The Adventures of Andrew Doran: Box Set

by Matthew Davenport

  “Dammit, Nancy!” The other me, who had just entered through another door, said. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  Nancy seemed to at least accept what she was seeing, if not understand it. She took off running. As she ran by each door, it slid open and another me, a little more battle-weary than the last, stepped in, smiled at her and fired at the Strobel-Shoggoth.

  By the time she made it, well, the first me to enter the arena, I had finished loading my gun. Nancy stopped and, panting, asked me how.

  “This room stand outside of time. Strobel wanted to beat me here, and he did. By three days.” I shrugged. “Proto-Shoggohs, the originals, not this abomination, were telepathic. I willed myself to enter into the fight at the moment that I left.” I paused. “And it looks like I might have to do it twenty-four more times.”

  The other me’s were converging on the Strobel-Shoggoth. As hundreds of magical .38 bullets entered the beast’s flesh, it blackened to a different shade. It was a shade that I had seen many times on creatures from the void. It was the shade of my bullets killing it.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I said to Nancy and moved toward the monster, firing as I walked.

  Once I had reached the Strobel-Shoggoth, several other Andrew Dorans were already close enough to start hacking away at it.

  Within moments the beast was nothing but a puddle on the floor.

  I moved toward the door that I had come from and twenty-two of the other me’s did the same. One stayed.

  The last one.

  ***

  I knelt down beside Leo. His death was soon in coming and I had one last favor to offer him.

  Nancy knelt beside us both. She was holding his hand and sobbing with the force of a person who had seen too many horrors for one day.

  “How can the armory destroy the city?” Leo asked.

  I shook my head. “It can’t.”

  Through her sobbing, Nancy said, “Father said that it could.”

  “The Nazis were headed here, and your father said something else to me as well, back in the Blasted Heath. I thought that he was telling me of how he was keeping his mind safe, but I think he was actually telling me about this place.”

  Leo mouthed the word, “What?”

  I grabbed his hand. “First things first.” His eyes started to close, so I slapped him across the face. “Do you want to live?”

  Leo coughed up blood, but nodded, hope filling his eyes.

  I gave Leo a look that I knew he understood. “It will be...different.”

  He acknowledged the look with a look of his own, paused, and then nodded.

  I placed my hand over his eyes and began to chant.

  ***

  Leo woke up on a cot to me sitting beside him.

  Quickly he lifted his shirt and felt his abdomen. There wasn’t a mark there. No holes from bullets or tentacles.

  Sitting up, Leo looked around at his surroundings. “Where are we?” As far as my ears could tell, his accent was completely gone.

  We sat in a cabin with almost no furniture. The windows each showed a different season. A young blonde child was leaning against the wall.

  “Am I in your Dream Lands?” Leo asked me.

  I nodded. “Your body was beyond repair. It was here or death.”

  Leo nodded. “What can I do in the land of make-believe?”

  The ancient child answered Leo’s question. “There are many monsters here to be fought, but I think Dr. Doran has a different idea for you.”

  Leo looked at the child with the ancient eyes and then to me. “Do you?”

  I nodded again. “When I needed to know where Dyer was, I came here. This land is useful for keeping eyes on information that is sometimes harder to acquire. If you’re not against remaining my assistant, I could use you here.”

  Leo nodded slowly. “Can I think on it?” He looked around. “I have a feeling that this place will take much time to get used to.”

  “Time moves different here,” the child and I said at the same time.

  The ancient child stepped forward. “There is a girl, in the city that you will meet. I will take you to her and she will teach you about the world. She will do so because she feels a strong kinship with Dr. Doran.” He was standing beside the bed now. “But there is a cost.”

  “I told him that you wouldn’t mind as long as it wasn’t too high,” I added.

  Leo looked from me, there was distrust in his eyes, but not for me. It was for this child that I had described to him before. “What price?”

  “You will also work for me,” the child answered. “There are many things that you will come across as you learn of the Dream Lands, but I need knowledge of your world that you come from.” He waved a hand at me. “Dr. Doran has given me the ability to visit your former world, yet it has changed too much since I have been there. I wish to learn of it so that I may blend in during my visits.”

  Leo nodded and smiled, “I think that I can handle that cost.”

  The ancient child nodded. “I will leave you both to your farewells.”

  The child went to the door of his home and left.

  I stood up.

  “You’re just going to leave me here?” Leo asked, a hint of hurt in his voice.

  “You’re not dead, and we both have a lot of work to do.” I was sad at my friend’s transition, but hid it.

