His implication floored me. Cthulhu told him that I would be the one to summon the dark lord from his sunken sleep in R'yleh? I would not believe it. "I choose not to believe that time is some maze with only one path to follow. Your doctrine means nothing to me."
With lightning speed, Karl reached forward and put his cold hand around my arm. "Follow me!" he shouted.
At his shout, I felt a pull that wasn't coming from him. Somewhere someone else pulled me deep into another thought, another world.
I was alone on a beach with brackish water sloshing around my ankles. The water was warmer than I was, almost too warm. I reached down and touched the water and an oily feeling came off on my hands. The water was filled with slime and too much heat and it was unlike anything I'd ever experienced at any beach.
Crawling out of the water and onto the beach were a thousand or more worm-like monsters, each with some sort of leg protrusions unevenly distributed across its body. They were moving in a manner that was unnatural for anything I'd ever seen on Earth. The sight of them inspired terror within me and I grabbed at my pistol.
My hand came up empty and I looked down again to see that my entire holster was missing. Whoever Karl had used to call me to this land had seen to it that I don't have my gun.
I brought my attention back up to the monsters crawling around me and noticed that one of the shapeless things had seen me. It had started to slide and crawl toward me. Behind my terror I was trying to figure out where I would hit this thing to cause any damage, but I was coming up empty.
I live by one true mantra in life: If you don't know where to hit it, run away.
The brackish water pulled at my ankles as I ran up the beach and away from the oncoming monsters. Glancing over my shoulder, I realized that running might not have been the best of ideas. Behind me, the one monster in my wake had turned into ten, and he was gaining compatriots in the Great Doran Hunt.
Finally on dry sand, I kept running, making my way up the beach and up a hill. Cresting the hill I saw more of the monsters; many more. They must have been crawling from the ocean for hours, at least. I turned my head away from the sight and up along the hill further where I saw something that wasn't the usual type of monster. It was in the distance, but it was bipedal, and I was almost certain that it was human.
I had no reason to believe that whatever it was would be helpful, but it was very possible that Karl Freeman had followed me here. If he did, he might know how to convince whoever had brought us here to send us back. Otherwise, I was ready to kill him.
I ran along the top of the hill, getting closer to what I thought was Karl. I was only about thirty feet away when I realized how wrong I had been. This wasn't Karl Freeman.
It was me.
He was the same age, or at least hadn't aged much since my current point in time. If this was a possible future, it wasn't far away. This close, I could see the waves of the void pouring off of him...me... and I stopped with one thought echoing in my mind.
I am so damned tired of fighting with myself.
I closed the gap between us more slowly than I'd approached previously, and I could see that he was holding the book; my book. He was chanting and his eyes were consumed with the pages. He didn't have any idea that I was here, and I was certain that he was more powerful than I had ever been. The book could get me home, and this Karl Freeman version of myself was certainly going to be of the violent sort. Surprise was everything.
I tackled me around the waist and knocked him to the sandy hill. We rolled down the hill together, and I noticed in the back of my mind that the creepy crawlies all over the hill moved out of our way as we tumbled.
I could feel the energy crackling off of this other version of myself. He had more power than I had ever thought my body could hold, and I wondered what kind of trade-offs I must have made to get to that point.
We came to a stop at the bottom of the hill and we were both on our feet in an instant. I threw several punches to the Doppel-Doran's abdomen and doubled him over. He recovered more quickly than I expected and swung the book at me like a club. It was fast and I couldn't duck it. I hit the ground again and he was on top of me. His fists rained down on me and beat my face and chest. I managed to get a block up and shifted
enough to roll out from under him. He fell off of me and I managed to rise to me knees, but not before a lightning bolt arced out of his palm and into my chest. I flew thirty feet and skidded across the sand. My chest felt like a wrecking ball had smashed into it, and I was worried my heart had stopped.
I sat up with effort and watched as Anti-Andrew sauntered over to me. I was drenched in sweat, but he wasn't even breathing hard. I envied at least that.
When he reached me, he grabbed me by the hair and hit me in the jaw. He did that two more times before taking my head and forcing it to look in the direction of the ocean where a wave was cresting high.
That was when I realized that it wasn't a wave. It was the top of something. Something that pushed all sense from my mind and terrified me beyond anything I had ever experienced before. This thing, rising from the brackish water, wasn't completely solid. It moved like black smoke that stayed in a general shape. As it came from the ocean, parts of it began to coalesce into a solid mass. Its head looked like the body of a squid, and while it was bipedal, it had scaled skin like a dinosaur or giant lizard. On its back, wings protruded and came to jagged points.
Cthulhu was rising.
The reality of the situation didn't escape me. Dark-Doran had called Cthulhu from sunken R'yleh.
I had called Cthulhu.
With the Miskatonic version of the Necronomicon.
The other me was saying something, but I could only barely notice through the terror. Whatever he was saying, it helped to anchor me back into the moment and I found the strength to drive both of my fists upward and into my other face.
He staggered backward, letting me go, and I jumped up and to my feet. I turned ran away from the other me, but I didn't get far. A bolt of black nothing wrapped around me and halted me.
