With help.
I slapped him hard across the face. I doubted that it would help, but Dyer had been the source of much of my recent heartache. It helped me.
Touching the power of the void, I shouted over the hum that was tearing down the entire shack around us.
“Your daughter is in danger, William! She will die if you don’t get up and follow us out of here right now!”
A thunderous crack filled the air and I dropped the geologist as I slapped my hands over my ears. Spinning around, I watched as outside light appeared at the base of each of the walls. The cultists were lifting the house off of its foundation.
I spun back to the Dyers, completely prepared to die as I dragged them both from the remains of the shack.
Instead, I was greeted by the standing and very healthy looking form of Dr. William Dyer as he scooped up his daughter in his arms and looked me directly in the eyes.
“I don’t have much time, Andrew. I suggest that we move now.” His voice was dry and raspy, yet strong and full of life.
I wasn’t about to argue, and instead ran ahead of him toward the back door. As I put my hand on the door, machine gun fire stopped me from pushing it open. Dyer and I flinched, dropping into a half-crouch before realizing that it wasn’t aimed at us.
Raising my pistol, just in case, I kicked open the back door and stepped outside. To the left of the back of door of the shack, Leo was firing wildly into a group of the Cthulhu cultists. I did a quick scan to my right and was just in time to see several more cultists trying to flank my friend.
Firing two shots, I stopped them in their tracks and their momentum carried them forward, face-first into the dead soil that was the trademark of the Blasted Heath.
“Head into the woods.” I told them, but it was obvious that they couldn’t head back to the truck. William took his daughter and ran straight away from the house and into the wilted forest. The vegetation was dead and dry, but it was better cover than standing still.
I followed them as Leo covered our exit with more gun fire. We made our way swiftly through the forest, and the farther that we got from the shack, the more the vegetation seemed to be growing at least marginally healthier.
William had no idea where he was going, but I let him lead anyway. ‘Away’ was as good an idea as I could come up with, and the geologist was definitely heading ‘away.’ Doing my best to keep an eye on the Dyers and Leo, I continued to spin as I ran after them, firing behind me and then looking forward.
I reloaded twice before Leo’s borrowed machine gun began to click. His ammunition was out. He tossed the weapon away, and in the same smooth motion swung the rifle from his shoulder and took aim.
I had noticed much earlier in this fight that my mind wasn’t immune to the effects of the pressure that the creature of the Heath had put on it. My concentration was impossible to focus, and it had been damaging my aim. The first shot on Ammi hadn’t been meant to hit his chest and I had gotten lucky when I came out of the back door. So, as we moved through the woods, it wasn’t the thickening foliage that alerted me to the lessened effects of the thing in the well so much as my steadily increasing aim.
I had been beaten, bloodied, shot at, and chased, and I was tired for it. Instead of my shots missing even more and more than they had been, which would have been expected, my shots were actually finding their marks more frequently. The influence of the weakened veil was fading.
I was beginning to think that we might actually make it out of there.
Thud.
William collapsed ahead of me. We were moving with such speed that I almost tripped over the prone bodies of him and his daughter. I hopped and skidded to a halt.
Dropping to Dyer’s side, I saw that he was still with us. Leo caught up quickly and crouched, taking up a defensive position.
“I can’t hold...I can’t hold on any longer.” William sounded weak and distant. “Save her, Andrew!”
I grabbed the fading old man by the collar. “How do I save you?” I demanded. “I need you!”
William’s eyes cast about looking, but not seeing. “The Peasley expedition to Australia.” He was babbling at that point. “There are tricks to time, Andrew.” His face took on a smile that would have looked more at place the face of a youngster who had learned a secret that he couldn’t tell. “You have already saved me, you only need to catch up.”
The sounds of the cultists making their way through the woods were getting louder. Our time had run out.
“Nancy, what are you doing?” Dyer suddenly demanded. Stress had flooded his face and he looked terrified. “Put down the gun, my girl!” He sounded like he was trying to talk down his daughter, but I could see that she wasn’t doing anything worth talking down. She was still unconscious in the dirt.
Just as suddenly as his outburst, William’s face was suddenly lax and his eyes were as empty as they had been in the shack.
Leo had stopped shooting during William’s sudden excitement, but in that time the cultists had gotten much closer. He looked at me and stated, very calmly, “We could use a way out of this.”
He raised his gun to fire, but I reached up and grabbed his arm, stopping him. I looked at Nancy and William, trying to formulate some plan that could help us.
William was back to his original state and was completely useless. His daughter was beginning to stir, but she might as well have been just as far away as her father was. They would be of no help.
That was when I began mumbling to myself. “Out...out...we need a way...out...” Leo probably thought that I had finally lost my mind, but I recovered just as quickly. I slapped his gun arm, “I have an idea!”
I dragged William’s body closer to that of his daughter and grabbed one of their hands in each of mine. I nodded toward my hand and said, “Grab Nancy and William’s other hands. Quickly.”
Leo didn’t like that. “If I hold their hands, I will not be able to hold the gun.” I nodded, but I didn’t say anything. Grunting, Leo did as I asked. He swung the rifle around and allowed it rest on its strap over his shoulder. Just as quickly, he scooped up each of the Dyer’s remaining hands and asked, “Now what?”
