Shoggoth 2- Rise of the Elders Page 16
***
Pemba woke next to an empty bedside. Where is Gideon? It was still night time, and she had been in a dark place, Gideon was there too. No, she was only an observer from afar, she recalled after rubbing the sleep from her eyes. He was alone. It was wet, and he was inside something horrible!
Pemba put on her robe and slippers and searched the house for her man. The Professor was at a faraway place called Arkham and Amy was resting peacefully. Besides the two of them, there was no one else in the house. After a thorough look out the front door and a search of the patio, she returned to their bedroom. Where is he? A sense, a calling, told her to open the lid on their laptop. It was on the top of the guestroom chest of drawers. Pemba had to crane her neck to view the keyboard. A blue-white light from the screen illuminated her features. A new app had been added to the computer desktop, she discovered. Navigating the mouse, she clicked on the GoPro icon.
***
He ran, he charged skyward along the ramp, “fools rush in,” Gideon mocked his assault. Either I am headed for a trap or another empty room, he challenged himself. He didn’t rule out the element of surprise either, although it was highly unlikely. After all, everything was alive in this squirmy hell hole, and it was more than likely telegraphing his every move. He was triumphantly pleased when his assumption was proven wrong.
On the heels of what appeared as three-flights up, the ramp leveled off to a room that was larger than the ground floor. How that could be, Gideon had little time for conjecture as to what was appropriate for their radical architectural form. He was gradually learning to accept the unacceptable. The gigantic expanse housed, for a better term, living machinery. Glass tubes and rods like those he had observed in the tunnel chamber protruded from living breathing gobs of flesh. Some of the pulpy meat was grotesquely familiar, a corporeality, while other parts were alien and looked grown in place. The area was jam packed with gooey, smelly body parts interwoven together to create a nameless device. It was obvious to Gideon that the lion's share of the butchery was human. Lights shown within the arrangements of glass and, looking as out of place as roast beef at a vegetarian luncheon, was a human-made transformer and rheostat.
Gideon had truly caught the tower aliens off guard. Or did they consider his intrusion a minor nuisance and ignored him? Several paid no attention while working the crystalline levers with head tendrils and tentacles. A lone two-clawed Elder Being worked the rheostat dial with its stubby fingered tentacle while feeding itself with its clawed pincers. Below the three bulging eyes and above the beard of cilia a gaping mouth chewed on a leg of meat. Joined to the munching monstrosity skirt by a leash of sinew was a shoggoth warrior, contented to lap up the scraps its master threw to it.
It took only a moment for Gideon to realize that the leg of meat the cone-creature was munching on was a human thigh. Reason went out with the viewing; he saw Dutch at the mercy of his captors and Gideon killed with pragmatic certainty. The ones working the glass levers were probably worker bees, the other was boss man. While it was chomping away, he blew its head off with a short burst from his M16. The Elder thing toppled like a fallen tree. The worker beings fled through an adjoining corridor whistling and piping in fear. The shoggoth rose up on amoebic legs only to be slowed down dragging its lifeless master by its sinewy restraint.
Luck being on the aggressor’s side, Gideon dashed for the ramp. The shoggoth warrior chased at a hindered pace. Halfway along, the ramp began to be slippery again, and Gideon slid down on his backside. He skimmed rapidly, widening the gap, to ground level, all the while firing his weapon overhead and behind him.
Gideon jumped to his feet, ejected an empty ammo clip into the slimy recesses and jammed a loaded one into the M16. The shoggoth warrior came into view running and sliding around the bend lugging the dead Elder Being behind. Gideon emptied the thirty-round clip before it, severing the organic ramp in two. It screamed, “Eeeeeeee! Wawk! Tekeli-li!” falling into the greasy waters below.
Gideon jammed his last clip into the M16 and headed toward the place where the door used to be. It would only be a matter of minutes, maybe seconds before the shoggoth would ooze up out of the slime and come after me, he knew with gruesome certainty.
