by K X Douglas
He was faced with a hall extending to the centre of the building, lined on both sides with prison cells. Peter lurched along, searching for Tadhg. It occurred to him that he didn’t know what the man looked like without sunglasses.
About half of the cells were occupied. If any of the prisoners had been roused by the sound of shattering glass, they hid it well.
This is going to take forever if I just keep inching along like this.
He formed several sets of arachnidian legs and began skittering along the floor at a much faster pace. Eyes bubbled into existence along his back, extending from smooth stalks and periscoping around in search of his would-be rescuee.
Soon, Peter reached the central stairwell and set eyes on his first guard. Immediately, he scampered up the wall, For a moment, he studied the man’s body language, his posture, the way he breathed. He crawled along the ceiling until he was just over top of the man.
Stretching downward, he formed an appendage and stuffed it into the man’s mouth and nostrils. He held it there, suffocating the man until he passed out and fell to the floor. Peter tried his best to cushion the man’s fall, but it still made some noise.
He then removed all of the man’s clothing and, changing into a near-perfect copy, donned it himself.
It took him only a couple of minutes to search through each hallway, there being eight in the building. He was lucky enough to find Tadhg’s cell on one end of the second floor.
He was, of course, sleeping.
Removing the guard’s clothing, Peter slipped through the cell bars and shook Tadhg awake. At first the man was groggy, but he quickly sat up.
Peter reverted to his shoggoth form and lay on the floor next to the bed.
“Remember me?” Peter asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Tadhg replied. “What in the bloody hell are you doing here?”
“Breaking you out. The people you killed that night weren’t actually the ones who were going to summon the Old One. As far as we know, that’s going to happen on Halloween. We need your help to kill the cultists, or failing that, the Old One if it gets summoned to Earth.
“Why can’t Solomon or Silas do it?”
“I haven’t heard from Solomon since the shooting. His classes keep getting cancelled. Silas…doesn’t exactly like me.”
“He gave you some of my guns, didn’t he?”
“He did. Reluctantly.”
“Well, it’d be nice of you to get me out of my cell and all, but what about after that? If the guards see me breaking out they’ll blow my brains to shite. I know you can take a bullet, you radge wee fuck, but can you stop them?”
“Tadhg, I have an idea,” Peter said. “Wear me. That way, they won’t be able to shoot you. I can absorb the bullets.”
“That sounds absolutely ridiculous. Let’s do it!”
Peter slithered over to the cell door and squeezed himself partway inside the keyhole. After about a minute of fiddling with the tumblers in the lock, he managed to unlock the door and open it.
He then vomited the gun onto the floor and wrapped himself around Tadhg like a second skin, encapsulating the man almost entirely save for a series of barely visible air holes over his mouth. They picked up the gun and stepped out of the cell.
The first part of the escape was simple; they just walked down to the first floor and broke the window at the end of the hall. As they crawled through the window, an alarm sounded.
“Now what are we going to do?” Tadhg asked.
“We’re going to get in my car and drive away,” Peter said.
They broke out into a sprint and climbed over the chain-link fence that surrounded the complex.
“And then what?”
“We find you a place to hide for the time being, I guess. It’s not like you can just go back home; they’ll check there first.”
They sat in the driver’s seat of Peter’s car. Once they drove onto the highway, Peter spilled into the backseat and checked his phone. He had no new messages.
“This thing got a good engine in it?” Tadhg asked.
“Not particularly,” Peter replied. “It’s pretty old. I mean, it’s a car; it can still go more than fast enough.”
“Why in the hell are you living like a human, anyway?”
“Good question. I guess I just wanted more out of life? Toiling away in an underwater city gets old after a while. That’s the first thing I was looking for, was a change of locale. I’m absolutely tiny for a shoggoth, anyway, so it’s not like I contributed much.”
“Silas says you’re getting involved with Serena. Does she know anything?”
Wait, what? We aren’t “involved”.
Peter formed a head on top of his body just to sigh.
“About me? No. About the Old Ones, and aliens, and magic? Yes.”
“I wanted to keep my kids from pursuing my line of work. You know what I told them?”
“That you’re an exterminator? At least, that’s what Serena seemed to think you were nowadays.”
“Yeah. An exterminator with a gun collection that would make an American prepper blush, and enough books of forbidden lore to drive the whole city mad. Real fuckin’ believable, isn’t it? She probably knew the truth and told you otherwise. Can something like you even feel love?”
“I…I don’t know. That’s the best answer I can give right now. I don’t know. I…uh…haven’t actually done anything with Serena. We aren’t dating or anything. We just hung out one night after a party.”
“If you were a human, I would never have believed that.”
A siren started blaring, and blue and red flashing lights were suddenly visible in the rear-view mirror.
“Ah, shit,” Tadhg said. He slammed his foot on the pedal, and the car started to accelerate.
