Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 2

by Various Authors

  Frank’s eyes snapped open on a sky full of stars. He had never seen a sky like it before, and it was easy to imagine he was lying up there among them rather than staring up from the earth, until the aches in his body reminded him of reality. The clouds had finally departed without delivering their promise, unless this was a dream. If so the Pleiades was part of it and he recalled how Strang had spoken of the Elders’ claim that their ancestors had come from there. The seer had also spoken of the UFOs inscribed among the infamous Glyphs at Gosford. It seemed harder to scoff at them now. Faced with the immensity of the universe and its million blinking eyes it was only too easy to conceive of other beings in the Pleiades; to believe that, just as he lay staring up into the heavens, a myriad of strange intelligences, upon a multitude of earths, stared back at him. Yet, with what intent? The thought shocked him and made him shudder, for it felt more like an insight than a fancy.

  Frank mocked himself. He was catching Strang’s disease, the pathology of the visionary: to take one’s imagination for inspiration. Was that how it had begun for ol’ Vernon? With nights like these, staring into the immensity of the heavens as he camped out with his ‘Aunties’ and ‘Uncles’?

  When Frank awoke it was to see the dawn, bright and ruddy in the sky where a few vagrant clouds had taken up residence. He felt different, as if a fever had indeed gripped him for the last day or so, but now had finally passed. The desire to pursue his mad quest any further had departed. It was time to surrender, go back. After a quick breakfast of energy bars and a few sips from his canteen he began to retrace his steps. His march was not more than a half hour commenced when he came upon the camp. There was a little inlet there and he could not believe he had waded across it the previous night without realisation. How deep had his fever been? The coals of the campfire were still warm. Mangroves grew along the creek and the ground was mud rather than sand. His own tracks were clearly observed going over the creek and back, but there were no others. That meant that the party had not proceeded beyond the creek. Examining the area around the camp he found more subtle traces of tracks leading inland, away from the shore. Strang had said nothing about that. But then again, he had wanted to keep the location of the place secret.

  Heart beating faster, Frank gave up all thoughts of return. High dunes rose up beside the inlet and he climbed to the top of one. From there the ground sloped away gently into the distance. The creek from the inlet wound upstream through wetlands, where clumps of mangrove rose from fields of reeds. About three kilometres away an island projected out of the reeds and in its midst sat a mound which seemed as if it could hardly be natural.

  Frank slid down the dune and headed back to the path that wound itself alongside the stream. This was a bad idea, he thought. The sky disapproved also. The legion of thunderheads had flocked back as if a fool like him did not deserve to see the light of day. And now they delivered, finally, as if things were not wet enough underfoot. Wetlands were well named from a descriptive point of view, he decided, but from an emotional point of view swamp, bog and quagmire all seemed like better descriptors. He had a tent but nowhere to pitch it. Unless he went back. Yet the elements could not be allowed to conspire to keep him from his goal. He pressed on. He found the creek. He found mangroves. He found a snake and feared that crocodiles might find him, for something large was moving out there. The beach suddenly seemed the best bet, anywhere, in fact, but that damnable bog. Yet it proved as elusive as the island. Exhaustion threatened. At last he found a rise and was relieved to find himself quitting the swamp. On all fours he crawled to the top of the rise. Somehow he managed to get his tent up and crawled inside.

  Frank saw Strang and his group on the island in the wetlands. They cavorted drunkenly, chanting and singing, while fires flamed high into the night under the blazing stars. He saw Stephanie naked, prancing like a nymph. Something slithered in the swamp. No, he didn’t see it, he told himself, it was all a dream. Vaguely he was aware of the rain beating against his tent. So he dreamed.

  When he awoke there was no more rain. Crawling from his tent he saw the island again. He was on a dune to the south of it. About the same distance as he had been when he left the coast. It should not take long to reach it, however, the same thought had occurred to him the day before. He would not reach the island if it did not want him to. Somehow he knew this now. Frank laughed quietly to himself, “Strang’s disease,” he laughed, “Yes, I’m a visionary, that’s me.”

  Still the mound called to him. His yearning had brought him this far and now, chastened, he would be allowed his glimpse of that which he had always hoped for, his final unassailable physical proof of the numinous, fascinans, mysterium and tremendum.

  He stumbled down the dune and plunged into the swamp. The clouds held back. The curtain of rain remained drawn aside. He wondered where Strang was. It seemed, once again, he had lost time. But then he was at the island. He hardly believed it as he trudged up the slope out of the boggy reed-clogged water. The mound rose up before him. The size of the structure had not been apparent from a distance, but it was enormous. He staggered toward it, his legs weak, as much with fear as fatigue. He searched for his phone. It would be a sin to return without a picture of it, but the battery had died. How long was it since he had left the van?

  The outer wall of the mound was ten feet high and covered with soil and grasses. No opening was apparent. Frank began to walk the circumference. The sun came out. He looked around for a sign that anyone had been there recently. If there had been any evidence the torrential rains of the previous night had washed it away. Vaguely he wondered about the Strangs, the Elders, Uncle Billy, and the people who had been on the bus. Now and then he thought voices were on the wind. Yet if they were on the island they stayed hidden from sight. A maddening vision formed in his mind of the elusive party circling the mound just ahead of him, by design or manipulated by the gods, so they remained just as the numinous had always been: so close but out of sight.

