him with its singular horn.
He split his body in twain to avoid the blow before seeping into a wound on the beast’s shoulder. Inserting himself into a gap between its muscles, he entered its body and began searching for its vitals. As the gnoph-kei moved its arms, muscle fibres expanded and contracted, squeezing him like toothpaste in a tube.
Peter felt the beast convulse as Solomon and Tadhg continued to litter it with bullets. The slugs from the shotgun in particular were fired at such a velocity as to send ripples through the creature’s flesh.
Finally, Peter managed to insert an appendage into the gnoph-kei’s skull. Forming several mouths upon his skin, he began gnawing at the creature’s brain.
It tasted disgusting.
Nonetheless, he continued to devour it. He was sure that the loss of what was hopefully its only brain would be enough to kill the beast.
The beast screamed in pain, and Peter could feel it grasp at its own head. He kept biting at the brain until he felt like he was going to vomit it back up, at which point the gnoph-kei fell to the ground.
Peter squeezed himself through the beast’s eye socket and poured out onto the soil.
“The creature should be dead,” he stated. “I ate its brain.”
Both Tadhg and Solomon looked at him, agog.
“You…ate its brain?” Solomon asked. “Hold on, er, what exactly are you?”
“I’m a shoggoth. I promise you, I mean you no harm. I’m after the same thing that you are; I want to find out the truth about these disappearances.”
“How did you find out about this whole ordeal in the first place?” Solomon asked.
“Same as you probably did; I found an article on the internet and decided to come here and have a look around.”
“Hold on,” Tadhg said. “Why do you know how to talk? Why do you know how to use the fucking internet, or even what that is?”
“Because I’ve been living as a human for over twelve years. You might see me in my human form eventually. For now, unless you need something from me, I think I’m going to go home. It’s late, and I have classes in a few
days.”
“Classes?” Solomon asked. “Are you attending Summerfield Academy?”
“Yes.”
“I teach there. Come see me in your human form; we could use your help solving this case.”
“I’ll see if I have the time,” Peter said as he slithered away.
I have to get away from them before I transform. I don’t want to risk them knowing what I look like as a human, in case they report me to the police or something. Especially Tadhg. He seems completely unpredictable.
Peter climbed up the riverbank, taking advantage of the lack of light to blend in with his surroundings; it was still early morning, and the moon wasn’t visible.
Now, what would attract more attention? A completely naked college student doing a walk of shame, or a shoggoth headed towards campus?
He decided to stay in his shoggoth form for the time being, allowing him to keep low to the ground. It took him over an hour to ooze his way from the riverbank near the water treatment plant back to campus; he decided to take the long way around, avoiding major roads.
Once he was on the edge of campus, he transformed back into his human form and vomited his possessions into his hands. His body was now completely exposed to the elements. After taking time to ensure that all of the sewage had sloughed off of his body, he made his way back towards his dorm.
This is going to do absolute wonders for my reputation. At least the sun hasn’t risen yet.
He unlocked the door and walked inside, not actually caring all that much if anyone saw him. Stepping inside the bathroom, he started the shower and began washing himself off.
I really don’t want to be smelling like sewage when I go to class on Thursday.
Peter stepped out of the shower and dried himself off. Reaching into his closet, he pulled out another set of jeans, a tank top, and a hoodie; the outfit was close enough to the one he had been wearing earlier that another person might think that they were identical.
As he dressed himself, he looked at the time and saw that it was three in the morning. He lay on his bed for a few hours, thinking about the events that had just transpired.
