Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 2

by Various Authors

  “I believe you are ready for the next film,” she said, not bothering to look back over her shoulder.

  I followed her, fear rising with every step.

  I met with the wives of Tom’s squad on Friday that week.

  I had taken the day off from work and met the girls at a little cafe I’d frequented a few times with Hannah. I was surprised to see she was not there yet.

  Greg’s wife Sam sat chatting animatedly to a woman I did not recognize. I assumed her to be Hank’s wife, whom I had never met before.

  Diana and Lin—Leo’s wife and Zac’s partner, respectively—sat quietly watching as the other two spoke, seemingly content to listen and nod occasionally. Hannah was nowhere to be seen.

  “Steph, it’s good to see you again,” Lin beckoned me to her end of the table, and rolled her eyes in Sam and the other woman’s direction. “Those two are so busy debating the merits of therapy that I think they’ve forgotten why we are here.”

  “Well it is related,” Diana frowned, taking a sip of her chai. “I mean, Leo has not been right since he got back. The therapy is helping.”

  “Is it?” The stranger cut in. “Helping with what, exactly? To come to terms with what they did?”

  I gasped to see her face up close; the right side, obscured when I had approached, was a mottled purple bruise from brow to chin, poorly disguised by heavy makeup.

  “That was your husband?” I didn’t want to believe it.

  “He took me to therapy with him. I told him I didn’t like that pop-eyed freak telling him to ‘give in to his urges’ and ‘accept his true nature’.” She gingerly traced a finger along her blackened jaw. “This was the result.”

  Everyone stopped talking for a moment as the waiter returned, carrying more coffees with him.

  “I’m so sorry, Bethany. Greg just lost it at me the other day as well.” Sam said quietly. Tears welled in her eyes. “He was looking at his medal and I told him how proud I was of him. He threw the medal at me, started smashing photo frames of the kids, ranting about their future. He went to grab me, but I ran. I didn’t want to admit it.”

  She raised her wrist from under the table, revealing a golden bracelet. It was so similar to my own as to obviously be from the same source “This was his apology.”

  “Leo has been distant, but he would never hurt me.” Diana said, a little too quickly if I was any judge.

  “Zac keeps talking about leaving the Army. He keeps telling me we are still young enough, and we can do something amazing with our lives.” Lin gave a shake of her head. “He refuses to give me details, though. Anytime I ask him to explain, he just clams up or changes the subject.”

  “And what about you, Steph?” Bethany stared at me; they all did.

  “Nothing,” I replied.

  “Nothing?” I could hear the disbelief in her voice.

  “We’ve argued and he has been distant. When he talks, he seems…conflicted. Torn up, almost to the point of pain, and after that witch showed me that last video, I understand why.” I let out a shuddering breath. “But he hasn’t touched me, or the kids.”

  “So he hasn’t hurt you?” Diana asked, her face screwed up.

  “No, he hasn’t hurt me.”

  No one said it to me, but even I could hear the unspoken ‘yet’.

  I had just pulled up to the traffic lights when I got the call.

  “Steph, its Slavko.” My friend’s voice was almost unrecognisable. “I’ve been trying to call Tom. He isn’t answering.”

  “Dobbo, what’s wrong?” The car behind honked at me; the light had changed. I accelerated slowly. “Is it Hannah?”

  “Steph, I…” He trailed off, but I heard it there; the anguish, like nothing I had ever heard in his voice in all the years I knew him.

  “What happened?” I caught myself not paying attention, my big, lumbering SUV trying to slip into oncoming traffic. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t want it to be like this, Steph. You need to understand, I did it to save her. It was all I could do.”

  “What did you do?” I yelled the words this time. My knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

  “I, I’m sorry, Steph.” His teeth were chattering. “I didn’t want this, I didn’t want to hurt her, b-but I couldn’t put her through this. I couldn’t fight it.”

  “What?”

  He hung up the phone. It was all I could do to get myself home in one piece. I needed my husband. But when I got home, Tom was gone.

