by C W Hawes
Hammerschmidt wasn’t so lucky. The chemist was knocked to the floor when a large piece of the ceiling fell on him. Baker hauled him to his feet and called for help. Jones dropped back and picked the doctor up in a fireman’s carry.
The tunnel was shaking violently, making it difficult for Mostyn and his team to remain on their feet.
“We’re not going to make it, Boss,” NicAskill yelled, just before a tremor knocked her off her feet.
Mostyn grabbed her under her arms and dragged her to the side of the tunnel.
“Everyone!” Mostyn yelled and motioned for them to take a protective position along the tunnel wall.
The team hunkered down, facing the wall, all curled into fetal positions, their backs and backpacks positioned outward. There was a roar as tons of concrete and bricks came cascading down from the ceiling and walls.
***
Dotty Kemper opened her eyes. Above her was an arched ceiling.
Must still be in this goddamn tunnel, she thought.
Slowly she sat up and looked around. This portion of the tunnel was in a remarkably good state of repair. The lights, while not bright, provided adequate illumination.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” she said out loud. “A bed. I’m sitting on a bed.”
And as she took in where she was, she realized she was in a room. There were walls and a door and a few pieces of furniture.
“Huh. They must’ve converted a section of the tunnel into apartments,” Dotty muttered.
She got off the bed and walked to the door. After examining it to check for wiring that might trigger an alarm, she tried the doorknob. Locked. A look of disgust flitted across her face.
Dotty walked around the room. What are they going to do with me? she thought. If they were just going to kill me they would have done so by now.
She opened the wardrobe, and counted eight dresses. In the drawers, were underclothes.
At least I’ll look pretty, she thought.
Dotty returned to the bed and sat on it. “I’m awake, Mr Masked Man,” she called out. “How about you tell me what the program is?”
There was a knock, and the sound of the lock clicking. The door opened outward and a woman walked in. She pulled the door closed behind her. Kemper noticed the lock did not click, which meant for the time being she wasn’t locked in.
Dotty studied the woman. She was Chinese and looked like she was maybe in her late twenties or early thirties. She was wearing a red cheongsam, with a white floral print. The dress had long side slits, and a high collar. The sleeves came to the midpoint of her forearms. Her hair was black and cut short. She wore red lipstick and her long fingernails were painted red.
“My name’s Dotty. What’s yours?”
“My name does not matter.” The English was perfect. The accent American Midwest. “But you may call me Zi. I am to prepare you.”
“Prepare me for what?”
“The master will enlighten you soon. Please do not resist, or attempt to hurt me. Precautions have been taken.”
“Precautions?” Dotty said, and launched herself at the young woman, whose black eyes turned red, and Dotty found herself sprawled on the floor. She felt as though she’d run full tilt into a brick wall. She slowly picked herself up off the floor.
“Yes. Precautions,” Dotty said.
“I told you precautions had been taken.”
Dotty shook her head. “So you did.”
“Now, shall we begin? The master is waiting, and he does not like to be kept waiting.”
19
__________
◼︎
Pierce Mostyn slowly opened his eyes and coughed. He gradually maneuvered himself into a sitting position. He was covered in a grayish-colored dust and bits of concrete, brick, and earth. He looked at the humps of dust and dirt that marked where his team members lay, and slowly stood.
The last one in the line was only a few feet from where a wall of broken masonry and earth stretched from floor to ceiling. Mostyn made his way to that last team member and shook him. The person was Willie Lee Baker.
“Willie Lee, are you alright?” Mostyn shook him again.
A groan came from his lips, and Mostyn brushed away the stones and dirt. “Are you okay, Willie Lee?”
Baker shook his head and opened his eyes.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I think so, Mostyn. I’m not in any great pain.”
“Good to hear.”
Mostyn moved down the row checking on each team member. They were all alive. Hammerschmidt’s back hurt, and NicAskill complained about her thigh. But there were no broken bones. Mostyn breathed a sigh of relief.
“Listen up,” he began, “we can only move forward. Somewhere ahead of us are Dr Kemper and the book, and perhaps more unpleasant surprises. Drink some water, clear your heads, and get ready to move out.”
Mostyn took out his phone and brought up the holographic map of the tunnel system. The first thing he noticed was the dot representing Dotty Kemper had moved. He keyed his helmet mic.
“Sumer Base. Come in, Sumer Base.”
“We read you, Mostyn, but you’re breaking up.”
“Same for you, Langston. We had a cave-in.”
“Everyone alright?”
“We lost Petrie.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks. I notice Dr Kemper’s moved. Where is she now?”
“She’s under central Chinatown. Before that she was under a church. I’ve highlighted the most direct route for you to reach her. You should see it on the hologram now.”
“Roger that, Sumer Base.”
“Mostyn, we’ve…”
The transmission disintegrated into static.
“Jones, anything you can do with the phone?”
“No, Boss. Maybe we need to get clear of this cave-in. It might be interfering with reception.”
“Okay, let’s move out. We need to quick time it.” And Mostyn took off at a jog down the tunnel, the rest of the team following. Behind Mostyn was Baker, and behind him were Stoppen, NicAskill, Hammerschmidt, and Jones.
