The man sobbed and shook against him. “You’re not finished. There’s still work to be done.”
* * *
Blount woke up violently. He stumbled to his feet and looked around in a panic. He was bathed in a cold sweat and his body shook as if he were in the fits of a powerful fever. His heart rate gradually returned to normal as he took in his surroundings, realizing he’d fallen asleep in the doorway of the shelter.
“That sounded like some dream,” someone said.
Blount whirled and saw Archer smoking. He relaxed a bit and sighed heavily. “I get them sometimes.”
Archer nodded. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon. The haze in the air colored it a deep purple. The sky was a maze of cracked glass and smoke. It resembled an angry storm front in some ways.
“That fallout’s getting closer,” Archer said. “Day or two and it’ll be here.”
“What do you remember?”
“This again?” Archer sighed. “I told you: I can’t remember anything. It’s a gap in my memory. A blank.”
Archer shifted uncomfortably under Blount’s intense gaze. He ran a hand over his closely shaved scalp and shuffled his feet. He tugged at a sleeve and averted his eyes. The man was holding something back he was certain now.
“Morning, gentlemen,” Paul said as he lumbered up the stairs.
His voice sliced through the tension between the two men, and the air perceptively eased. Paul slipped past them and walked over to the side of another building. “Gotta empty the bladder, excuse me.”
Just after he unzipped, he slumped forward, and his head struck the building with a crash. His pants slipped around his ankles and his brains slid down the wall, where it mingled with his piss.
Blount dropped to a crouch and pulled his weapon. Archer was less than a second behind him, crouching as well. A report echoed across the air a second later. They both retreated farther into the building.
“Where’d the hell that come from?” Archer said.
Blount stilled his mind and reached out with his senses. He closed his eyes and concentrated. A flurry of voices, very faint, washed over him. The sounds were coming from the east. He concentrated harder and sensed the soft footfalls of at least a dozen men. They moved in groups. One would move forward, while the other group stilled. This was repeated a few times. They were moving to flank their position.
“There’s at least a dozen of them,” Blount said as he opened his eyes and looked at Archer. “From the sounds of it, they were trained. Maybe military.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Archer appeared suspicious.
“I just do, damn it.” Blount gained his feet and hurried to the stairway, then looked back. “You coming?”
They moved down the stairs and Blount slipped down the trapdoor. It would take whoever was coming a few minutes to discover the secret entrance—he hoped. He swung the steel door shut and sealed them in.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked as they entered the room. She noticed the looks on their faces and she sucked in a breath. “Where’s Tubule?”
“He’s dead,” Blount replied.
“What happened?” Palmer asked as he rushed forward.
“‘Bout a dozen of them at least,” Blount said. “Sniper got Paul. It was far off. He was dead before we even heard the shot.”
Casey rushed forward and embraced her father, burying her head against his chest and weeping softly. They heard the scrape of boots on the floor above them. They tensed and looked up at the ceiling. The voices were muffled and indistinct, but frustration and anger could be heard in the inflections. This went on for quite sometime, and then all was quiet once more.
Breathing softly, the group waited for something more to happen. After an hour of silence, Sam whispered, “Think they left?”
Blount shook his head. “No, they’re waiting us out.”
“Who do you think they are?” Palmer asked.
“Militia, rouge military unit? Could be anybody,” Blount said with a shrug. He stood and surveyed their supplies. “There’s a fallout front headed our way. We’ve got enough supplies for a few weeks at least…if it comes to that…and we ration it carefully.” He paused and sniffed the air. “You smell that?”
Arid smoke drifted into the room from the air intake in the corner of the ceiling.
“Crap,” Archer said. “They’re trying to smoke us out.”
“It’s what I’d do,” Blount said.
The smoke grew denser and they began to cough in the haze.
“Palmer, Archer: on me.” Blount took up position at the door. He spun the latch and pushed the door open a few inches. Fresh air wafted in and Blount gulped at it greedily. When no shots came careening down the stairs, he pushed the door open farther, slipping through then motioning for Archer and Palmer to follow.
The top of the stairs was empty, but a hearty glow filled the space. Heat coursed down and slapped Blount in the face like a physical presence. Embers floated in the air, and some landed on his arm. He hissed in pain and patted them out. He powered on and ignored the pain and burns. Flames licked up the building’s walls as he made it topside.
The roof was crackling, and, at any moment, the entire structure would collapse. He felt Palmer’s hand touch his shoulder, signaling he was right behind. Blount rushed out of the burning inferno. He stayed low and scanned the area as quickly as he could. In front of him was clear, so he made for the next building. He slammed up against the wall and covered Palmer and Archer as they exited the building.
Archer slid in next to Blount. “I saw bodies in the building.”
“What?”
“There were at least two, maybe three, bodies in the far corner.”
The building collapsed with a whumping sound. They shielded their faces with their arms as the searing heat slammed into them.
“Casey!” Archer cried.
“They’ll be fine,” Blount said. “The door seal is airtight.”
