by Rick Dakan
Kym, her mask also now off, moved up next to him and they walked hand in hand to the edge of the raised wooden floor, which gave them an extra two-and-a-half-foot height advantage as they looked down on me. It’s a distracting angle from which to look at two naked people, but I did have enough else on my mind that I ignored the distraction.
“I had imagined it was Conrad doing all the honking,” Shelby said. “What are you doing here? Please, can’t you two just go away?”
“I have to talk to you,” I said. “Alone.” I looked at my two captors.
“But I don’t have to talk to you, Rick,” Shelby said. “This is our house. It’s got nothing to do with you. If you don’t leave I will call the police, I swear.”
“Listen, Shelby, please. I think there’s just been one huge misunderstanding here,” the two men started to pull me back, but I dug in and stood my ground, resisting them successfully at least for the moment. “But I have to be sure. Can I please see Cara? If I can just talk to her for one minute.” I thought that if I saw her and she told me it was OK, then I could discount Ash as well. The tripod would fall and I’d know how stupid we’d been.
“Cara’s busy preparing,” Kym said. “It’s a big night for her. For all of us, and you almost couldn’t have come at a worse time. Just go, Rick. Just go.”
“If I don’t see Cara I’m calling the police!” I shouted, one last desperate maneuver.
“You’ll call the police?” Shelby sneered. “Did you not hear me threaten to turn you over to the cops a second ago?”
“They may get me for trespassing. But when I tell them about Cara, they’ll make sure she’s OK! And ruin whatever you’re doing in the process.”
“Of course she’s OK!” said Kym. “She wants to be here. She’s part of us.”
“Then let me see her, please! I have to know if Ash was telling the truth.”
Kym’s eyes turned dark with disgust, but Shelby gave a humorless laugh. “Was Ash using the English language? Then he was lying.”
“How do you know what he told me?”
“I don’t, but I know he’s a liar.”
“A lecherous, thieving scoundrel,” Kym spat out. “A perverted fiend is what he is. And good riddance to him. After what he tried to do. The fucker.”
“What did he do?” I asked. Were they angry at his betraying their secrets to me and Conrad? It seemed more personal and visceral than that.
“None of your business,” Kym said. “If Cara wants to tell you what he tried to do to her, she can.”
He did something to Cara? I thought. Who was this man we’d trusted? And why had we ever believed a word he said? “Then let her tell me!”
“We’ll tell her you came by, Rick,” Kym said. “But tonight is not the night.”
“If I don’t see her I’ll—”
“Let him stay,” Shelby said. “Let him watch. If he wants to call the cops, let him do it when we’re done. We’re on a timetable here.”
“What?” Kym said, mouth open in an astonished gape.
Shelby drew her close and they both walked out of earshot, exchanging heated whispers. Kym seemed to relent at last. She broke away from Shelby and headed to the far end of the temple, disappearing into what I presumed was a doorway beneath the portico that led into the rest of the house. Shelby came back to me. “Tie his hands and get him in a robe,” Shelby said. “We’ll let him go when we’re finished. If he says a word, gag him.”
“What are you… ” I started to protest. Then they gagged me.
I hadn’t even noticed the other half of the ritual area when I first burst upon the scene. The bright light and hoary spectacle of the temple’s interior had distracted me from the tableau set out in the clearing just beyond the garage doors. The black sheet I’d help tear down was now hanging again, like the black robe covering my body. They’d tied my hands in front of me first, so my arms were now trapped inside, the empty sleeves flapping loose at my sides. I didn’t blame myself for missing the other half of the show before; then it had been dark. Now there was fire.
Torches lined the way from the edge of the temple door along a thirty-foot path and on around the forty-foot perimeter of the ritual circle’s bare earth. In the center was a deep fire pit with what looked like some sort of giant wooden Tiki head squatting in its center. As the robed cultists lit the torches around it, details leaped out from the flickering shadows. The wooden monolith was a crudely carved representation of, of course, Cthulhu. Facing the temple entrance, it had a gaping five-foot opening in the middle of its stomach that I found particularly ominous. Only as the last of the torches was lit did I notice the piles of dry branches that surrounded the wooden idol’s base and the charred edges of the pit in which it sat.
