by K X Douglas
Lachlan broke off the embrace and looked Peter in the eyes. The tears had begun to fade.
“Alright,” he said.
They cabbed home and said their farewells. Once he was inside, Peter checked his phone and saw that he had an unread message from Silas.
Peter typed a reply immediately.
I really need to get better at understanding humans. I should have known better, to be honest. I’ve been unknowingly flirting with several women for a while, but it never would have occurred to me that Lachlan had feelings for me. I wonder what Heidi would think if I told her what happened?
Peter thought back to the night when he, Heidi and Victoria had gone out, only for everything to be derailed by a dead body in the washroom.
At least I won’t have to worry about keeping people safe this time around. It seems like Silas can take care of himself.
Later that morning he walked over to Eric and Lachlan’s dorm. When he knocked on the door, Eric answered. His face was puffy, and there were substantial bags under his sunken eyes.
“Hey, man, what’s up?” he asked.
“Not much. Is Lachlan around?”
“He is, but he’s got a really bad hangover. So far he’s spent the morning throwing up.”
“Is it alright if I come in and talk with him for a bit?”
“Uhh, sure? Did something happen last night after I left?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“Alright, come in.”
Peter walked in and made for the bathroom. The door was shut, but he could hear Lachlan retching on the other side. He knocked on the door.
“Still puking!” Lachlan shouted.
“Lachlan, it’s Peter. I said last night that we’d have a talk today. Eric says you feel like shit.”
“I can’t remember anything from last night,” Lachlan replied. “What the fuck happened?”
“Well, your band played last night. It was really good. Do you remember that?”
“Kinda.”
“Okay, after that you sat with us and drank quite a bit. I think you were drinking straight vodka.”
“That explains the hangover.”
“Anyways, you were absolutely shittered. Like, you could barely even talk. After Eric left, you got really emotional…like, happy drunk? You started rambling about how stressed you’ve been over recent events, and then out of nowhere, you kissed me.”
A moment of silence ensued.
“I what?”
“Yeah.”
The vomiting resumed.
About a minute later, the bathroom door opened. Lachlan was wearing a housecoat and pajama pants, and his hair was let down past his shoulders. He looked far, far worse than Eric did.
“I, uh…I definitely have no memory of…doing that,” he said. “Fuck, I should’ve at least waited until we were alone, and I should’ve asked first. That was really shitty of me.”
“Lachlan, it’s okay. I understand. With the concert, and how much you drank, you were lost in the moment.”
“Ugh…dude,” he whispered. “What a way to let the world know that I’m gay; I kiss an…ooze…thing…that pretends to be human. How many people saw us?”
“Dunno,” Peter said. “Dunno how many people were even paying attention. I doubt there was anyone you knew aside from your bandmates.”
Peter heard Eric walk over to where they were.
“You okay, dude?” he asked.
“I’m feeling a little better now. Gonna shower, then maybe hit the bar and drink a few Caesars. You two wanna join me?”
“I’ll pass,” Peter said. “I’m meeting with Silas tonight to look into something. Oh, right, that reminds me.”
Peter proceeded to vomit a pair of handguns and several magazines of ammunition onto the floor.
“Silas got these for you. You might need them at some point. Ever use a gun before?”
Both of them shook their heads.
“Well, we can go to the firing range this week and practice.”
***
When the next evening came, Peter cabbed downtown and met Silas outside the same nightclub where he had gone with Heidi and Victoria. To his surprise, Silas was wearing what looked to be a tactical vest over his clothes.
“Hey,” Peter said. “We expecting to run into trouble?”
“You never know,” Silas replied.
“So where are we headed, exactly?”
“The museum. It’s not far from here. We can walk.”
The local museum was about a ten-minute walk to the east, in the middle of a public park. Torn police tape hung from both sides of the entrance.
“Wait, it looks like someone’s already broken in,” Peter said.
“Strange,” Silas said. “I wonder if someone else had the same idea that we did?”
Peter walked up to the threshold and examined the tape. It was torn, as if something had sheared through it.
“This is police tape, but there don’t seem to be any cops around,” he said.
“Now that’s really weird,” Silas said. “I thought this was supposed to be a crime scene.”
“Let’s head in and have a look around.”
Apart from the two of them, the museum was empty. It was after hours, and the lights were off. Because there was nobody else in the building apart from the two of them, it was quiet enough that they could almost hear each other breathe.
When Silas wasn’t looking, Peter extruded his last handgun through his pelvis and drew it from his pants as if it were there the whole time.
They walked through empty halls and rooms lined with art, most of it surprisingly intact, leading with their guns.
I wish I had a chance to get some practice in at the firing range. I’ve never used a gun before. In all likelihood I’m not going to be able to hit anything.
Minutes passed without either of them seeing anything out of the ordinary. There were no dead bodies, no bloodstains; there was nothing that didn’t belong in an art museum to begin with.