The car eventually hit a speed of over one hundred and sixty kilometres per hour, blowing past the occasional vehicle in the slow lane.
The police car accelerated to match their speed.
“How far are you willing to go to get me out of prison, shoggoth?”
“What are you asking?”
“I’m asking if you’re willing to kill someone in order to help me escape.”
Several seconds of silence ensued.
“I’m not,” Peter said. “The most I’ll do is suffocate them until they pass out, or cover you up again to protect you from bullets.”
“Have you ever killed a human before?”
“No. Never.”
“I suppose there’s no point in asking if you’re willing to change that tonight.”
The police car slowly inched closer. It shifted into the slow lane and accelerated again until both vehicles were side by side.
“How much was this car, shoggoth?”
“Not much. It’s old. Bit of a beater.”
“You mind if I try to run the cop off the road?”
“Go ahead.”
Tadhg let off the gas slightly, causing the car to slow down. He swung the steering wheel to the right, causing the car to swerve sharply to the side. Both vehicles collided, but the police car wasn’t thrown far enough to fall into the ditch.
“Do you think you can do anything while I’m trying to run this guy off the road?” Tadhg asked.
What did I do with that gun again? It’s got to be here somewhere…
Peter formed two hands; with one he picked up the gun, and with the other he rolled down the right rear window. Aiming the gun towards the rear wheel of the police car, he fired.
Because of the wind roaring past the open window, he couldn’t hear the telltale hissing noise of a popped tire. However, he saw the car begin fishtailing almost instantly.
“I just popped one of the tires, try now!” he shouted.
Tadhg turned again, bashing one car into the other. The police car was sent off course, which made it spin away before rolling to a stop in the ditch on the side of the road.
Minutes later, they managed to finish the drive to the city.
“What no
w, shoggoth? You can’t exactly use your car now that it’s been used in a prison break.”
“I’ll just report it stolen tomorrow morning. It’s tied to my identity as Peter Nelson, and I never assumed that form during this whole incident. I can probably convince the police that someone else broke you out of prison.”
“I like the way you think.”
“How about you? Where are you going to go?”
“I’m probably going to go to Solomon’s place for the time being. We keep our association pretty secret, so I don’t think the police will think to look there.”
“You have some cash hidden away somewhere?”
“I have a decent amount. Just need to get a burner phone and I think I’ll be good.”
Tadhg drove into the first parking lot he found. They both exited the car and went their separate ways; Peter donned his clothes and transformed into the prison guard that he had incapacitated earlier.
Once Peter returned to his dorm, he changed into a fresh set of clothes and called the police. The call was quick. He had to describe his car and give his license plate number, and they assured him that they would find it.
He spent the night on various news sites, looking for anything regarding the prison break that he had just orchestrated. It took a couple of hours for anything to appear. He skimmed the article, curious as to whether the police had found any suspects. When Peter saw that the prime suspect was the prison guard that he had incapacitated, he couldn’t help but chuckle.
Once late morning came, he went over to Serena’s dorm and knocked on the door. She answered.
“Hey, Peter, what’s up?”
“Got your dad out of prison. He’s staying at Professor Carter’s house.”
It took her a moment to register what he had just said. Her eyes went wide.
“No fucking way. You were serious.”
“Of course I was.”
“How did you do it?”
“It’s…uh…it’s complicated. Suffice to say, I don’t have a car anymore.”
“So, you’re a wanted man now. Is what you’re saying.”
“I don’t think so,” he said with a smile. “I just checked the news before coming here, and police say that the chief suspect is one of the prison guards.”
“I just…holy shit, Peter.”
She kissed him on the lips and wrapped her arms around him.
“Thank you!”
They stood there for nearly thirty seconds, until Peter’s phone beeped. He broke away and pulled it out of his pocket to check his messages. He had one from a number that wasn’t in his contacts.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Jesus Christ,” Peter muttered.
“What is it?” Serena asked.
“Your dad just texted me. He was going to crash at Professor Carter’s place, but he found the professor’s corpse. Shotgun suicide.”
“Oh my fucking god!”
“I wonder what he’s going to do now,” Peter said. “If he reports it to the police, and they see him, they’ll arrest him for sure. He’d have to flee the scene afterwards and get a new burner.”
“What’s the college going to do?” Serena asked. “Who’s going to take over all of the professor’s classes? It’s not like Summerfield is a really big school with lots of faculty.”
Isabelle walked by the doorway and looked towards them.
“That’s the least of my worries right now,” Peter said.
“What happened at the college?” Isabelle asked.
“Professor Carter, our English teacher, killed himself,” Serena said.
“Holy shit!” Isabelle shouted. Colour drained from her face.
“I wonder how long it’s going to take them to find a replacement who can teach all of his classes,” Serena said. “How many classes do you think he was teaching this year?”
“I’d assume quite a few,” Peter said. “They might have to have multiple people covering his course load.”