I’d been ushered to a place outside the circle, but with a good view of the proceedings, next to the drum section. Five robed cultists squatted over African-style drums and were pounding out a steady, rumbling beat for the ceremony as it began to unfold. I heard Shelby’s voice, once again amplified through speakers I couldn’t see. “All right, on three. Roll cameras. And… one… two… three.”
As the drummers increased their volume and upped the pace, I looked around for some sign of these cameras. I caught a twinkle of firelight on glass from up near the roof and saw a black shape squatting on a tripod on the side of the circle opposite from me. And it was impossible to say what might be hidden within that massive Cthulhu effigy inside. It comforted me some that they were filming whatever was about to happen. I didn’t think they were crazy enough to do anything too illegal on video. Or at least I hoped not. I squirmed and wriggled in my confining robe, pulling and twisting my wrists to work loose the knot. It seemed to be working.
The ritual began inside, with dancing and chanting and loud, strange noises much like the ones I’d seen at the original art show, only more elaborate. The same naked dancers, painted with phosphorescent paint that glowed eerily in the night, gyrated their way towards the wooden idol. Only this time some of them held torches and would stop from time to time to spit out arcing gouts of flame into the air and then resume twirling their firebrands like Polynesian dancers. It was an impressive display. They swirled and danced around the wooden Cthulhu for a while and then the next phase of the procession followed, Shelby and Kym, nude, arm in arm, regal as they processed from the temple, Cthulhu’s menacing arms spread wide as if he was casting them forth into the night. But they were not the center of attention tonight. No: six robed cultists followed behind them, bearing a jet-black palanquin on their shoulders, a nude, tentacle-tattooed Cara reclining like Cleopatra atop it. She too wore a Cthulhu mask that hid her face and eyes, but from her breathing and the sheen of sweat on her pale skin, I could see that she was alive.
They carried her to the wooden Cthulhu and carefully set the forward end of the palanquin down and tilted the other up so that she could step onto the ground with ease. Shelby and Kym each took one hand to help her. Her posture stiff and regal, she seemed to glide across the ground towards the gaping hole in the statue’s belly. As the crowd around her cried out, “IA, IA, CTHULHU FHTAGN!” over and over again, I watched her stoop just enough to disappear into the darkness within the statue. Shelby raised his hand, and two more cultists scampered out from the shadows beyond the torch light, bearing a large, convex piece of wood, which they passed on to Shelby and Kym. The two of them took it and fitted it snugly over the hole into which Cara had disappeared, sealing her in.
Beneath my robes, urged on by the sight of her, I freed my hands at last, but kept my newfound liberty to myself. I estimated it would take just a few seconds to whip off the robe and remove the rag stuffed in my mouth.
Shelby motioned towards the fire dancers, who surrounded the wooden Cthulhu that now held Cara inside and began jamming their torches into the ground in a pattern in front of the fire pit, dangerously close to the dry tinder at its base. The pattern formed around Kym and Shelby, and it took me until they were finished to recognize it as the branch-like Elde
r Sign that Shelby, Kym, and Cara all had tattooed on them. Lovecraft’s ancient symbol for Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones. The chanting continued throughout, “IA, IA, CTHULHU FHTAGN!” Shelby and Kym motioned and the dancers withdrew into the darkness. They each took a step forward towards the display of torches driven into the ground.
Conrad, screaming like a banshee, leaped down from the temple roof and rushed at them on wobbly but powerful legs.
The chanting and the drumming stopped as we all looked on, startled. Conrad ran forward in a loping, limping gait sweeping up first one torch from the ground and then another. Shelby and Kym scattered before his charge and the rest of us took a step or three back as he swung the flaming clubs in wide arcs, screaming still. Screaming, I could now understand, “STOOOOOPPPP!” at the top of his lungs, over and over again.
Panting, wincing in pain, his hands and face filthy, his clothing torn, Conrad the wild stood his ground and faced the cult down, eyes and torches blazing. I slipped my robe off and pulled the gag from my mouth. Anyone that might have been assigned to watch me wasn’t. Shelby took off his mask and held up his hands, palms toward Conrad.