A half-mile down the tunnel a side branch came in, and Mostyn took it. He continued on for five hundred feet and stopped.
“According to my calculations, we have at least a mile, maybe two, to go before we reach Dr Kemper. I’m going to divide the team. NicAskill and I are going to go on ahead.”
“And we slowpokes,” Dr Stoppen said, “will catch up as soon as possible.”
“No offense, Dr Stoppen,” Mostyn said.
“None taken, Special Agent Mostyn. Go rescue Dr Kemper and secure the book. We’ll catch up as soon as we can.”
“Sure you don’t need a photographer?” Baker asked.
“Sorry, Willie Lee,” Mostyn replied.
“Okay, I can take a hint,” Baker said, with a smile. “I need to go on a diet.”
“Your words, not mine,” Mostyn said.
Baker waved away Mostyn’s comment. “Yeah, yeah. You just want NicAskill to yourself.”
Mostyn simply smiled, and turned to Jones. “Keep everyone safe.” He had Jones study the hologram and the route he’d need to follow.
“Okay, NicAskill, let’s go.”
The two sprinted down the tunnel and quickly disappeared into the Stygian blackness.
***
Dr Dotty Kemper took a look at herself in the mirror Zi had provided her. She’d bathed in an old-fashioned tin tub that had been brought in. She’d been given a massage. Zi had expertly applied her makeup.
I look pretty damn good, Dotty thought. To Zi, she said, “So what’s all this for?”
“The master will tell you. He will come soon.” Zi turned and left. Men came in and removed the tub and the mirror. On their departure, the door was closed and locked.
Dotty sat in a chair. “Well, Mr Masked Man,” she said out loud, “you’re either getting me all dolled up for my wedding or my funeral. And if it’s my funeral, then I guess I’m going
out with a bang.”
After a moment, her flippant attitude vanished. “I don’t want to die.” The words came out soft and barely audible. “I don’t want to be some monster’s baby factory either. I want to be with Pierce. I want him to hold me, and kiss me, and make love to me, and treat me like a princess.” Tears collected in her eyes, and then ran down her cheeks.
***
Mostyn and NicAskill ran down the tunnel. The beams from their helmet lamps bounced off the walls and floor. Rubble was everywhere. A testimony to the deterioration of the abandoned tunnel.
Phone in hand, Mostyn kept them on course, moving ever closer to Dotty Kemper’s location.
“Take that tunnel there,” Mostyn said.
He and NicAskill turned down a tunnel that came in on their right. However, fifty feet in the hologram collapsed and disappeared.
“Oh for crying out loud,” Mostyn exclaimed.
“What, Boss?”
“The hologram collapsed. Either my phone is dead, or we are out of range of Jones’s special phone. Mostyn tried contacting Sumer Base and was greeted with nothing but static.
“Looks like we’re out of range,” NicAskill said.
“It does. But the map should be in the app and shouldn’t be dependent on a connection to Sumer Base.”
“Well, whatever it is, we don’t have it. So now what?”
Mostyn pulled a compass out of a pocket. “She was north and east. We keep going.”
They ran for another four hundred feet and came to a stop. The tunnel disappeared into a dark opening. Mostyn walked to the edge. He looked up. Nothing but darkness beyond the reach of his helmet lamp. He lay on the floor, and peered over the edge into the incredible blackness. He closed his eyes and swallowed, forcing down the bile rising in his throat. He took deep breaths to quell the vertigo threatening to overwhelm him.
He opened his eyes and took another look. Nothing but darkness stretched beyond the reach of the lamp. He pushed himself back from the edge and stood up.
“A vertical shaft” he announced. “The tunnel ends in a vertical shaft.”
NicAskill walked to the edge and dropped a piece of rubble. After a couple seconds they heard it hit something solid.
“An elevator shaft?” NicAskill asked.
“Maybe. The question is, how do we get down?”
“You sure we want to go down and not up?”
“Not one hundred percent sure, but if I were our masked man, I’d hold Dotty in a lower tunnel, not a higher one. Less chance of her being found in a lower tunnel.”
“Makes sense, Boss.” NicAskill swept the shaft wall opposite them with her lamp. “Over there is a ladder.” She pointed. “See? Along the wall?”
“And it has to be over there rather than over here.” Mostyn shook his head.
He and NicAskill slipped off their backpacks, rummaged inside, and pulled out abseil lines and small grappling hooks. They each attached a grappling hook to one end of a line.
“All set?” Mostyn asked.
“Ready to go.”
“Very good. Ladies first.”
NicAskill tossed the grappling hook across the expanse of the shaft. It caught on one of the rungs. She pulled on the line. Both the hook and ladder held. She sat on the edge, drew in a deep breath, and scooted off. Through the air she sailed, her boots hit the wall on either side of the ladder. She bounced back a ways, came back in, and grabbed the ladder with her left hand. She let go of the line.
“Seems sturdy enough,” she called back to Mostyn.
She climbed a few rungs, retrieved the grappling hook and started down the ladder.
Mostyn repeated what NicAskill had done and in a few minutes both were in the lower tunnel.
“I don’t think this is part of the original system,” NicAskill said.