Gideon removed his pocket knife from the wall of living tissues and raised it above his head. He was determined to slice his way out of the organism. The wall gurgled, glugged and opened before he could make his first move. Pemba, looking forlorn, stood alongside Sergeant Moses Jones. An evening breeze caressed Gideon's face. He ran outside the hellish nightmare into her open arms. The door slurped shut behind him.
Chapter 19
- HPL Memorandum -
To some, the marble halls of Miskatonic can be very intimidating. Vaulted ceilings supported by stone arches with sculpted gargoyles lurking at every turn. For Ironwood it was an old home week. A young woman greeted him wearing the school’s uniform with the University’s logo on the jacket pocket bearing the motto “Ex Ignorantia Ad Sapientiam; Ex Luce Ad Tenebras.” The words were nostalgic to Ironwood, a slightly poetic translation of the two lines in Latin was “Out of Ignorance into Wisdom; Out of Light into Darkness.”
The uniformed lady was there to escort him to Nathaniel Peaslee’s office. Ironwood knew the way, but he was no longer in residence at M.U., and he was not about to tread on protocol.
The office of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee III was far from palatial, however it did impress every visitor that stood on its wine-red carpet surrounded by hand rubbed Ipswich Pine bookshelves and paneling. When it came to Miskatonic University, Professor Peaslee’s workplace was the seat of academia. It reserved that status even back when it was his father’s office and before that his grandfather’s.
“Tom, you old son of a gun,” bellowed Peaslee with an extended hand. “How the hell are you?”
“Taking it one day at a time, Nate.”
“It seemed that no sooner than I received an email from you saying that you are coming for a visit, then you appear on my doorstep.”
Ironwood cleared his throat, offered a sheepish grin and replied, “I sent that with my cell phone, from the airport, before departing. Look, Nate, this is not a social call. I can’t help feeling that our time is short. This widespread Elder craziness must stop. I haven’t figured out what their motivation is, their reason for all those towers, but I am certain it is not going to be for the good of humanity.”
“Have you seen the morning news,” asked Nathaniel Peaslee changing from his jovial greeting to a serious manner.
“No, I came directly from the airport.”
Peaslee removed a remote from a top desk drawer and pointed it at flat screen bounded by books and pine. In seconds the TV set came alive with the ABS logo (Amalgamated Broadcasting System) flashing on the screen. “I am Cameron Carr, and this is SpotLight,” announced a twenty-something man in a gray suit. “Our network will keep bringing you this cautionary warning before the showing of the following video,” he paused. “To our viewers at home, if your children are watching, or if you have a weak stomach, we suggest that you might want to leave the room, because what we are about to show you is both earth-shattering and, to some, frightening.” There was a cut to a dark video that bounced frequently; parts were only discernable where a beam of light was focused, most likely the illumination of a flashlight. “The identity of the videographer,” continued the announcer, “is alleged to be a man by the name of Gideon Ward. A resident of Darwin, California which is the area known for the Great Race Ascension.” Ironwood rolled one of Nathaniel Peaslee’s office chairs closer to the flat screen and dropped down onto the seat, a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“We have edited the feed you are witnessing for reasons of expediency because some of this video is not viewable due to the erratic movements of the alleged videographer.” The camera’s point of view focused upward as if the user was climbing a staircase or a gradual incline. Movement stopped abruptly when reaching a well-lit area. Cone-sh
aped giants worked machinery. Some of the equipment, in the video, was alien having the appearance of fleshy parts, while the other apparatus was more conventional. The words “WARNING CAN CONTAIN DISTURBING IMAGES” superimposed on the screen, flashed momentarily, and then disappeared revealing an Elder Being munching on a human leg. The image jerked upward followed by a burst of gunshots. The Elder thing’s head exploded into a mass of green ichor. After that, the camera-work became so blurred from the rapid movements of the operator that the television feed switched back to the announcer.
“The video was first posted on the social media site ‘Sphere’ and has since gone viral,” continued Cameron Carr. “Its authenticity has yet to be verified, although it has created a stir around the world. Representatives of the religious sect ‘Star Children’ released a statement to this network affirming their resolve to ‘combat society’s prejudices against cannibalism.’ They have additionally laid claims to all sources of knowledge as the way to a peaceful soul.