  It was three in the morning. Again.

  I still don’t know why I just sat there, in the dark. The kids came home, whatever false smiles and empty words I offered seemingly enough for them to leave me alone. Perhaps they were battling their own demons.

  So I sat, alone, too paralysed by fear of what had happened to take any steps to confirm if my suspicions were true.

  Instead, I relived that day in Olmstead’s office.

  “You will want to pay attention to this, Stephanie.” Olmstead activated the screen as she spoke, tone dry and not at all reflecting the anger she must have been feeling at my earlier trespass.

  “—uck, I’m hit,” the footage was the same grainy white, only now the camera was on its side. Hank sounded panicked.

  “Get up, it just grazed your helmet.” A hand came down and the camera feed turned to blurry nonsense, clearing when Hank was righted again, Leo’s smiling face in front of his.

  “They’re done.” The camera locked on Tom as he walked up to Hank, slapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s secure the site and—”

  “Sarge,” I recognised Slavko’s faint accent immediately. “You want to see this.”

  They advanced together down to the beach.

  People in strange headdresses and robes stood upon the sand, forming a slow-moving circle, seemingly oblivious to the battle that had happened a mere hundred metres from them.

  “What the hell?” Tom’s sentiment echoed my own.

  In the centre of the circle stood a woman, age indeterminate, screaming as she was shoved face first by two burly men into a pool of water.

  The darkness around the pit writhed, revealing the presence of more people; dozens of them.

  “Let her go,” someone screamed. The order was greeted with static-laced, burbling laughter.

  Then the gunfire started.

  I had replayed it over and over in my head since that day. Tom had refused to talk about what else had occurred.

  I was thinking about the drowning girl when Tom came through the door.

  “Where have you been?” I was angry, suddenly. Fear turned to rage. “I needed you.”

  “I was busy,” his face was pinched, more lined than usual. He was angry too.

  “I needed you,” I screamed it this time. I wanted to slap him. “Do you know what happened while you were busy?”

  “Dobric beat his wife to death,” Tom replied simply, eyes locked on mine.

  The anger went out of me. I collapsed to the floor, knees to my chest. My body was wracked with spasms, the sobs unable to escape.

  He stood over me, unmoving. My eyes were blurred, but I realised, in the moonlight, that there was blood on his clothing.

  “Where were you, Tom?” I whispered.

  “Doing what I needed to do.” He was shaking too, but not for the same reasons. There was malice about him, a seething hatred I had never seen, even in his worst moments.

  “Whose blood is that?”

  I was on my back, my face on fire. It took a second for the stars to clear, and to realize Tom had hit me. He never hit me.

  He looked as shocked as me for a moment, but then his expression firmed, a terrible sneer on his lips.

  I kicked him in the side of the knee with my shin, as hard as I could. He grunted in pain, and I leapt to my feet and went at him. Every self-defence lesson I had ever had told me to take advantage of his surprise and put him down; I was an Army wife and an Army brat before that, and I had been doing one variety or another of
martial arts since I could walk.

  But in the end, all I could do was grab him and scream: “Why?”

  “Because Hannah wouldn’t stop asking questions,” he grabbed my hands.

  I kicked at him as he lifted me to my feet, a lucky knee taking him in the groin. It barely elicited a grunt; without the element of surprise, he was too tough and too well trained. If I had wanted to stop him or get away, it was too late now.

  “Slavko was fine, but she kept asking questions.” He forced me towards the wall, his nose pressed to mine. “All of a sudden he is questioning everything, too. He managed his little act of defiance with Hannah, and then I made him pay for it.”

  My back hit the wall, hard. He forced my wrists above my head, pinning me. His other hand stroked my cheek, almost gently, fingers still crusted with Slavko’s blood.

  His hand reached for my hair and I could sense he was about to wrap his fingers through it. I launched forward, hammering my forehead into his nose. I felt a wet crunch against my skin and he grunted, his grip on my wrists relaxing long enough for me to wrench my arms free.