“Or maybe it is the original system.”
The tunnel was narrow, at most three people could stand side by side. The ceiling was only about seven feet above the floor. The walls and ceiling were rough hewn stone. The floor had been smoothed, in places with concrete. Mostyn figured that had been a more recent addition.
The lighting fixtures were few and far between and were not operating. They were located along the wall near the ceiling.
“God, it’s hotter than hell down here,” NicAskill said.
“No ventilation either,” Mostyn added. He looked at the compass. “At least it goes in the same general direction we want to go.”
The two packed up the grapnels and abseil lines, put them in each other’s backpacks, and took off down the tunnel. About a thousand feet on, the tunnel made a sharp turn to the left. Mostyn and NicAskill came to a quick stop. For standing before them were two creatures.
“Oh, my God!” NicAskill exclaimed. “The lizard people!”
20
__________
◼︎
The man with the mask sat in a chair that had been carried in by the same two beautiful young women who had carried it in to Dotty’s prison suite. They stood behind him. She noticed one had a very nice looking bruise on her face, and gave her a smile. The woman didn’t acknowledge her.
“I have decided,” the ancient softly sibilant voice said, “that you would not make a good daughter-in-law. Nor would you make a good mother for my great-grandchildren. Therefore there will be no marriage. Nor do I wish to simply extract information from your mind and then kill you. That would be a waste of a very useful human life.”
He looked at Dotty, and she looked back at him; straight at the eyes behind the mask, and said nothing.
The masked man met her gaze. “That leaves me with two alternatives: extract the information you have and then either turn you into a zuvembie and use you to foil those who seek to learn of me, or use you to unlock the gate. The question that must be answered is whether or not now is the best time to open the gate.”
“And what happens if you open the gate?” Dotty asked.
“You cannot see, Dr Kemper, but you have made me smile.”
“How nice.”
“Do you remember the statues of Mr. Cortado?”
“Yes.”
“They came from me. You might say that I’m the agent for the true artist.”
“And who, or I should say what, is the true artist?”
“You are a fast learner, Dr Kemper. The true artist is not of this universe, or even of this dimension. Many millennia ago they came to this world, the Terrible Ones, for that is what Gorgon means in ancient Greek. They were deemed immortal because the ancients did not possess the means to slay them. Eventually they passed into Greek myth. The infamous Medusa and her sisters.”
“As I remember the story, Medusa got her head cut off.”
“True. That was only after her Achilles heel, as it were, was discovered. Up until then, the Gorgons were invincible.”
“So they’re mortal just like you and me.”
“I’m smiling again. More like you, than me. However, that is all by the by. Now, thanks to Die unaussprechlichen Riten von dem dessen Name nicht genannt werden Kann, I have been able to bring one of the Gorgons to this world. Sacrificing you, for you are physically not unlike the ancient Greeks, will let me summon a whole host of these beings, who are part of the vanguard of the Great Old Ones themselves. The dawning of this universe’s night is nigh!”
“And what’s in it for you? Why are you excluded from being lunch meat?”
“Because the book also gives me the incantation that grants me protection. I will be the only human to rule over my puny race with Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, Chaugnar Faugn, and Cthulhu Himself!”
“You’re deluded. And because of you, we’re all — including you — going to end up being appetizers at the most hideous banquet of all time.”
“I know one thing, Dr Kemper, if I decide to open the gate, you will not be on the menu.”
***
The scene was like a tableau in a wax museum. Mostyn and NicAskill on one side and the two huma
noid creatures on the other. All four standing stock still. And then Mostyn and NicAskill drew their pistols, at the same time the creatures emitted a high-pitched sound that shattered the helmet lamps plunging the tunnel into darkness. By the time Mostyn found his flashlight and turned it on, the creatures were gone.
“My God, Boss, the lizard people. We’ve seen the lizard people!”
“Looks that way, NicAskill.” Mostyn took a wrist flashlight out of his backpack. “Get yours on,” he said to NicAskill, “and let’s keep moving.”
NicAskill put her flashlight on her wrist and, once again, the two OUP agents took off running down the tunnel. After a couple thousand feet, the tunnel they were in emptied into a larger tunnel, which still had rails embedded into the floor. Mostyn noticed up above, the wire for the power to the electric train.
He consulted the compass. “If we go left, that should take us into Chinatown.”
“Where’s this Medusa creature?” NicAskill asked.
“Don’t know. However, now that you mention it…” Mostyn rummaged in his backpack, and pulled out a mirror.
“Bardon thinks of everything,” NicAskill said, as she took out her mirror. “They’re not very big.”
“They aren’t. We’ll have to make do.”
“I guess so. Otherwise we’ll be decorations in someone’s foyer.”
“If we’re that lucky. Come on.” And Mostyn took off running down the tunnel, with NicAskill following.
“Are bullets going to kill this thing?” NicAskill asked.
“Perseus used a sword. The trick is being able to kill it without looking at it. Perseus was lucky. Medusa was asleep and he had a hat that made him invisible.”
“I think Bardon forgot that part.”
“Maybe he has more confidence in us than the gods had in Perseus.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” NicAskill said, although her face wasn’t so optimistic.