“This morning, we had the opportunity to sit down with Congressman Neville Stream, Washington’s expert on the Elder phenomena.”
Stream leaned forward, his hands folded together resting on a table top and a smirk on his face. “For all I know, Cameron this could be some cheap trick done with CGI. The way they can digitally synthesize and manipulate visual content today is astounding. Why, I've seen King Kong and Godzilla on the big screen that looks as real as you and me.”
Nathaniel Peaslee turned off the television. “The garbage that comes out of that man’s mouth would make a sanitation worker ill.” Peaslee walked across the room and closed his office door. “Tom, I have got all our Necronomicon accredited scholars working day and night poring over every ancient document in Miskatonic for any scrap of info on the Great Race. The moment we come up with anything remotely significant I will forward it on to you.”
“There could be one scrap that you may have overlooked, Nate” Ironwood replied slyly. He motioned with a sideward glance and a turn of his head toward one of the bookcases.
Nathaniel Peaslee’s forehead creased as he looked down at the wine-red carpet, then up at his old friend, and smiled. “You mean the memorandum?” Without waiting for an answer, he went to the bookcase closest to his desk and removed two large volumes with gilded bindings. Peaslee reached into the recess where the books had lain, and Ironwood heard a “click.” The bookcase rolled out and then slid aside. An old-style steel walk-in vault was revealed, the kind used by banks decades earlier. It had a combination dial and a key lock. Professor Peaslee produced a key dangling from a watch chain in his vest and inserted it into the slot. He turned the key and set about twirling the dial of the combination lock. “My grandfather used to keep the Necronomicon here until security was stepped up at the library.” The steel door opened with a “clang” and Peaslee’s voice echoed from inside the metal walls, “Now, I use it for lesser albeit essential works.” Seconds later he emerged and handed Ironwood a thin leather volume. Gold embossed letters on the cover read, “HPL Memorandum.”
“Is this what you were looking for, Thomas?” Peaslee playfully asked. He pulled his chair out from his desk and offered it to Ironwood, “Have a seat. Take your time reviewing it. It is the original and the only copy in existence. Even though I am the head of this department, it is prohibited to remove the book from the grounds. Nothing I can do about that I’m afraid, my friend.”
Ironwood’s old friend and colleague walked around to the visitor side of his desk to make a pronouncement. “There’ve been a lot of changes around here, Tom since you left. We are getting very modern. Last month they put a Starbucks in the commissary. They have a salted caramel mocha latte there that is to die for, and I believe I will go and get myself one. I might have two. I’ll be a while.” Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee III left the office closing the door after him.
Professor Thomas Ironwood stared at the closed door, chuckled, picked up the HPL Memorandum, and put it in his briefcase.
***
It would be a five-and-one-half-hour flight from Boston Logan International to LAX, an opportune time for Ironwood to catch up on his reading. The stewardess had brought him a coffee, and he hunkered down with his pilfered book for the long haul.
It was written in longhand which made the reading go slowly:
HPL Memorandum
1937
The malignancy of the invasive growth has brought about a virulent swelling. The doctors inform me that I cannot be cured. Cancer of the small intestine they tell me, the result of which causes me to suffer from malnutrition additionally. I have encountered a sense of horror and oppression which threatens to paralyze and annihilate me. Existence seems of little value, and I wish it might terminate this body of mine soon. I find no reason that I should continue living.
I subsist in constant pain. In accordance with my lifelong scientific curiosity, I have kept a diary of my illness until close to the eventual moment when the disorder no longer permits me to bear witness. It was during the Sixteenth Century when early chemists created laudanum, an opium preparation in an alcohol solution. It was an adequate pain medicine, my past studies have awarded me that understanding, but it is not available anymore since by the twentieth-century prescription morphine was extracted in its purest form, and ready available laudanum had departed the shelves of my local apothecary. The medical establishment and chemists seek their medicine profits, their hefty pounds of flesh. The drug works moderately well to curb the excruciating onslaught of the Grim Reaper, although it, at times, renders it difficult for me to concentrate.