I gave him a very serious look and he seemed to take it that way despite my broken nose, black eyes, and blood-covered mouth and chin. “Don’t move or let go, no matter what you see or hear.”
I began chanting.
The chanting wasn’t completely necessary, but it helped. Magic, at least the way that I had learned to use it, was a matter of borrowing the forces that leaked through the veil and applying them to our world. Concentrating on saying an incantation or chant helped keep your mind rooted in forming those energies into the shape that you wished. It could be done without the chanting to guide it, but that route required a lot more concentration than my broken face was capable of at that time.
I felt the power surge through me. The veil was still weak that close to the Heath and the power came so easily. It had to. Normally, the spell I was attempting would have required too much energy for me to succeed at it. The result would have been either an unconscious Andrew Doran or an Andrew Doran whose soul had lit on fire and consumed him from the inside.
The concept of what I was trying to do, though, was incredibly simple. There is a reason that I refer to the space between the two realities a ‘veil.’ The term veil is the best word that I could come up with that fully encapsulates and simplifies the physics of the membrane between our universe and the void.
What I was about to do was pick up the edge of that veil and drape it over us. The result would be to shift us just barely out of our home reality and completely out of detection from the cultists.
Even with the power boost that I was feeling that close to the void, the strain was unbearable. I could feel the forces of the Universe coursing through me and pressing out of me. I felt about ready to explode. I couldn’t release it, though. Even if the void were to consume me, Leo could complete the task of stopping the Germans from getting any
of the alien weapons.
I kept my eyes open through the strain, needing to see if the magic was taking effect. The air around and between us shimmered with a much more visible version of that almost purple light of previously. Past the orb of color that surrounded us, the rest of the world began to turn transparent. The ground, the trees, the rocks, and everything of the reality that we were leaving behind became part a reality that we were not. The only solid items of our new-found reality were the group of us within the bubble I was making.
Terror crossed Leo’s eyes and I spared a quick glance in the direction that he was looking. The cultists had caught up with us. My little magic trick was about to be put to the test. I was hoping that I could hold out long enough for them to get by.
It wasn’t Rutland’s entire band of merry cultists, but it was most of them. I didn’t take the time to count, but I could tell that a few of the remaining troops were hanging back at the shack in case we circled back.
They passed through us as if we weren’t even there. We were spirits in the forest of the Blasted Heath. We were removed enough to still see what was going on, but we weren’t in our home reality anymore. In effect, I had turned us into the same creatures that had inhabited Ammi’s body. There was a slight chance that they might come and find us in this vulnerable state, but I didn’t plan on us being under the veil long enough to find out.
The cultists slowed as they went through us, not because of any sense of our presence, but because we had made a lot of noise somewhere near this place. I could tell that they were looking for sign of where we had gone. One in particular, who I assumed had to be Rutland, circled the clearing that we were in. He stopped when he was standing directly in the same spot that I was.
He must have seen the depression where I had knelt to grab the Dyer’s hands, but without me there, he had no idea where I could have gone.
Rutland pointed at two of the cultists. “Go east 500 yards and then circle back to the shack.” He waved his hand around to indicate the rest of the group of cultists. “Move out.” The two that he had indicated branched off left from the direction that we had previously headed, while the rest of the cultists continued with Rutland in same direction that we had headed.
Once I couldn’t hear the cultists anymore, I released the Dyer family’s hands. The world snapped back into focus and I sagged with exhaustion. I had no time to be tired, though. It wouldn’t take long for the two groups to realize that they lost us and circle back. We had to move.
I forced myself to my feet and grabbed Nancy’s wrist. She was groggy still, but she had come back to herself enough that I could drag her to her feet. Hopefully, she would stay standing long enough to get out of this mess.
“Truck,” I said through an exhausted and blood covered mouth. “We have to get back to the truck.” I didn’t let go of Nancy’s hand as Leo scooped up William and threw him over his shoulder. With his other arm, he shrugged off the rifle and held the grip in one hand. We started back toward the shack with as much hustle as we could muster.
We got back to the shack without any issues, but Leo stopped us at the edge of the woods. He set Dyer down and put a proper grip on the rifle, letting the strap hang down.
“Wait for me here,” he said.
Leo ran out and around the shack while Nancy and I sat crouched around her father. I looked at her eyes and saw that the increased proximity to the center of the Blasted Heath was already pressing on her mind. I had felt it as well, but I could see her falling back into her stupor.
My examination of my newest companion ended almost as soon as it started. Two rapid gunshots echoed and snapped me to attention. Silence followed, and in it I knew our position had just been given away to the rest of the cultists. I had no doubts that they were returning to the shack as quickly as their feet could carry them.
Leo came around the shack the same way that he had left. The rifle was already slung over his shoulder as he scooped up William and said to me, “We must hurry.”
I had never let go of Nancy’s hand, and pulled her with me in the wake of Leo and her father. We ran around the house. In front of the porch were two dead Cthulhu cultists lying in the dust of the front yard only a few feet from their weapons.