  Leo stood and nodded. “I will miss our war.” He thrust out his hand to receive a handshake.

  I shook his hand firmly and said, “Our war is still raging, and soon you’ll be a formidable tool in it again.”

  I flipped him a coin. “If you need anything, say the word ‘Fthagn,’ while holding the coin and I will hear it and come as soon as possible.”

  I approached the door the ancient child had left through. “Be careful, Andrew Doran. Without me by your side, who will watch your back?”

  “The position,” I replied, “has already been filled.”

  ***

  After I had delivered Leo to the Dream Lands, he had remained there, unconscious for days in Dream Land time. That had given me enough time to find the original location of the Nazi’s staging area.

  The cavern was only guarded by two remaining soldiers. The rest must have been dragged into the employ of Strobel’s genetic experiments. I dispatched them both quickly and carried every explosive that I could find into the tunnels that led to the armory.

  After those tunnels had been collapsed sufficiently enough to wake the dead, I gathered Nancy and we left.

  For her benefit, we attempted to locate the body of Nancy’s father, but something had taken William and we both agreed, albeit reluctantly that trying to find him was too dangerous.

  Nancy showed me where the Nazis had entered the caverns and we left that same way. Two more soldiers, both Yig Cultists, were guarding the trucks.

  I didn’t even bother dispatching them, because only a Nazi Shoggoth would be stupid enough to drag cold-blooded Yig worshippers to Antarctica.

  We drove back to the shore and it took most of the night. Once we arrived, we were blessed with a sight that we hadn’t expected to see.

  When word had traveled through the channels of prayer worship to Dagon’s children that some of his less-loved offspring were marooned and surrounded by underwater enemies (the submarine), fishmen had flocked to dispatch of them.

  Not knowing how to deal, with the fishmen trying to pry open their hull, the Nazis retreated to a safe radio distance from the shore.

  The fishmen had also brought with them a small steamboat. It wouldn’t get us or Sebastian’s men far, but it didn’t have to. We only needed to get to Hobart, Tasmania.

  Nancy never left my side, of that I was surprised. She kept busy by cleaning guns, reading her more of her father’s journal, and writing in her own.

  Once we were in Hobart, I asked one of Sebastian’s closest friends, Eliza Allen, if there was any word on the Nazi sub.

  “I hear that it’s on a course with South
Africa,” Eliza answered.

  I frowned. “That’s hardly the correct direction.”

  Eliza shrugged. “Once they failed to receive response from their people, must have received new orders.” She left me with that.

  I sat down in a restaurant near the harbor and tried to figure out my next move.

  I could return to Miskatonic. Carol would be livid by now and I still had to sign those documents on the building...or reconstruction...or something.

  Except that I couldn’t get my mind off of why the Nazis would be traveling to South Africa. There was nothing for them to gain there.

  Suddenly, the chair across from me was filled with an excited Nancy Dyer.

  “I think I know why they went to South Africa,” she said.

  I was both confused and curious. “Why?”

  Nancy slammed her father’s journal down. “Do you know what the Book of Eibon is?”

  I frowned. “A book of powerful magic and black arts. It only exists in incomplete translations. The original text lost to he ages.”

  Nancy rested her hand on the book. “My father thought that the original text was somewhere in South Africa.”

  My eyes shot wide. “Did he say where?”

  She shook her head. “Only vague directions that he translated from over 200 years ago. It would take some work to find.”

  I nodded slowly. What else had Brandon Smythe shared with the Nazis? This was definitely possible.

  Smiling, I said, “I recently had a job opening for a gun-toting assistant. Would you perhaps be interested in the position?”

  Nancy frowned. She had suffered so much since she had met me, but she had also had her eyes opened so very wide in that time as well.

  “How’s the pay?”

  “Horrible, and there’s the potential that you might lose your mind” I replied, and then added, “Free room and board, though. And lots of travel.”

  Nancy gave a little half smile. “I am not sure how I will do as ‘gun-toting,’ but I am willing to give it a shot.” Her smile spread the rest of the way and she added, “Besides, I think I know more about your pistol than you do. I’m sure you would like to hear that story.”

  “I would think that you’re right” I replied and stood up. “Then I think that we need to find transport to South Africa.”

  Note from the author:

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  About the Author

  Matthew Davenport lives in Des Moines, Iowa with his beautiful wife, Ren. He spends his time writing, reading, and working to promote and support writing communities in Iowa through his company Davenport Writes, LLC.

  You can keep track of Matthew through his twitter account @spazenport.

  You can follow his blog at http://davenportwrites.com