  Unless…were they on top of the mound? Frank decided to climb it. Who knew what he might find up there, or what he might see. The sides were only slightly inclined but plenty of handholds offered themselves. Rough stones protruded from the dirt and the tufts of grass were firmly embedded. Frank was fit and strong for someone his age, but the trials of the last few days had taken their toll on him. The climb was difficult but he reached the top. A grim smile crossed his lips as he hauled his weary body over the lip. The feeling of satisfaction was short-lived, however, for the tuft of grass he grasped gave way, and he tumbled backwards out into space, landing with a crash back on the island. There was a blinding flash of pain as his head hit the ground and, for the moment at least, Frank Clarke knew nothing of pain.

  When finally he awoke once more, the stars blazed down upon him again. He feared his fall had done some major damage. Nothing felt or looked right, and he had never felt so sick. The stars seemed too bright and close and the heavens seemed rearranged. It felt as if the world was less substantial, as if one might float away, but there was nothing pleasant about the sensation. As he climbed to his feet the feeling of decreased gravity made it hard for him to keep his balance. He thrust a hand out against the mound wall and a section swung in, as if some hidden lever had been activated. This must be a dream, he reassured himself, though a dream had never felt so physically real before.

  The light from these strange heavens was so bright that the carvings on the massive stones that lined the doorway were easily discerned. Frank goggled. They could have been Celtic, or Egyptian. They could have been Aboriginal. Original, he corrected himself. For some reason he could not articulate, he had a new respect for Uncle Billy and the others. The markings grooved deeply into the stone were beautiful, but disturbing. What was it about them—the whorls and rings and crosses—that suggested such disparate influences, yet an uncanny commonality? He could not comprehend them. Whatever they were, they were not fakes, and as far as he knew, they were his discovery.

  A dizzying sense
of excitement swept over Frank. This was sensational. If only his phone’s camera would function. Who would believe him without proof? He had to make this new find, his find, known. His newfound respect for the Elders did not extend to keeping their secrets. This was a discovery of huge significance. It would make him famous. Suddenly Frank’s reverie was disturbed by a new sound. He heard voices, chanting again. Did it emanate from within the mound? As he put his head inside the entrance, the sound grew louder and a faint glow greeted his eyes. Strang? The others? Frank cursed. So that was why he could not find them. This was not his find after all.

  What could they be up to? The vision of Stephanie, naked, flashed before his eyes again and it felt like the memory of something seen more than the recollection of a dream. He found himself moving along the passageway, which sloped down toward the interior, his hand feeling the wall, which was covered in the strange runes. The chanting was louder in the passage with its odd acoustics. The passage continued to slope down through an eccentric series of twists and turns and Frank began again to think that he must be dreaming, for it seemed that time stretched and he walked for days, deeper and further, and yet he came no closer to the glow which always seemed around the next bend, no nearer to the sounds which always seemed further ahead.

  Finally it occurred to him to look behind and he saw that the same glow that was always ahead, also lay to the rear, behind whatever twist he had just quit. It was madness to continue where he was going. He was trapped in a nightmare and could expect to encounter nothing here. He had been so intent on exploring this amazing new place that he had not bothered to think of why it might have been built, or by whom. A vision of the strange stars in the sky above the mound recurred in his mind. The runes in the doorway and those that his fingers had traced on his journey became superimposed on them, and he had another intuition that this place was a neither temple nor tomb, but a prison of some kind, a trap for a monster, or a god, or something in between.

  He turned now, at last, but it seemed the floor sloped down again and that could not be so. How could he know where he was if his senses could no longer tell up from down? A sob broke out in his chest. It was tempting to lie down in the passage and refuse to move, but how long before that became intolerable? He crept on, choosing a direction randomly, no longer pondering whether it was descent or ascent, forward or reverse, fearing that somehow the physics in this place abolished such distinctions. Yet some progress was being made, for a new scent filled the air, like seaweed, ozone and the ocean, and a sound like the crashing of waves or the surge of surf into some vast underground cavern.

  Frank about-faced, reluctant to approach that sound, that stench, and hurried away, but the sensations only grew louder and stronger the further he fled until he thought, somehow he had made a mistake and ran back the other way. Again the sensation repeated itself and he stopped in terror and sank down against the wall behind him, which seemed as damp and unpleasant as the interior of a bowel. He sobbed again, and, straining his ears against the dark symphony of the ‘surf’, heard a new sound, like a slithering, a shuffling, as of something huge and unimaginable.

  Straining his eyes toward the glow at the right end bend of the passage he saw weird sinuous shadows play against the wall. He rolled to his knees and prepared to scramble to the left, only to see the same sight at the other end as if there was a mirror there. An incoherent prayer escaped his lips, to be replaced by a scream and in the echoing silence that followed the slow progress of the thing from below came inexorably on.