“Conrad,” he said with a nod.
“Stay back!” he shouted, jabbing a torch towards Shelby’s face, who recoiled back a step. “Everyone stay back!”
Kym joined Shelby at his side, removing her mask as well, and I began to press my way forward through the crowd as they backed away from the scene.
“OK, Conrad, it’s all right,” Shelby said, his voice calm, even.
“No, it’s not!” Conrad shouted. He pointed the torch towards Kym. “I know what she’s done to you. I know what’s going on.”
“I really don’t think you do,” Shelby replied.
“Rick!” Shelby called. “Bring me Rick!”
I stepped forward from the pack of cowed cultists, who let me pass unhindered. “I’m here, Conrad, it’s OK.”
He looked at me, first with relief and then with horror. “What did they do to you?” he asked. I looked down at myself and saw the long, deep scratches from the barbwire that ran the length of my exposed chest and my shredded jeans.
“I’m fine. I just had an accident.”
“Come by me,” he said. “Grab a torch to fight them off.”
I didn’t move, scared to get too close to Conrad but equally frightened about what he would do if I didn’t.
“Did you bring the sigil?” he asked me. “Where’s Calvin?”
“The letter was a fake,” I told him. “Calvin is a fake. He’s a nut and he’s misled me from the beginning. I’m sorry, Conrad, but he’s crazy. I should never have trusted him. He’s crazy. There is no sigil.”
“I just talked to him,” Conrad said. “He told me you threw him out. I didn’t want to believe it but… ” he looked me over from head to toe once more. “You didn’t use the cards did you?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant at first. “What?” I asked.
“You’re still under her control!” he shouted, swinging a torch in Kym’s general direction. “I never won you back!”
“Conrad, no, please… ”
And then they swarmed toward him, which was a mistake. Three robed cultists came at him from behind, but in their robes and unarmed, they were no match for him. He heard or maybe just sensed their rush, and spun around to face them, hurling one torch at their leader. The cultist flung up his hands to protect his face, deflecting the flaming missile to the side, but tripping over the hem of his robe as he did so and going down. The other two kept coming, but Conrad, instead of backing down, countercharged, bull-rushing into the pair of them. They broke the moment before impact, fearful of his fire and furious roar. Conrad’s head slashed from side to side, teeth bared, looking to see if there were any more comers. A few made as if to move forward, but then backed down in the face of madness. No one here but Conrad came mentally or physically prepared for a fight.
“Enough, Conrad!” Shelby said. “Enough!”
Conrad whirled to face him, taking a limping step forward as he did. The two were now less than five feet apart, but Shelby was no longer shying away from the torch-bearer.
“What do you want, Conrad?” Shelby asked, his voice full of unsuppressed rage. “What the hell do you want?”
Conrad seemed taken aback by this question. “This has to stop,” he said. “You have to let me and Sinclair break her spell on you.”
“There is no spell, Conrad,” Shelby said, his breathing heavy, almost panting with anger. “There’s no such fucking thing as spells!”
“You can’t use your lies on me, Shelby,” Conrad replied with an angry shake of his head. “I’ve figured it out. The pages from the Necronomicon. That woman’s connection to the stolen book and the Greek monks. The mind-control techniques. The human sacrifices! We know what’s going on here.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Shelby fairly screeched. “You’ve gone insane! That’s not what we’re doing here. You don’t understand anything. You’re not even capable of understanding. Why do you think I never invited you to join us? Because your brain can’t withstand it. Your mind is all fear and no knowledge!”
Conrad stepped toward him, raising his torch arm back. “Don’t you lie to me anymore!”
I made myself step forward too. “Conrad, you’ve got to stop this,” I said. “Believe me, Sinclair’s the one at fault here. He misled us both. Tricked us. It’s him we should be mad at, not Shelby.”
“No!” Conrad said. I was willing my words to penetrate his enraged mind, but he seemed immune to reason. “You saw the pages. I heard what happened. I know. I know.”
I took another step forward. “I know, but it’s just not what we thought. It’s not.”
