Shoggoth 2- Rise of the Elders Read online

  With each succeeding dream, the alien apparitions and their surroundings became increasingly well-defined. Drunk or sober, Mavis could describe in detail, what the beings looked like, what they were doing and where they lived. “They were kind of like bugs, but huge,” she’d illustrate stretching her arms out wide. “No legs, but skirt shaped at the bottom, don’t know what made em’ move, they’d just glide along. Sometimes they were green in color, sometimes gray and they were always making somethin’. I dunno know what it was cept it was all big gooey bubbles with lots of eyes and mouths. That’s when I wake up screaming.”

  An earth tremor rattled the trailer. Aftershocks were not uncommon in the Mojave. At least thirty of them had struck the Inyo County area in the past several weeks following a 4.6 quake. Aftershocks are normally smaller than the mainshock, but this one certainly shook, she thought. A bolt of fear shot straight through widow Blister’s frail body. It harkened back to what woke her. This time it was not the bubbling mass of eyes and mouths. She remembered that a previous tremor had shaken her from her sleep. It was time for a drink, a stiff one, lots of whiskey with only a little Snapple.

  Mavis got up from her chair and retrieved a bottle of Canadian Club from a kitchen cupboard. Going to the fridge for her Snapple, she opened its door. The bulb within its interior did not light. Strange, she pondered, did it burn out? She flipped the Kitchen wall switch to the “on” position. The ceiling fixture did not light. Was there a power outage? She wondered if any of her neighbors were experiencing a power failure? Setting the Snapple and the Canadian Club on the counter Mavis Blister opened the trailer door and peered out. She couldn’t see a thing; it was black as pitch outside. She stepped down the two galvanized steel steps to ground level and looked around. Still, nothing was visible. There must be clouds covering the moon, she guessed. Mavis gazed upwards. Stalactites hung from a rock ceiling. “Can’t be,’ she said to herself. Some of the gloom receded as her eyes became accustomed to the dark. She was in a cave, a damn cave! Behind her loomed the small white aluminum sided trailer she had known as “home” all these years. Had the earth opened and swallowed her and the trailer while she slept? Ahead a tunnel precisely structured stretched on to infinity. There were sucking and slurping sounds emanating from the darkness. It was cold in the tunnel, Mavis shivered. Nevertheless, she was attracted to the sounds and walked forward. The tunnel was five-sided, and the floor and walls were smooth. Not knowing, not caring, she strolled into a confab of cone-shaped giants. They stood in a half-circle, eyes mounted on thick stalks staring at a machine. The device was murky, shadowy, the size of a freight train; an orifice at one end extruded a gelatinous mass. Eyes and mouths in the jellied substance molded into glistening orbs and slits, then quickly became shapeless. One of the elder things turned and looked at her with every one of its massive eyeballs. An enormous tentacle lashed out of the void and grabbed her about the neck.

  Mavis Blister woke up screaming.

  Chapter 4

  - Pocket Companion, Act I -

  Noah Riggs switched on the electric start to his Magician Dirt Bike. The 250cc motor chugged with plenty of grunt for his needs. He headed for the NWC. During America's early involvement in the second World War, adequate facilities were required by the military for the test and evaluation of rockets. At the same time, the Navy wanted a proving ground for the analysis of aviation ordnances. Subsequently, the Navy established China Lake, a desert plain, as its million-plus acre testing station in 1943. Its mission was the research, development, and testing of weapons, with the additional function of furnishing training in the use of such weaponry. Today the facility is known as the Naval Weapons Center, the NWC. The young bike rider’s uncle, Jason Riggs, was a Lieutenant stationed there. Thus, Noah was allowed access to the Naval Weapons Center. “Just as long as you keep your nose clean,” his uncle had cautioned.

  Noah’s buddies, in the ninth grade, called him Ark. The nickname was appropriate, he guessed. You know the guy with the big boat and the animals two-by-two. The tag was harmless enough, but unlike his namesake in the Bible story, he was alone. Everybody and every animal during the Noah of olden times had a mate. This Noah, of the twenty-first century, did not have a girlfriend, though. And the fifteen-year-old hoped and prayed that his trip to the NWC would fix that.