“So you said we were investigating some disappearances,” Peter said. “Can you tell me more? Because right now I don’t really know what I should be looking for.”
“Sadly, there isn’t much to go on,” Silas said. “It’s just like the gnoph-kei incidents. People just disappeared.”
As they entered the next room, they saw a strange human-sized creature sitting in the centre. It was almost barrel-shaped, standing on five legs which were attached to the bottom tip of its body. Halfway up the body was a series of prehensile limbs which ended in anemone-like bunches of tentacles, as well as a pair of fanlike wings. Atop its head were several eyes which hung on the ends of stalks like the bells of a jester’s cap.
Peter felt a chill run down his spine. Suddenly, it was as if his feet were made of lead.
Shit. Why here, of all places?
“Silas!” he whispered. It was supposed to be a scream. His throat was dry, and he could only make hollow gasps.
Silas, meanwhile, aimed his gun directly at the creature and fired twice. The bullets bounced harmlessly off of the creature’s hide and clacked onto the floor.
The creature furled its wings up and crawled towards the two of them on its spindly legs.
“Silas, run! We have no chance against this thing! Just run!”
Silas holstered his gun and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Peter followed behind, sparing a glance back at the creature that seemed to pursue them halfheartedly. When they managed to exit the building, Silas stopped, but Peter grabbed him by the wrist and urged him
to keep fleeing.
“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” he asked.
“That’s an elder thing!” Peter said as he ran. “We have no chance to stop it. They’re all but impervious to small arms fire. We’d need explosives…or artillery.”
“Have you encountered one of these things before?” Silas asked. “You make them sound dangerous, but that thing didn’t look like it had claws or fangs or anything like that.”
“I’ve encountered them a couple of times,” he lied. “They can use magic.”
Once they were outside of the park where the museum was situated, they stopped running. Suddenly, Silas seemed lost in thought.
“You’re thinking of a way for us to kill it, aren’t you?” Peter asked.
“Well, of course. In all likelihood it’s what’s been killing people.”
“I’m not so sure about that. To my knowledge, they don’t really kill. They might kidnap someone, but not kill them…so killing it doesn’t solve anything.”
“Are you proposing that we negotiate with it? How in the hell would we do that?”
“I have a plan.”
“Oh? What are you thinking?”
“I can’t really go into detail right now. Not in public.” He paused to take a deep breath. “I think it’s best that I go in alone. You shot at it right away, so I don’t think it’d be willing to negotiate with you.”
“Fair point.”
Silas holstered his gun, and Peter returned to the museum without him. The elder thing was exactly where they had left it.
“Hello,” he said. “Sorry about that. My friend thought that you were the one responsible for some murders that have been happening in the area.”
“Why are you living among humans?” it asked.
Peter couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Guess my disguise wasn’t very effective, was it?” Peter transformed into his true form, shedding his clothing onto the floor. “As for the why, it’s a long story. Anyways, why are you here?”
“I come from the future, as well as the past,” it said. “We don’t have much time before it arrives, so I must be quick. I have come to warn humanity of an impending disaster which will forever change the course of all life on this planet. I have seen the aftermath, and it is irreversible.”
“I know,” Peter said. “I’ve had a vision of this event. Can you tell me how to stop it?”
“You must find the leader of The Laughing Union and kill them. They are the only one capable of initiating the summoning.”
Suddenly, Peter heard footsteps approaching him from behind.
“Silas? Silas, I thought I said I was going to do this alone.”
“It is here,” the elder thing said.
Peter returned to his human form and readied his gun. In the distance, he saw something turn a corner. It definitely wasn’t Silas.
The creature stalking towards them was a betentacled un-hound of scintillating blue flesh which seemed to blink in and out of existence with each beat of its own heart. It skulked on four limbs, leading with a prehensile whip-like tongue which extended from a drooling Rafflesian maw. It looked past Peter at the elder thing, and let out a snarl.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Peter steadied his aim, making sure not to lose sight of the strange creature.
“What is this thing?” Peter asked. “Is it after you?”
“They are the stewards of time. This one has come here to kill me for the crime of travelling into the future. I do not have much time left, but at least I was able to warn someone.”
“What if I kill it? You’ll be able to go back to the past. Will they stop then?”
“Sadly, no, they will not.”
Nonetheless, Peter fired at it. The bullets seemed to do absolutely nothing to the creature.
“Mundane human weaponry will have no effect on it, shoggoth. You must use magic.”
Shit. I didn’t want to use magic. At least I’m not in public.
Peter focussed on the creature and began chanting. Once he finished, flames engulfed the hound-thing and it started to yelp in pain. Yet it seemed undaunted, and it continued its advance towards the elder thing.
“How fast can you get away from it?” he asked. “I think I can cast a couple more times.”