  Janine was putting the finishing glaze on a vase in the potting shed. She had had enough of music for the time being. She couldn’t play Joni Mitchell or Van Morrison again. Even Astral Weeks could only stand so many listens. She couldn’t hack the ABC either. Her mind didn’t need any more improving. Time for her guilty pleasure, she thought. Purplevoid radio. She’d already downloaded the podcast and had been saving it for the right moment. This was it. Finding the MP3 in her Purplevoid folder she clicked on it. A new interview with Vernon Strang. She was keen to hear of his progress since the last interview, where he’d mentioned a find which would rewrite history.

  Vernon, last time you were on, you mentioned a startling new find, something that, once recognised, would require the rewriting of the history books.

  Yeah, well, that’s right, Ernie. But, unfortunately, the Elders are saying that it’s not something we can share with the general populace.

  Hmmm. That’s going to cause credibility problems, isn’t it?

  Ha, mate! If I was worried about my credibility I wouldn’t be appearing on your show.

  I feel you, my friend, I truly do.

  Strang continued. Let those who have eyes to see, see, and those with ears to listen hear…

  Just to play devil’s advocate for a moment, Vernon, did it ever occur to you that, if this find is really so important, that maybe it would be worthwhile sharing anyway? I mean, from one point of view, as much as we might respect the Elders, their viewpoint isn’t scientific.

  Well, is that true? I mean, just because it isn’t derived from research in a laboratory…Experimental method is what proves theory, right? So, when for 40,000 years the Elders say, if you do something we tell you you shouldn’t do, something bad will happen, and you do it anyway, and it happens, that’s a pretty large body of evidence.

  So you’re saying it would be dangerous to go in the face of their advice.

  Mate, it wouldn’t be worth my life.

  Janine felt she had done enough for the day. She finished up what she was doing, and went to the trough to wash her hands.

  Frank awoke in terror. He had suffered a terrible nightmare. The memory of his ordeal in the passage was etched in his mind and he doubted it could ever be erased. Yet where was he now? If the monstrous shadows and the ghostly lights, the sounds of shuffling and the stench of the sea had all been some fever dream, what was real? The island in the swamp? The mound? All he knew was that he was in some unpleasant, dank, dark place. He risked a glance to the left. The glow was there. His heart started to pound. He glanced in the opposite direction. The glow again, as cheerless and haunting an illumination as could be imagined.

  As if in answer to his fear the stink of the sea began to creep back and the chanting recommenced. The slithering began once more and the shadows returned. This was what had happened last time, and he had sat waiting, waiting for whatever approached to come and claim him, for there was nowhere to flee, even if he had not been paralysed with fear; until, eventually, he had passed out in terror. So why had the things not come for him? There were only two possibilities. Something held those creeping terrors from turning the corner, some barrier, or—and the thought was so bizarre he could not imagine why it would occur to him unless it was another of those ‘insights’ that had plagued him of late—the things desired his fear more than his flesh, if they craved the latter at all.

  So what was he to do? Though he may be safe from being rent for the moment, he would starve if he remained where he was. If he went forward, however, he might find another branch tunnel, ahead of the section of the maze the creature would not, or could not, pass. It was the most slender of hopes, yet more than he had felt before his faint. Afraid that, if he did not move now, he would never find the courage, Frank forced himself to his feet. He set off toward the right, needing to choose one direction.

  He feared he dreamt, after all; that he had merely dreamt a dream of waking within a greater dream, for again he experienced that uncanny sense of time displacement and the glow and the shadows seemed to retreat before him. While it had seemed that there was a corner to turn, he never reached it, as if the walls were morphing as he walked and the corner remained the same distance ahead. Yet the sound of chanting grew stronger and the stench of the sea and even the unholy sounds that accompanied the movement of the writhing shadows, as if he truly was nearing something.

  I’m being tortured, Frank thought, I’m being played with like a cat plays with a rod
ent or a bug. It’s feeding off my terror. For Frank was indeed drowning in horror. He feared, in fact, that he had simply gone mad, for reality was refusing to play by any rules he had ever encountered. Time and space were plastic here, and seemed guided by some unimaginably cruel alien will with the express purpose of frustrating and tormenting him.

  He remembered what the Greeks had said about vengeful gods, whom they would destroy they first make mad. An involuntary giggle escaped his lips.

  “Show yourselves,” Frank screamed. “Show yourselves, I’m not afraid of you!”

  This was no mere bravado. He was no longer afraid, so they must have truly driven him insane, for terror was the only sane response to this nightmare world he found himself trapped in. Yet, if they wanted his fear, if they fed off his misery, then they had no more use for him now. The game of keeping out of sight had reached its end. Yet the Old Ones had not finished with him, nor would they be until he was drained of every ounce of energy he could produce. Frank knew this.

  The chanting grew, his heart began to pound once more, the blood beat at his temples and the shadows moved closer. Time stretched and space with it, until it seemed that either he shrank or the passage grew with the increasing effulgence, and the thing that cast the shadows hove into sight. And then Frank learned that there were levels of madness, and levels of terror, and he had been initiated into an entirely new level of hell.