  Ark sped along China Lake Boulevard. Downshifting to second, he turned east onto Inyokern Road and slowed to a stop at the main gate of the installation. The access code embedded in his iPhone X plus, by way of encrypted Bluetooth to the guard shack, authorized him for quick entry. The Chief Petty Officer, securing the area, waved him through.

  Noah/Ark enjoyed his street legal dirt bike. Most afternoons, when school let out, he and his pals would explore the desert terrain and the mountainous caves surrounding Ridgecrest. They would visit abandoned mines. Noah's science teacher had told them that there were a half a million deserted mines in the United States alone, and there were probably a thousand or more of them adjacent to their town. The small group of mountain bikers would brag to their classmates that they were mine explorers, they dubbed themselves the Tunnel Archaeologists. Conversely, gaining access to some mines might require technical skills such as rappelling or single rope techniques; the group avoided mineshafts and only explored those that allow two-wheel entry. Since mines dug into mountainous elevations were purposefully excavated to grant human access, the ones they sought, typically involved very little cave crawling, permitting extensive motorized investigations. Some disused mines had been adapted for tourism to be used by organized outdoor recreation groups. Noah and his gang also shunned those activities and settings altogether. At times their explorations would lead them to restricted locations, and in those situations, they always made sure to leave the sites in the same condition as they were found, "take nothing but pictures, leaving nothing but tread marks," was their credo.

  Noah’s buddy Stitch had the fastest bike. His given name was Ralph. He acquired the moniker due to a bad spill he took when he wrecked his Suzuki. The accident left a six-inch long slice in his right forearm that had to be stitched up at the hospital. A Yamaha YZ450F replaced the Suzuki; Stitch’s dad had the big bucks.

  Noah’s mother had passed away when he was six-months-old. He didn’t remember her. After his dad died, last year, he came to live with his uncle, Jason. Jason bought him the Magician Dirt Bike. He loved his uncle, Jason. The Magician wasn’t an expensive bike, but he was quick to realize that on his uncle’s officer salary it was an extravagant gift. The lightweight motorbike although well-appointed with aggressive acceleration was better suited for casual riders because it could comfortably seat two. And he longed for a special person he knew to accompany him on his rides.

  Obeying the speed limit on Nimitz Avenue, Noah navigated the Magician to the parking lot in front of the Michelson Laboratory. There were all kinds of secret stuff that went on inside there that even his uncle’s clearance was verboten. Some of the kids at school said that they heard that they experimented with chemicals that could think, or they studied pieces of alien technology found hidden beneath the desert, and they told stories about this old guy in there who wore a cowboy hat and boots that shot lasers from outer space. None of it was probably true, he surmised. Even so, the section within the Michelson Lab that he was permitted housed a big ass supercomputer. The biggest in the world, he bet. A hyper-parallel quantum-based neural-net computer system. The CPO that safeguarded the artificial intelligence assumed that Noah’s “right of entry” was for him to do his homework assignments. Little did the Chief Petty Officer know that Noah’s assignment, with the supercomputer, was so he could score big with Madison, his dream date.

  Chapter 5

  - Homunculus -

  Can’t he drive this damn car any faster? The tall man with a scar wanted to shout in the driver’s ear. Did Malcolm Darby truly want to save his wife or was this lame attempt at driving to her rescue all for show? To show who, me? Does he want a witness to his wife�
�s demise? Kim’s, his spouse’s, life was in the balance, and he was cruising down the dark tree-lined boulevard at 25 miles per hour. It was no time to observe the speed limit. He knew that it would surely ruin his chance for a bonus, but the situation required drastic action.

  The tall man with the scar leaned to his left and reached over the steering wheel of the Mercedes S-Class Sedan. Pressing his client back against the bucket seat and with one swift move he switched on the car’s high beams. In an instant tall man straddled the sedan’s center console with his left leg while taking control of the steering. Both hands on the wheel he slammed his combat boot on top of a Versace Leather-Top Sneaker.

  Malcolm Darby fought to maintain command of the vehicle, but the hired man’s muscular frame made the attempt futile. Control lost, his foot was forced to press the peddle to the metal.