My feet were pulled from the sand and I floated in place. The other me walked around and faced me.
In a voice that was both mine and something else, he said, "Watch me! Watch as I save the world from the human filth." He returned to chanting, and in his words I could hear that he wasn't alone in my body. His chanting was being heard, Cthulhu's distant look focused on us and it was the most terrifying thing I'd ever experienced.
I could feel my sanity scratching at the last bit of will power deep in my body. I was crawling in my skin and my mind was becoming both more and less than anything or everything.
I was about to lose all of myself when I heard a voice calling out to me. It wasn't there. It wasn't anywhere, but it pulled at me.
Then I was back in Karl's freezing cold apartment and in a ball on the floor. Sweat was soaking through my clothing, causing it to stick to me.
"The future has been written. You saw the moment. Do not fight the beauty that is to become us."
Anger flashed over me. Anger at what I had seen in my own eyes. Anger at having been forced to see it. Anger that I was supposedly someone else's puppet. I stood quickly and grabbed Karl Freeman by the collar and pulled his undead face close to mine. I punched him twice and then threw him down into the machinery. The lamp fell and light flashed back and forth across the wall as it rolled. The refrigeration machine fell silent after Karl's body hit it and the old dead man panicked.
"No! Not the machine!" He began tinkering and trying to put pieces that must have come off of it back into place. His hands were fast but hardly accurate and the machine wasn't going to be turning on again any time soon.
"You beast!" He bellowed. "You cannot undo what is written. It has already come to pass, you only have yet to live it!" He dove away from the machine and grabbed at something by his chair, shouting, "You need not be alive to conduct your role!" He brought up a pistol, but I was faster, I kicked his hand away and punched
him in the jaw.
The rotting undead flesh broke away and his jaw fell off. His tongue flopped as he attempted to shout curses at me. I pushed him away and stomped on the remains of the refrigeration unit. He gargled and bellowed without a jaw and it reminded me of the noises the monsters on the beach made.
I grabbed Karl Freeman by the collar then and dragged him to my height. His tongue continued to flop about and I was sure that he would have been trying to bite me if he had a bottom jaw.
"As a disciple of Cthulhu and a reanimated corpse, you've been a murderer and a monster. I think that we can both agree that you've outlived your welcome in our world. What do you think?" I asked him.
His only response was "gak...gack!" as his tongue slapped back and forth.
"I knew you'd see it my way," I said. Then I reached out with my will, a considerable amount less than the other me had access to, and touched the other-world IV that was sunk deep into the dead flesh of Karl Freeman. I flexed my power, the little I had, and I snapped the power that anchored his soul to his body.
For the second time in Karl's life, he died. His body collapsed to the floor.
***
My walk back to the hotel seemed much shorter than the walk to Karl's apartment had been, and I was back in my room within minutes. To my surprise Leo and Olivia were both there, Olivia dressed, and both of them armed.
Leo spoke up first. "That could have been a trap. You shouldn't have gone alone."
I looked at him and then looked at Olivia. For the first time, I was seeing her through different truths, and I was unsure of what I saw. It wasn't that she couldn't be trusted, as it had been before. Now, I didn't even know what she was.
I was about to speak when Olivia asked me, "Did you learn anything new?"
I eyed her and then looked back at Leo. "I really appreciate all that you've done for me. My mission is of the utmost importance, but there are some things that we need to address before we move forward." I held up a finger. "First, while your concern is touching, it is my mission, and if I have to do something without telling you than that's what I'm going to do. Secondly, the book isn't for your Resistance. I know what you've been thinking. I'm not stupid. Once I get the book back I'm going to lock it away from anyone and everyone. That includes you. No one can use the book without becoming corrupted. I'm sorry, I know you have hopes of saving France with some tome that the Germans think is important, but it isn't going to happen." I closed my hand and dropped it to my side. "But I do need your help. I do need people to help me get into Berlin and I need people watching my back. So, I'll try to start being more of a team player, but the only thing you're going to get out of any of this is that the world won't go to Hell." I paused to let that sink in. "This is the last point where you can turn back. You can go home now, be safe, and fight your war, or you can come with me, fight evil, and risk losing more than your life and sanity. This is the last leg of our journey. Are you in?"
Leo was surprised by my words and tossed them around in his mind before saying anything.
In his hesitation, Olivia spoke up, thinking I must have meant her as well in this discussion. "I'm in."
I looked at her and snorted. "I doubt you could have said anything else." She eyed me with curiosity and I knew then that those words I said were true. If she'd have wanted to leave, she couldn't. Whatever she was, she was in this to the end.
Leo nodded after looking at the both of us. "I'm in. I've seen things since we've been together to make me think that if the Nazis are not stopped your way, than they might not be stopped at all. It does me no good to kill soldiers if their dead bodies are going to continue shooting at me. I'll help you." He paused and then smiled. "Since this war started I've been helping people survive. It feels good to finally be taking the fight to Berlin."
I smiled. For the first time since I had met Leo, I trusted him.