Shit. They’re probably going to be cleaning out his office. Someone’s going to find the book. I might have to rifle through his office later and see if I can get to it before someone else does.
“…Peter? Hello, Peter?” Serena asked.
“Oh, uh, sorry,” he replied. “I was lost in thought. I just realized that, because I had given that one book to the professor, it might get into the hands of somebody who isn’t going to know how to handle it safely.”
“So you’re saying we could have more of those…those things…show up?” Isabelle asked.
“That was always a possibility,” Peter said. “There are more books of magic out there than just Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten. Dozens of them, possibly even hundreds, across the world. It’s not possible for us to stop every madman who wants to summon the Old Ones to Earth and trigger the end times. The best we can do is prevent the apocalypse from beginning here.”
“That’s…definitely a sobering thought,” Serena said. “Do you have a plan for Samhain?”
“Not yet. I did have one, but that got derailed with Tadhg’s arrest and the professor’s death. I don’t think we’ll be able to rely on your father to help us, Serena. The first thing I want to do is retrieve the book from wherever Professor Carter left it, before someone else gets a hold of it and accidentally casts a spell from it.”
“We won’t keep you, then,” Serena said.
“Take care,” Peter replied.
Serena closed the door, and Peter ran towards the main campus building. As it was a Saturday, many of the doors were locked. Peter had to run around to the front of the building where the main entrance was.
There was nobody at the front desk. Peter ascended the stairs to the third floor and dashed to Professor Carter’s former office. The door was closed, and as he discovered when he tried to open it, locked. He formed an appendage on the tip of his finger and fiddled with the tumblers inside the lock until he heard a click.
Opening the door, he saw that the office was much as it had been left; evidently the college had not begun clearing out Professor Carter’s belongings.
It took him a fair amount of time to find the book; it had been hidden underneath a pile of essays on the side desk in the back corner of the room. The key was right next to it; he stuffed it into his pant pocket before leaving the office with the book in hand.
Peter closed the door and locked it. He descended the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. Once he was back in the lobby, he started walking back to his dorm through the building, rather than around.
As he did, he passed by the campus bar, which was busier than usual. Looking inside, he saw Eric and Lachlan sitting at the bar, drinking.
I ought to join them. It would be a good distraction from recent events.
He stopped by his dorm to drop off the book, making sure to hide it under his mattress. Upon returning to the bar, they saw him and waved.
“Hey, Peter, what’s up?” Eric asked.
“I had a long night last night,” Peter replied. “Was walking by and saw you guys; figured I could use a drink or ten.”
“That’s the spirit,” Lachlan said.
The bar was relatively small, with maybe two dozen tables plus the stools at the bar counter. Unseen speakers pumped a steady dose of rock music into the room.
Peter sat on the left side of them and waited for the bartender to approach. Eric and he decided to split a pitcher of beer between the two of them, while Lachlan ordered vodka on the rocks.
“Is there a special occasion?”
“Lachlan joined a band; they’re playing a show next weekend,” Eric said.
“Oh, cool!”
“Yeah, I’m pretty hyped,” Lachlan said. “How about you? What happened last night?”
“I, uh, it’s better I don’t tell you right now,” Peter replied. “It’s a lot.”
“Oof,” Eric
said.
Peter chugged his beer in seconds and poured himself another. Somehow, despite the fact that he was completely unable to get drunk, he had come to associate the taste of beer with relaxation.
“So what else have the two of you been up to? Aside from classes.”
“Not much,” Lachlan said. “Been to a couple of other parties, I guess.”
“Speaking of classes, you have any idea what’s going on with Professor Carter?” Eric asked.
“He killed himself,” Peter said. “Someone found him in his home this morning.”
“Fucking hell,” Eric said. “Is Summerfield going to be able to find someone to take over for all of the classes he was teaching?”
“Dunno,” Peter muttered.
“There’s been a lot of weird things happening around here lately, don’t you think?” Lachlan asked. “First we have whatever happened that night we all went to that party, then a goddamn mass shooting with several fatalities, then a prof at the academy kills himself. All within the span of one month. What the hell is going on?”
“That’s a good question,” Eric said. “Everything’s just kind of going to shit. Really makes you think the world might be ending.”
“So, Lachlan,” Peter said. “Tell me about this band you’re in now.”
The change in the man’s expression was instantaneous.
“Well, I guess you could call us acid rock. I’m playing lead guitar, we have vocals, bass, and drums. It’s a pretty basic setup.”
“What’s your band called?” Peter asked.
“Lavender Universe. They had already decided on the name before I joined.”
“He said he wanted to name the band Waves of Atlas, but they vetoed that hard,” Eric said.
Peter shrugged.
“It doesn’t sound like you have a lot of time to rehearse, though,” he said.
“Eh, we’ve had time,” Lachlan replied. “We’re just opening, so we don’t have to play a very long set. I just had to learn four songs. They’re all over six minutes long, but still.”