  The Mercedes' 436 horsepower 3.0-liter V6, quickly accelerated. The tall man with the scar navigated the sedan across the cul-de-sac, jumping the curb at sixty miles per hour and headed straight for Darby Manor. Headlights blazing, they plowed through hedges, across intricately landscaped flower beds, and up the front steps of the Victorian mansion crashing through the leaded glass doors. The Mercedes S-Class Sedan collided with the grand staircase opposite the front entry.

  Darby Screamed.

  ***

  The tall man with the scar had been hired to either rescue a neurotic plus hysterical housewife from demons she claimed haunted their spooky three-story mansion or have her committed if her declarations were proven to be fantasy. Kim and her tech giant businessman husband moved into Kim's ancestral home in the East Hamptons only a month before the tall man's arrival. Originally titled Quinn Gardens Estate, the house was one of several properties listed in a sizable family trust.

  Kimberly Quinn, her name before marrying Malcolm, backed her husband’s start-up ten-years earlier. A million-dollar investment sliced out of her trust fund that fostered the social media giant, Sphere. At the time the dollar amount represented a sizable chunk of the fund. Over the decade, Sphere’s value increased almost a million-fold becoming the first technology platform closing in on a trillion-dollar appraisal and the tall man with a scar suspected that, over time, wifey might have outworn her usefulness for hubby.

  Valued at over fifteen-million today, the stately home had been boarded up for over twenty-years and required an extensive makeover before being occupied. The house smelled of new carpeting and fresh paint when the tall man with the scar was escorted into the parlor for the first time. Mrs. Darby sat straight and rigid in an antique ladder-back chair. She looked like a statue, observed tall man; pale, what was the term, alabaster? “Good morning Mrs. Darby.”

  “Good morning,” she replied mechanically.

  “May I call you Kim?”

  “Please.”

  “Let’s start at the beginning Kim, tell me when you first became aware of these . . . events?”

  “My husband told me that you are an expert in these cases,” her right hand shook from an invisible twinge.

  “I’ve been known to help out in similar situations,” he kept his voice calm and steady. Kim’s nerves were obviously on edge, and he could see that he would have to lead her to her story as gently as possible.

  “The renovations to Darby Manor were wide-ranging and took six months to complete,” she slowly answered as if it was painful to talk. “It . . . did not start until after the fourth month of reconstruction.”

  “What happened?” the tall man spoke softly.

  “There is an old fireplace at the rear of the house, in what used to be my father’s study. The hearth and clean-out pit were bolted shut with a thick iron plate. It was probably deep, creepy and dark inside, I thought, and most likely nobody ever wanted the job of cleaning it out. The house had been converted to central heating years before, and there was no need, anymore, for a fireplace in every room. I wanted to make the old study into a stylish tea room, reminiscent of the late nineteenth century. Most of the homes in the Hamptons are in a string of seaside communities used as only summer destinations. We were making the Manor into a year-round residence, and I desired to restore the fireplace for winter gatherings. Subsequently, I had the workmen remove the iron plate and clean the flue. It was after then that ‘they’ emerged.”

  “They?” again careful to keep his voice low, coaxing.

  “Homunculus,” she shuddered.

  “Homunculus?” he felt stupid echoing her every word let alone not being familiar with the term.

  A tear ran down Kim’s right cheek, "Little men,” she chocked, “. . . a sort of small human being, but not human. I call them that for lack of any other name. I discovered the appellation carved into the top of my father’s old desk.”

  “When do you see them,” he prodded. The tall man with the scar suspected that Malcolm Darby’s suspicion of his wife being hallucinatory brought on by a neurotic nature was merited.

  “At night. They don’t like the light; I think it burns them. I turned on my bedroom light one evening, and the creatures were quick, thin, and more demonic than human . . . large heads and shredded flesh on their arms. Their hands and bare feet were mottled red and black. They shrieked and fled when the light came on.”

  Interesting, he puzzled. Would a hallucination be that profound? “How many were they?”