I took another step forward. And then another. I was closer than Shelby now. I could feel the heat of the torch on my bare chest. Seeing the two of us standing together, facing him, set Conrad off.
“Look at you two monsters,” he said, thrusting the torch at us. “Look at you! You’re not even human anymore, are you? You’ve become something else.”
“Yes, Conrad,” Shelby said. “But not like you think. Just listen to Rick. Put down the torch and listen.”
Conrad started muttering something under his breath, like he was trying to block our words out. A prayer maybe? He wasn’t about to listen to us. Shelby took a step forward, his hands raised and open in a gesture of surrender.
The glow from the circle of torches around the wooden Cthulhu that held Cara had masked what was really going on there. None of us noticed when Conrad’s thrown, then deflected torch had rolled into the dry tinder. Nor had we noticed when the tinder lit up and started a quick burn. The wooden statue was not, as it appeared, a heavy piece of solid wood, but rather a thin layer of highly flammable treated wood on top of a wire frame, soaked in accelerant. It was designed to ignite to a full blaze in an instant.
With a great whoosh it did just that, the whole statue engulfed in flames in just seconds. We all stumbled back as the fireball rose up into the night sky. Conrad was screaming. So was I. The cultists, who should have been expecting it, seemed less startled, but still backed away in surprise. There was a groaning, cracking, creaking sound from the flaming statue and it started to shift and then move. From inside there was something moving, and I knew it had to be Cara, consumed alive by the fire. There was nothing I could do.
Conrad, stood his ground, dangerously close to the flames, stuck in screaming place by his own horror. Then the thing lurched and cracked open, two giant black wings tearing through the glowing wood and sending sparks flying as they extended ten feet in either direction. The massive, alien thing within continued to stir, rising up as it hatched from its infernal egg. Cthulhu, wet and glistening, rose from the ashes and a roar surrounded us from all sides.
I watched in horror as Conrad, his brain surely broken beyond repair at that point, rushed not away from the beast but toward it, charging it like some crazed St. George facing the dr
agon. Or maybe Don Quixote and his windmills. But Shelby reached out to him before he could complete his suicidal charge, wrestling Conrad to the ground from behind. The two crashed to the dirt just a few feet from Cthulhu, whose birth flames were already dying.
Conrad reared back up from beneath Shelby, flinging him from his back. Shelby went down hard and was unable to stop Conrad as he twisted his torso around and launched himself at his old friend. Conrad mounted Shelby’s lean, squirming body, pinning him to the ground beneath his knees. Then, screaming once more, he raised the torch in his hand and stabbed down in a fiery arc into Shelby’s face.
Kym and I both reacted at the same time, scrambling forward to help Shelby. Kym grabbed hold of him and tried to tear him loose. Seeing the nausea-inducing, bubbling sizzle of Shelby’s burning face, I grabbed for the torch, taking hold of the fiery tip and wrenching it free.
Conrad must have had all his weight on that torch, for he lost his balance and rolled off to the side, dropping it. Kym cried out and flailed her hands in the air around Shelby’s prostrate body, wanting to help, but too frightened to touch the scorched and blackened flesh. The horror he’d wrought seemed to finally seep through Conrad’s fogged perception as he teetered to his feet, backing away.
“Oh, God,” he cried. “Oh, God!”
Cara came running out from within the brightly lit temple, wearing a robe. “What’s going on?” she shouted. And then she saw Shelby and cried out. “What’s happened? What went wrong?”
When Conrad saw her he nearly lost his footing again. I know I was confused. She wasn’t burned alive. She was fine. There was dirt on her knees. I looked over at Cthulhu. At the metal and rubber statue of Cthulhu, crammed into the wooden shell like a jack-in-the-box—so I learned later. A trick. An illusion.
I don’t know if Conrad had the same realization I did. I don’t know what happened in his mind or when everything snapped for him. At that point he might no longer have even been capable of rational thought. I just don’t know. But he saw Cara and looked at the Cthulhu contraption just like I did, and then he ran. Ran into the darkness and none of us tried to stop him. Ran and left Shelby in shock, me moaning in pain and then agony as my body let me know just how badly I’d burned my hand. With Cara yelling for someone to call an ambulance. Better make that two.