  I threw a punch at his temple, any ideas of restraint at him being my husband long since fled.

  The punch connected, rocking his head back a step. His left hand came up, batting my fist away. His right hand came up holding a knife.

  “It has to be this way,” he mumbled as he slammed me against the wall, the service-issue combat blade against the side of my throat. I was on my tiptoes. “I don’t want this, you understand? You keep fighting.”

  “Tom,” I could barely get it out. “The kids.”

  It was all I could think of.

  “The kids. You’re right.” He shifted the knife away.

  I managed to take a deep breath before his fingers closed around my throat.

  I kicked and punched and slapped and scratched. It made no difference. I tried to scream, but no sound could escape his grip.

  My vision greyed at the edges. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in my ears.

  I think he said: “I’m sorry.”

  It was Danielle who saved me.

  My daughter was hanging off her father’s arm, prying at his fingers. A second later Jon was there too, grabbing Tom around the shoulders.

  He should have been able to shrug them off easily enough, but he let them drag him away, his eyes glazed.

  I fell to the floor, rubbing at my throat, coughing violently.

  Tom was sitting on the couch, hands folded in his lap, completely still. Danielle held the knife in her hand like it was a snake, vaguely aimed in her father’s direction, a look of queasy horror on her face. Jon stood protectively over me, tensed to defend me, as obviously terrified as his sister.

  I stood, dragging myself up with the help of my son, and limped over to the couch.

  “Danielle,” I croaked. “Give me the knife.”

  I sat down next to Tom. He turned to face me and the mask slipped, just a bit. There were tears in his eyes again.

  I leant against him, placing my arm around his shoulders. He sobbed once, resting his head on me.

  I placed the blade of the knife against his thigh, directly over the artery. He froze when he realised what I was doing.

  “Steph, I—”

  “I’m talking right now, Tom.” I pressed on the blade, harder still, for emphasis. “And not to you. Jon?”

  “Mum?” he said, his voice a high-pitched squeak.

  “In the bathroom above the mirror is a loose tile, third from the right. Behind it is a compartment your father thinks I don’t know about. In that compartment is a gun and some bullets. Please bring them here and then take your sister to Aunt Lucy’s, okay?”

  He looked at me blankly, and then stumbled away, too dazed to question me.

  “And Jon—grab my keys.”

  “I don’t think I should be driving.”

  “Shut up, Tom. I need to think.”

  The car crawled around the corner with the kind of rigid, too-careful movements I’d always associated with those driving drunk.

  “Steph, seriously, I am not up to driving. I need to—”

  “You need to be quiet,” I jabbed the barrel of the revolver into the back of his car seat for emphasis. I knew better, now, than to stay within his reach

  “Pull over here,” He nosed the car over, parking crookedly enough that any rangers working at four in the morning would have probably booked us. “Get out.”

  He stepped out of the car, stumbling forward, still dazed. I stood a few feet behind him, gun pointed at his back.

  The glass monstrosity containing Olmstead’s office loomed over us, glittering in the light of the few street lamps. Waves crashed in the background, cutting through the silence.

  “Call her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tom’s voice was an almost inaudible whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Call her,” I said back, harsher than I meant to sound; harsher than I thought I could sound.

  “Why are we here, Steph?”

  Tom walked ahead of me, pushing through the now-unlocked revolving door of the building. The lobby was completely unlit, but the glass allowed enough light so that we could find our way.

  “Because she’s the reason this has happened to us. You have all been seeing her since you got back. Tom, you’ve been more and more withdrawn, and then suddenly violent. The others too. Weird conversations with the kids, midnight visits to that woman’s office you can barely remember or don’t want to talk about.”

  He stopped and turned toward me.

  “So, what are you saying?” he kept his distance, eyes purposely not looking at the gun in my hand. “You think we’ve been brainwashed?”

  “That is exactly what I think.”

  “I would know if I was being brainwashed.”