  “Three, maybe four,” Mrs. Darby stared past the tall man, a face frozen in terror. “Malcolm works late most nights, that is when they come. They whisper to me.”

  “What do they say?” Was he just humoring the lady to lead her along to the nuthouse? But, then again there was something deep inside of him that nibbled with grim certainty.

  “They want to take me down below . . . to become one of them.”

  The tall man with the scar had served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, he took the lives of many men, and had become hardened against the horrors of war, but at that moment a cold shiver ran up his spine. His throat had become dry and parched, “Has anyone else seen these creatures?”

  “Yes, Alistair Plumlee, my decorator.”

  “Excellent!” now we are getting somewhere, he opined internally, an eyewitness, maybe the high society babe wasn’t so nuts after all. “I will want to question him as well.”

  “That won’t be possible, Mr. Plumlee is deceased. He fell to his death from the top of our third story staircase. The coroner said that his neck was broken, and he probably died instantly,” Malcolm’s wife broke down crying. “I found a rope lying across the place where he tripped,” she sobbed, “but when I went to pick it up . . . to take it, one of those horrifying little creatures pulled it from my grasp. It left as quickly as it appeared and vanished with the only evidence of their existence. No one believes me. My husband thinks I'm losing my mind.”

  “I believe you, Kim,” he offered, not knowing why he had said it. Was he off his rocker too? The idea of the creatures coming out of a fireplace ash pit didn't sound rational. He was getting creeped out. Strange things began to happen when they unsealed the hearth. Then Mrs. Darby begins to see small creatures everywhere. Had she released demons into the house, demons her father might have imprisoned within the bowels of the old house decades ago? Little creatures of the night in the East Hamptons? It didn’t seem credulous. An affluent area marked by long stretches of beaches and an interior of farmland, towns, and villages with mansions hidden behind tall boxwood hedges, a home to high-end restaurants, bars and designer boutiques. Could it be possible?

  Tall man did his best to calm his client’s wife until the day-nurse entered, more than likely summoned by the sounds of her mistress’s sobbing, caring a tranquilizer and a glass of water. He wished that she had brought a stiff drink for him.

  Once Mrs. Darby was settled he went to the back of the house and inspected the fireplace. The firebrick at the back of the opening had become hardened from the heat of long ago continual use. He knocked against it with the knuckles of his right hand. The stuff was as hard as iron.
His eyes adjusted to the interior gloom and he spotted marks, engraved on the bricks. They formed a pattern. Not exactly a pattern, they formed a pentacle. One of the cabalistic signs used in ancient magic.

  Sticking his head part way into the open hearth, tall man detected the faint odor of urine and rosemary. What an odd thing to smell, he thought.

  ***

  For the tall man with a scar, there was a reason to hope that Mrs. Darby's experience was only partly hallucinatory. He sat in a red leather chair across from Malcolm Darby’s desk and watched as he signed tall man’s service agreement. After his interview with Darby’s wife and the inspection of the fireplace, he decided to take on the assignment. Whatever developed the payday would be sizable, and that bothered him. Because he questioned Malcolm Darby’s motives. For tall man it would not be a win-lose scenario, more like a win-win. However, for Darby it was as if the man wasn’t interested in the results only an outcome, whatever that may be.

  He wished that he had time to research the possible existence of these so-called homunculus creatures. In years past, his brother had dabbled in ancient texts that he had procured while living in Arkham Massachusetts. Given time tall man might have found a clue in those old books to their existence and just maybe their destruction. Now there was little time left. The sun had already set, and the lady’s husband just dawdled. It was a good half hour drive back to the Hamptons and the manor, and they just sat while boss man re-read, for the third stretch, the service agreement.

  Mrs. Darby had been left at home, alone. The day-nurse had left at five, so had all the workmen and that scared the crap out of the tall man with a scar. He had been led to believe that they would be away for only a short period and return before dark. That, obviously, was not happening. Malcolm Darby’s cell phone rang, and tall man jumped. Darby answered in the speakerphone mode. The frantic voice of Kim’s screaming was audible across the spacious office. She pleaded for Malcolm’s return, “They’re back, I can hear them running through the house, they’re coming for me!” she cried.