“Fast enough,” it replied.
The creature unfurled its wings, large and bat-like, and clumsily took flight. It flew out of the room and towards the entrance.
The hound-thing followed it with its head, though it seemed to lack eyes with which to see the elder thing. It dashed after the strange plant-like creature, seemingly only slightly hindered by the fact that it was on fire.
Peter ran after the hound-thing, absorbing his gun into his exposed torso as he prepared to cast the spell again. He ran out into the park and searched for the creature, however it was nowhere to be found.
Suddenly, Peter heard footsteps coming from behind him. He turned around to see the creature stalking towards him, surrounded by a cloud of smoke. It was as if it had teleported behind him. The flames were gone now, but it still looked to be injured.
However, that didn’t last long. The burn marks on the beast’s skin began to slowly shrink, as if they were healing at an accelerated rate.
Peter cast the spell again, and flames engulfed the hound-thing’s body as it leapt at him.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
The creature raked at him with its foreclaws, sinking into his flesh but drawing no blood. He felt a small amount of pain Though the fire from the spell touched him, it did not burn him.
His hands extended from his wrists as he grabbed the creature, trying to stop it from getting away. He slammed it into the floor and transformed into his shoggoth form. Pinning the creature beneath him, he cast the spell again. This time he was able to do it before the burns from the previous spell could heal.
Peter began to slowly subsume the creature’s lower body, preventing it from running away or, hopefully, teleporting. The hound-thing did not seem to feel any fear or uncertainty in its predicament, as it continued to claw at him with its paws and lash out with its long tongue.
The fire began to consume the creature as Peter attempted to crush it beneath his bulk. It struggled, clawing from inside him, but it made no sounds to indicate any sort of distress.
Peter continued to cast the spell over and over again, until exhaustion took over much like it did when he read from Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten. Six times seemed to be enough to destroy the creature beyond its ability to regenerate. He let go of the creature and returned to his human form.
I wish I could have spent some more time talking to the elder thing. It might have been able to point me in the right direction with regards to the disappearances.
He left the museum and looked around for Silas. When he couldn’t find the man, he pulled out his phone and sent a text message.
Silas was there within minutes.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Peter replied. “I think the monster I ran into was after the elder thing. I managed to kill it.”
“Speaking of which, where did the elder thing go?”
“It flew off; I’m not sure where to.”
“Shit! There goes our only real lead into what happened to those people. By the way, why are you naked? Did whatever you were fighting rip your clothes off?”
Dammit.
“Okay, come inside the museum for a second,” Peter said. “I have something to show you.”
“Okay,” Silas said hesitantly.
They walked back into the museum, to the windowless room where Peter had fought the hound-thing. Peter retrieved his clothes and turned to face Silas.
“I suppose it was inevitable that you’d find out. I’m not human. I’m what’s called a shoggoth. The elder things created me; that’s why I
know what they are.”
Silas could only stare at him.
“But why are you naked?” he asked.
“Oh, right. I transformed into my shoggoth form in front of the elder thing, and that always makes my clothes fall off. After that, we were attacked by something and I didn’t have a chance to put them back on again.”
“Uh…right,” Silas said. “So…you’ve been pretending to be a human this whole time?”
“For more than a decade,” Peter replied. “I have forged birth records and everything.”
“So anyways, did you learn anything from that…what was it called, elder thing?”
“Yes. I’m supposed to investigate some organization called ‘The Laughing Union’ and kill their leader in order to prevent a ritual that’s supposed to be conducted on Halloween night. That’s the only lead I was able to get before the other creature showed up and the elder thing fled.”
“Well, that’s not too bad as far as leads go,” Silas said. “We can at least look into this ‘Laughing Union’ and see what we find.”
“Yeah. Hopefully we get somewhere. I’ll do some sleuthing on the internet and see what I can find.”
Peter pulled out his phone and called a cab.
“Oh, by the way,” he said. “I’m gonna be taking some friends to the firing range this week to get them used to the guns you got them. You think you’d be willing to meet us there and give us some pointers?”
“I think I’ll be able to make it,” Silas said. “Shoot me a text the day before.”
“Alright.”
Peter cabbed back to his dorm and began searching the internet for anything regarding the organization known as “The Laughing Union”. He found very little, except for a LARP group which bore the same name. Curious, he went to the group’s social media page and started browsing through the pictures there. “LARP” apparently stood for “live action role playing”, and many of the pictures were of people wearing various costumes.
This isn’t what I expected to find at all. Is this a front for a cult or something?
He clicked on the most recent photo album, which depicted people dressed in a manner similar to the figures that he had seen in his most recent dream. After browsing the page for a few minutes, he found a post talking about a meeting scheduled for Halloween. The author of the post was a man by the name of Kevin Wilkinson; he wasn’t sure if that was his real name, but a note on the page indicated that he was the administrator.