  “Would you? Would any of you?” I gestured to my bruised throat. “Are you telling me this is you?”

  I was greeted by silence.

  The door opened soundlessly as Tom pushed through, plunging us into darkness.

  “I know the way,” Tom whispered.

  Whispering felt appropriate. I followed behind him, gun still pointed at his back. We were perhaps a dozen steps in when the lights suddenly came on, bright enough to make me wince. In that moment, Tom spun around and ripped the revolver from my hand.

  I stumbled as I turned to run, knowing I would not get away.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Steph,” Tom removed the ammunition from the gun as he spoke, allowing the bullets to drop carelessly to the carpet before sliding the weapon into the back of his belt. “But we can’t work this out with you pointing a gun at me the whole time.”

  “That wasn’t your choice to make,” I tensed, waiting for him to come at me.

  “He was not the one who made it.” Doctor Olmstead appeared behind Tom as if from nowhere, resting a hand casually on his shoulder.

  “You,” I wanted to lunge at her.

  “Yes, Stephanie, me.” She smiled, taking a step toward me, but not so close as to be within my reach. “I have only ever wanted you to understand the same truths your husband now embraces.”

  “By brainwashing him?”

  “No one has been brainwashed,” she stroked Tom’s cheek, like a child petting a puppy. “Merely aided in accepting their choices.”

  “And what choices are those?” I snarled.

  “Follow me and I will show you.” Olmstead turned on her heel and walked down the corridor, Tom following. “I believe you are ready to watch the final piece of film.”

  Fists clenched at my sides, I hesitated only a heartbeat before following. I needed to know.

  The lights were already pulsating in that unusual way, the screen lit with the frozen, dull-white glare of the last footage she had shown me.

  My eyes lingered for a moment on the image of the woman being forcibly drowned.

  “Stephanie, please, sit down,” Olmstead indicated the couch with a wave of her h
and. “We have much to discuss.”

  I found myself sitting without quite understanding why I was still listening to this woman.

  “Though you were the last of the wives and partners to see the second part of the footage, Stephanie,” Olmstead placed her hand upon my knee, “I believe you are the first to be ready to witness the final element of your husband’s journey.”

  “Let her go,” screamed Zac’s voice; it was definitely him, now that I heard it again. Laughter echoed from the screen, accompanied by the image blowing out as the gunfire began.

  “Cease fire, cease fire!” Tom’s roar ended a second before the gunfire did, leaving only silence.

  Then the screaming began.

  “See to the wounded,” Tom ordered. The camera shook as Hank stood up, advancing with his rifle held before him.

  As he approached the site where the woman had been drowned, Hank paused over the bodies of her killers, but paid them no mind. Instead, he stepped toward the corpses piled behind them; those civilians milling in the shadows who had absorbed the brunt of the gunfire after the initial target had been slain.

  Before he could step closer, a figure stepped in front of Hank, in full view of the camera. Wearing a glistening, twisted tiara and a robe so dark as to appear almost invisible in the night vision footage, Doctor Olmstead placed a hand upon the barrel of Hank’s rifle and slowly lowered it. She held a staff in her other hand, the rough-cut stone surmounting it glistening black and wet in the darkness.

  “Do not seek to help these people, for they go to their sacrifice willingly.” Her voice sounded the same; something about that surprised me.

  “Bullshit,” the camera bobbed backwards as Tom shoved Olmstead’s hand away, Hank seemingly willing to step back and allow his leader to make the next move.

  “It is true,” Olmstead said, looking into Tom’s eyes and smiling at him. The rock on her staff seemed to pulse with a dark light, punctuating each word. “It is through their sacrifice that we, the chosen few, might live forever.”

  The other soldiers surrounded Olmstead then, guns pointed at her.

  “Those two bastards bleeding into the sand over there don’t look too immortal,” Slavko grunted.

  “They had not yet undergone the change, it is true.” She tilted her head sideways, looking back at my husband. “Ah, but you do not yet believe me. Allow me to show you instead.”