A quick glance showed me that Leo had also slashed the tires of Rutland’s trucks.
We got to Leo’s truck quickly and jumped in. Leo deposited William in the bed of the truck while I slid Nancy into the passenger seat of the cab. Closing the truck bed, I climbed up the back and swung my leg in while Leo tossed me his rifle and hopped behind the steering wheel.
I almost lost my footing as Leo put the truck into gear and took off. I grabbed the edge of the truck bed. His tires spun on the gravel with such force that I almost didn’t notice the cultists coming around the house. As the cultists started firing, I crouched low to keep upright in the truck bed and tried to take aim with Leo’s rifle.
I managed to get three poorly aimed shots off before Leo carried us out of sight of Rutland’s cultists.
Chapter 6: Innsmouth
Leo took the pickup truck down winding back roads for miles until even I had no idea where in Massachusetts we were. Once I was sure that the cultists weren’t going to find us any time soon, I knocked on the rear window of Leo’s truck and yelled for him to stop.
The truck slid to a slow stop on the gravel as Leo took into account that William and myself were still loose cargo in the bed of the truck. I was glad he did.
The adrenaline from the battle in the Blasted Heath had left my system and I was crashing hard. My face was puffy and raw and breathing was something that I was only willing to do through my mouth. My eyes felt as puffy as the rest of my face, and vision was beginning to disappear from my right eye as it swelled shut.
Aside from the pain to my face, I was exhausted. The running, the carrying, the magic, the adrenaline, all of it came to a head and crashed down on me. It was everything that I could do to not collapse altogether, but we weren’t safe yet.
I slowly climbed from the back of the truck while Leo and Nancy climbed down from the cab and met me at the tailgate.
They both flinched when they saw my face. I did the best that I could not to register their reactions.
“What do we do now?” Leo asked.
I shook my head. “We can’t go back to Miskatonic University.”
Nancy, who had seemingly recovered from her time in the Blasted Heath, asked, “Why not?”
“It’s been compromised,” I answered. “The trucks they were driving were Miskatonic Utility trucks. The Yig Cultists that stormed my office were dressed as students. They’ve been watching us for months, maybe longer, and now that they know that we know they are there, it’s the least safe place for us.”
“What were they waiting for?” Nancy asked.
I looked to the back of the truck and then to Nancy. “Well, I think they were waiting for your father, but when you showed up they didn’t want to lose the chance that you presented for them.”
Leo asked, “How are we supposed to mount a global expedition without the resources of the school?”
I tried to smile, but it hurt too much. Instead, I said, “Not all of the school’s resources are lost to us.”
“What does that mean?” Nancy asked.
I ignored her and asked, “How are you feeling?”
Nancy’s face was about as pale as mine was purple, and it paled further as my question reminded her about her time in the Blasted Heath.
“Invaded. Violated,” she took a deep breath. “I’m trying to move on from it.”
I nodded. It was the only answer that my exhausted mind could give her. She would recover, but she would never be the same. Her identity had been compromised. There was nothing as privately yours as the thoughts in your head, and Nancy had seen those compromised by creatures as vile and alien as they came.
So, I went ahead and answered Nancy’s original question. “Miskatonic University’s history is filled with dark
ness, and not just that locked up Necronomicon. Arkham has always been a home, or a focus, for the darker forces of the void. When the school was built, it became a natural magnet for all of those forces and over the years, time and time again, bad things happen. In response to this, about thirty or so years ago, some of the staff got together and put contingency plans in place. Armitage, Halsey, Lake, they all made a decision: In the event that the school would be inaccessible, there would be contingencies in place that would facilitate the return of the status quo. The only person who would have complete access to that information would be the Dean, selected by the board.”
Leo smiled. “They made a battle plan for taking back the school.”
“Among other things,” I answered. “The plan was only a small part of it. It was more than likely that such an event would destroy the school, so resources were squirrelled away by the different Deans over the years to aid in rebuilding, if that were the case. All of these details were locked away in a safe within the...armory.” I hesitated mentioning the secrets of the University, such as the armory, in front of Nancy. In the end, I decided that it didn’t matter. She was in the deep end of it now, it made no sense trying to protect her from that tidbit of information.
Nancy didn’t even care about the mentioning of the armory. She was frowning. “That’s all well and good, but these plans don’t do us any good locked away on the very same campus that we can’t return to.”
“Well, I don’t like secrets that are shared, especially given the history of the school, but I did like the idea of a contingency plan.” I tried again to smile before remembering that my face was very much so against that idea. I hissed with the pain before continuing. “I started hiding away my own resources the moment that the board gave me the position of Dean. These resources are ours for the taking, and they include one of Miskatonic University’s large boats.”
“Where?” Leo begs.
“Not far,” I replied. “Innsmouth.”
I gave Leo the directions to Innsmouth, Massachusetts from Arkham and we hopped back into the truck. I laid down next to William’s unconscious body in the bed of the truck and did my best to rest. Innsmouth was about ten miles from Arkham. Leo would find his way back to a main road and then head in that direction.
The Adventures of Andrew Doran: Box Set Page 32