Blount whirled and faced outward as a man came sprinting in their direction. He was screaming and covered in blood and gore. He fired his automatic weapon wildly, bullets chewing up the ground in front of him. Blount scrambled as bullets clanged into the building. Bits of metal tore into his face as he dove out of the way. Archer fired and dropped the man.
Blount gained his feet and turned, spotting Palmer leaning against the building. He looked down at his stomach in surprise and confusion. Blood poured through his clenched fingers, and the wall behind him was awash in red. Palmer coughed and bright red blood filled his mouth. Blount saw the starkness of the blood and air bubbles, and he knew Palmer had taken rounds to the lungs.
Something stalked around the side of the adjacent building. Archer yelled out a warning as the creature pounced on the man that had been firing. The creature resembled a cougar, except it was much, much larger. It was covered in scales and its eyes were all wrong—black and shimmering. The monster clutched the man’s head in its jaws. Blount saw the terrified man looking at him, and realized the man was still alive. The man screamed as the creature flexed its jaws. His head began to elongate with the pressure, and then it split. His eyes bulged then popped out in a gush of blood.
Archer fired at the creature, but the rounds bounced off its tough scales. Blount rushed forward and grabbed the automatic rifle from the ground, opening up on full auto. The 5.56 mm rounds dug into the creature, and it roared in fury and pain as black blood spewed from its sides and legs. It collapsed beneath the hail of gunfire then went still.
Blount scanned the area and didn’t see any more threats, so he tossed the gun at Archer, who caught it deftly. Archer swept the area as Blount rushed over to Palmer’s side.
He knelt and gently shook the man. Palmer’s head lolled to the side, and a stream of blood leaked out from between his lips. His eyes stared vacantly ahead, while Blount let out a cry of frustration as he realized Palmer was dead. The senseless loss of life enraged Blount, and he took it out on the building
by kicking and punching the wall. As his fists pounded the steel siding, he reveled in the pain and broken skin.
He slammed his bloodied fists into the wall until he lost all feeling in them. Archer stood by and remained silent. He obviously shared Blount’s frustration, and knew to allow the fit to continue uninterrupted. If he tried to intervene, Blount would’ve turned his rage on him instead of the wall.
Blount finished and wiped his mangled hands on his chest. He looked over at Archer and nodded. “Let’s go dig them out.”
* * *
It was several hours until the heat dissipated enough for them to get close. Blount spent this time in deep mediation while Archer kept watch. Blount reached out for the twins, but didn’t get a response.
He went deeper and began to construct the temple on the island. Walls appeared in the darkness and, one by one, they fell into place as he reconstructed from memory. Next, he moved inside the structure, where details began to solidify. When he finished, he walked around, surveying what he’d made.
He’d learned the technique of deep constructional meditation from a tribe in the Amazon. The process was dangerous because it took great mental power, and if the person was interrupted during the later stages, it was possible to become trapped in the memory construct. The mind would permanently separate from the body. He’d warned Archer of this, and the man was under the strictest of orders to ensure Blount wasn’t disturbed, no matter what happened. Blount was certain he’d missed something while on the island, something that would defeat Cthulhu once and for all. This was the only way to go back and be sure.
As he stood in the middle of the room he’d been in a mere ninety-six hours before, he slowly turned in a circle. This was the place he’d lost most of his team. He avoided picturing their faces, but their screams echoed in his head. He worked to block those out as he remembered what he’d seen.
Noticing a chasm in the middle of the spired room, he walked towards it. The crack in the floor was about eight feet in length and four or five feet in width. He peered over the edge, careful of his balance even in the memory place, and a stench wafted up. Grimacing, he held his breath. The darkness below was absolute. Blount thought a torch into being and tossed it down the hole.
This was where things would get tricky. He was so deep in his mind now that there was no safe way of coming back quickly. He was present on the island now in spirit. No longer a memory, his being was in the actual location. Astral travel.
The torch careened off the sides of the chasm and he lost sight of its glow. He moved out over the gap and began to float downwards in a controlled descent. Reaching out his hands, he found he couldn’t feel the sides as he went lower and lower into the pit. Feeling was a relative term in this state, but he could feel just the same as if he were physically present. He could be hurt, even possibly killed in this state, though he’d never actually seen proof of this.
He’d only attempted this form of meditation a few times, and this time was no different. The uneasiness settled over him like a wet blanket. When he used the dagger to travel along the grid in the in-between, he felt more at ease. This was something different, because his body was left vulnerable and unprotected. It all came down to control and Blount loathed giving it up. Though he still harbored doubts about Archer, Blount had felt had a little choice but to deploy this method. Put boots on the ground, so to speak.
Blount sensed something massive just below. He slowed his descent and strained his eyes to discern the dark shape that was denser than the nearly complete blackness.
The vision he’d experienced before of the giant, monstrous form flashed through his mind once more. The entire city rested upon the beast itself; a mountain of bloated flesh and tentacles; a patchwork of gray and green flesh rippling with networks and colonies of sea life and organisms forming one body, one shell. It slept…soulless.