Chapter 7: The Munich Horror
Leo had come through for us again during our exit of neutral Switzerland and getting into Nazi-proud Germany. A contact that he'd located in Berne had supplied him with German uniforms and a stolen truck in exchange for Father Blake's car. I was worried about telling Father Blake about the car, but if I didn't get into Berlin it would hardly matter what we did with his vehicle. I opted to let it go and worry about it later.
There were two checkpoints into Germany, and the first one had been easy enough to get through. I spoke to them in my best accent, not using the name of Andrew Doran, but instead of Private Hans Lukas, remembering the mad scientist from Andorra as I used it. My accent must have been passable, because we got through without much of an inspection. During the first checkpoint we had kept Olivia hidden in a compartment between the cab of the truck; we managed to get through without being searched or questioned more than our names and our reason for entering ("Orders from Lukas Herrman to report directly to Berlin."). The border patrol didn't much care about why we were entering and were more than happy to let us through.
We thought that crossing the border once had been our only hurdle, but we were wrong. There was a second checkpoint a mile up the road, and we quickly saw that they were conducting full vehicle searches, even on the soldiers.
Leo had convinced me that ditching our truck and hiking along the border until there were less soldiers was the best bet. We left the truck one at a time and managed to dive into a nearby wooded area where we could sneak away without issue. All of the vehicles in front of us were lined with people getting in and out of their cars and trucks to secure and untie certain goods, and we were not noticed as we left our truck in the middle of the road.
We hiked along the border of Germany for about a day, moving very quickly, until we found a secured fencing that only had three Nazis standing near it. I was surprised by lack of guards in this area versus everywhere else that we had spied upon, and I could only guess that there was a shift change or this was an area of fence that hadn't required much defense until recently.
The three of us versus the unsuspecting three of them ended very quickly and were in Germany. A stolen car later, and we were driving our way to Munich.
Munich was the birthplace of the Nazi party and Adolph himself had been arrested there during the party's early days. Driving into Munich, we could tell by the architecture that rose up all around us that this city was old, and my own background told me that it was medieval old.
We ditched the car we'd stolen in an alley. Soldiers were everywhere and it looked as if the populace enjoyed it. We stepped out of the car and walked into the nearest alley that we could find without being noticed too much.
As for our cadre, I hadn't spoken much with Olivia since we left Berne. I was certain that she'd managed to sense that something had changed between us and was keeping herself out of my way until she had a better understanding of what.
I didn't even know what had changed. Berne had placed many doubts in my mind concerning her: what she was, and who she was loyal to. Looking back on our time together, a lot of things were falling into place that only made sense if Olivia were working against us. Then again, a lot of things about our time together only made sense if she was what she seemed. Things like our meet up in Andorra, or our night together in Berne.
Leo was another story. I felt as though our new-found understanding of each other was encouraging us to grow closer. I didn't feel as though I had to check after him all of the time, and I could trust him with tasks that I couldn't before Berne.
Once we'd dove into the alley in the center of Munich, we began working on a plan.
"The bombings." Leo stated.
"What?" I asked. "What about the bombings?"
Leo pointed at an area of the alley that had collapsed. "We'll be able to find a place to stay because of the air raids. Munich has been a major target for the bombings. There should be some places that have become condemned that we can stay in. We should be safe."
Olivia spoke up then. "But how are we going to get to Berlin?"
Leo shrugged, but I answered. "I've got a plan, and that's all that I can say for now. It's a plan in progress and when I've finished it I'll discuss it. Until then, I think Leo's plan is the best. Let's hole up in a shattered building."
This seemed to satisfy Leo, who's trust in me was growing as much as my trust in him. Olivia on the other hand didn't like it.
"If we're going to get to Berlin, we need a plan."
I rolled my eyes. "When I have one, I'll let you know, until then, let's deal with the problem at hand, which is staying out of sight and sleeping." Olivia continued to frown at me, but could sense that I wasn't going to budge on this. She probably could also sense that I was lying through my teeth. I had a plan to get each of us to Berlin. It was just that neither of them was going to like it.
We peeked out of the alley and into the main street before deciding that we could blend in fairly easily. We walked out and along the sidewalks, looking for a neighborhood that was bomb-shattered enough. Munich had a university and the town was crawling with students as well as soldiers. It gave it an eerie feeling, almost a familiar sense warped by war. The war had changed the face of the world, and it was just as felt in Munich as it was almost anywhere else.
A group of these kids were laughing as we walked by, and I slowed the group so that we could overhear what could be so funny in the heart of Nazi Germany.
"He's dead?" Asked one. He was a shorter guy and probably was here because he was too short for service.
His friend, a broad shouldered man, nodded with a smile. "The hermit died last night. His son has been begging for help all day."
"Help?" The shorter man asked.
The broad man nodded again. "He keeps demanding tranquilizers and alcohol. I heard Abigail say that he was screaming about keeping the 'boy' safe."
I hoped to hear more of what was going on. I wish I could say it was only morbid curiosity but I was certain that doom had been following me since I left America. The story tickled a memory of something I had heard a few years ago, but I couldn't place it just then.
The Adventures of Andrew Doran: Box Set Page 16