This journal is not that illness diary, rather a chronicle of events that will bear witness to an alien force that is currently hidden but might rise again to reclaim this earth. I set this down, in my own hand, before I am no longer able, along with the facts that I will present, so that it may help those in the distant future to perchance throw off the yoke of an impending apocalypse.
I want to begin by saying that I did not fall asleep, I wish to make this very clear. What transpired next may have been a vision, a case of astral travel, or at the very least, a supernormal experience of the most unusual and remarkable sort, but it was, without question, not a sleeper’s dream, or a hallucination brought on by the narcotic.
I was wide awake. I sat up in bed, my nerves shaking from a sudden start. I had retired early that evening in the hopes that the morphine would help me sleep, on the contrary, it only aggravated an already nervous condition. I had heard a sound coming from downstairs. I waited in the silence that followed for it to repeat. It was a “clinking,” the jangle a common laborer might make with a wrench or other tools against metal, the turning of a screw or a bolt.
I can easily catch a chill, due to my ill health, so donning my robe and slippers I ventured down the stairs. I live in a spacious brown Victorian house at number 10 Barnes Street. However, that is the sum total of my affluence. I have been reduced to living like a pauper and could no longer afford the luxury of electricity. Thus, months earlier, I had terminated service with the Arkham Electric Company. You can imagine my surprise when I observed a light shining below, the source, of which, rested on my parlour table. It was a small round stand covered with an embroidered cloth and an empty vase at the center. Icy March winds blew in from the Miskatonic River making decorative flowers in our New England town out of season, let alone unattainable for someone at my poverty level. The table was adequate space for visitors, as few as they are nowadays, to place their hat, gloves, and stick when calling. Only now it was void of those accouterments as well as the vase. In their place was a most unusual device. A whirling dervish of shadow and light that created hypnotic patterns. I squinted against the stroboscope quickly realizing that it was constructed of shiny metal parts, bits of glass and mirrors. I had also become aware of another person in the room.
The intruder was a small dark figure barely five feet in height. Of his features, I am unable to relate to you because he wore a slouch hat pulled ove
r his brow and he stood stoop-shouldered. I jumped with a start when first alerted to his presence and shouted, “Who are you? What do you want?” There was no reply from the little man if he was a man, or even human, of this I never ascertained for after I ceased my bellowing, he fiddled with a crystalline lever at the base of the device, and I was no longer standing in my home. I felt my soul gradually separate from my body.
Sounds assaulting my eardrums were my first cognizant recollection. Familiar sounds belonging to the busy streets of a large city mixed with queer noises that belied an earthly metropolis. A smoky white world embraced me. The mist soon lifted, and an alien landscape slowly filled with incredibly strange wonders. A huge crouching creature rose out of the fog. It was a stone figure, a giant statue, the corner piece of a vast wall adorned with hieroglyphics and stone carvings. Even though it had thinned perceptibly, the fog was always present, and it became phosphorescent when I descended to ground level. Yes, I descended, from where and how I do not know, nor did I know of myself as “I” in any solid perceptible sense of the notion of self. A dream you say? Not at all, for upon returning later to number 10 Barnes Street, I discovered marks, scratches left upon my parlour table made by that accursed machine. Marks that did not exist before departing. For it was not the departure that was so mortifying as was my arrival.
In certain places, I beheld night black cylindrical towers that rose far above other structures. I was overcome by the ever-present fear that weird and fantastic creatures would rush out from behind buildings and dark recesses. Robed figures moved between huge narrow pyramids joined by ramps and catwalks. I moved as well, by what method I do not know, and followed the robed shapes. I found myself in front of an immense five-sided arch. I entered the passageway into a shadowy building. The way in vanished the moment I crossed the threshold. The murky gloom yielded the problematical when it came to determining the size of the room. From the darkness, I sometimes could make out faint piping and twittering followed by a wet swishing.