The sides of the pit fell away from him, and Blount sensed that he had entered an endless cavern. Here and there smaller versions of the bloated mountain of flesh scurried about, as if they were ants disturbed from their hill. At the extreme edges of the form he could hear water lapping. The air was ripe with decay and death. Blount grimaced as an unseen wind changed and he was hit full on with the gruesome taint. The smaller creatures emitted a faint bluish glow, and from this height he could just make out the outer edges of the creature. The tentacles were the sizes of the biggest Redwoods in existence. The power that lurked within this creature’s form was incalculable. Abdiel had been right. This was a destroyer of galaxies.
The enormity of his task hit him full force like a speeding freight train. If Cthulhu’s soul had managed to reconvene with this form…Blount shuddered at the thought. He flew along the form, which took nearly an hour to transverse end to end. Blount found himself wondering why God would’ve created such a creature. He recalled a mental exercise he’d had with a skeptic once: Could God create a stone so big even He wouldn’t be able to move it? Blount had laughed at the absurdity of the question. Why would God do something so human? he’d countered.
Blount had seen much during his time, and he was sure there was something out there, something that started it all, whatever name mankind decided to call it. He’d encountered many gods, demons, and angels, and one thing they all had in common was the belief that there was some Mega Being somewhere in the multi-verse. Myth? Perhaps. Or maybe it was the boogeyman created to keep the weaker in their place; a story to tell around the campfire to ensure no one being thought they had achieved ultimate power?
What Blount couldn’t reconcile was if God did indeed still exist, why would He create such a creature, or allow it to be brought into being, if He didn’t create it? What if this was God? The thought struck him as ludicrous, but still it lingered.
He was but one mere man that had been blessed with ultimate, almost unlimited, knowledge. Being next to this creature below him made him realize just how insignificant he really was. How insignificant mankind really was in the scheme of it all. If this were God, then he’d have no qualms destroying it, once and for all. An idea began to slowly take root in his mind as he traversed the massive form once again. There was only one thing that would destroy an entity of this magnitude.
Chapter Three
Archer gingerly tossed shards of debris as he cleared the wreckage. The wood was warm to the touch, and he wished he had a pair of work gloves. He turned and glanced back at Blount then scanned the horizon. Blount looked at him thoughtfully.
“Welcome back,” Archer said.
Blount slowly gained his feet and stretched the kinks from his limbs. He surveyed the progress Archer had made while he was in trance and nodded approval. Blount walked over and helped clear the debris. With both of them working they made swift progress. Shortly, the trapdoor emerged from the smoldering rubble. Banging sounded from beneath the charred wood.
Archer dug faster. Clouds of soot and ash puffed up into the air, but he held his breath and persevered.
“I’m coming, Casey!” he called as he threw fire-kissed ruins to his right.
They removed the final pieces and the trapdoor swung up. Blount smiled as he saw Sam’s face peering up at them.
“What the heck happened?” she asked in way of greeting.
Casey and Sam emerged from the bunker and blinked in the dying afternoon haze. The two surveyed the damage and Sam cursed softly at the ruined remains of the building. She saw Palmer and Paul Tubule laid out side by side, which made her bring a hand to her mouth and gasped.
Casey ignored the corpses and wandered over to a clearing. She shrugged her father’s comforting hand from her shoulder and shook her head. Archer’s shoulder’s slumped at the rejection, but he remained nearby, watching his daughter’s silent, quivering breakdown.
“What happened?” Sam repeated once she and Blount were away from the others.
“I think the fire was set by humans, but they were interrupted and attacked by something else.” Blount gestured at the black creature lying
a few feet away.
Sam cautiously approached the slain monster and studied it with awe and fear. She could only imagine the terror the creature presented when it was alive. “This thing is hideous.” She walked over to the two bodies, then shot Blount another questioning glance.
“Tubule got taken out by a sniper…” Blount nodded at Palmer, took a few deep breaths, and studied his hands.
Sam placed a gentle hand on Blount’s shoulder then squeezed softly. Blount appeared uncomfortable at first with the contact, but something in his eyes let Sam know that, even though he was tensing, he welcomed the contact just the same.
“Palmer was eliminated during the ensuing crossfire.”
“I’m so sorry, Blount,” Sam whispered. She moved to hug him, and he returned the hug with a fierceness that temporarily crushed the breath from her.
“So, what now?” Archer said.
The two broke the embrace and established a small gap between them. Archer smirked at their awkwardness.
“We’re going back to the island,” Blount replied.
“What?” Sam said.
“What?” Archer echoed.
“But we’re going to make a slight detour first,” Blount said.
* * *
A few hours later, Sam and Archer had placed the last of the supplies into the chopper. Blount stood a few feet away and stared into the distance. Sam had pressed for the details of his plan, but he’d remained tight-lipped. He still had that gut feeling about Archer, and felt the less they all knew the better.
“We’re all done.” Sam’s voice intruded on his thoughts.
Blount nodded and turned to face her. He offered a reassuring smile, which she didn’t return. She merely stared back, showing no emotion.
“Where we headed, Blount?”
He noted the use of his last name, then sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Trust me. That’s all I can say.”
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