by Неизвестный
Her eyes stung as she watched the box move rapidly through the sea. By the movement of water it became immediately clear that it was not self-propelled. It was being pulled. Some unseen force within the rock outcropping was claiming it with frightening power.
Stories of Sargasso and Bermuda swirled in her head. Magnetic fields and vortexes existed in the world. She took a few steps back, eyes locked onto the box as it crashed. Shattered barnacle and rock debris clouded the water. She felt a vibration in the ocean floor that quickly escalated to violent tremors, knocking her off her feet. For a moment she considered shining her light toward the rock, but decided against it and lay still. Intuition whispered to stay quiet and not interfere with whatever was happening here. Survival mode.
The rumbling stopped at last, but was followed by a deafening scraping sound that Kasey pictured as the side of a massive ship gouged by reef. When silence returned, an eerie quietness that she found unnerving, she removed her hands from her ears and sat up. Dead fish and mollusks floated in the water around her, and as far as the dark sea allowed the scope of her vision.
Whatheholyfuckwashappening?
Through the bodies her eyes focused on the rock formation. The box was gone. The front section of the rock formation itself was gone, leaving a glowering cavern that exuded a visible malevolence like the inky secretion of squids.
Kasey needed to get the hell out of here, but she was almost afraid to move. All she wanted right now was to be up top on The Mermaid, headed home to a stiff drink. She decided to inch her way along the sea floor a few hundred yards before making a break for the surface. Casting a glance back over her shoulder stopped her cold. She had to be hallucinating. She must have hit her head during the tremors. Something glimmered in the depths of that cavern. Kasey’s imagination screamed eyes, but the truth was they looked more like distant stars. Hundreds of them, with varying mists and coronas. Despite the distance she was somehow able to feel the coldness between them; to sense the writhing and scrambling of things unseen as they awakened and began to turn eyes toward her.
She bolted. Every molecule of her being pulsed with heightened awareness and fear. She dared look back no more. Kasey swam for her life, pushing dead marine creatures aside until the hull of The Mermaid appeared in her mask. Taking measured breaths she surfaced, climbing aboard and out of the water first before hastily cleaning ectoparasites from her gills.
The Sargasso surface was clustered with kelp and dead fish as far as her eyes could see. Shaking, she found her phone and dialed Martin.
“Kasey.”
The hurt in his voice radiated through the phone.
“Please, Martin. I don’t know who else to call.”
The fear in her own voice was unmistakable. Instantly his defenses dropped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dhaklim Manuscript.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve found it?”
“I’m in The Sargasso. No, well, I may have. It’s gone.”
“Holy fuck, Kasey. You know how long I’ve…”
“Listen, please! I think I opened a portal or something. I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure I can get out of here.”
“Tell me what happened.”
She explained quickly, never taking her eyes from the water.
“Are you ok right now?” he asked when she finished.
“Yes.”
“Give me just a minute. Stay on the line.”
Stay on the line. Someone would have to pry this phone from her dead hands.
Her black market buyers would have demanded Kasey enter that cave, not to come out until she had located and retrieved the box. Martin steadfastly believed that mysteries existed in the world---mysteries not to be trifled with, especially for the sake of greed. And his devotion to the observations and protocol of the Miskatonic, as heavy a part as it had played in their breakup, was not questionable in its sincerity.
He came back on the line. She could feel the quiet intensity building before he spoke as he struggled to find something positive to offer.
“I know it’s bad,” Kasey beat him to the punch, swatting gnats gathering around the dead fish flopping against her boat. A bitter, sulphuric smell assaulted her nostrils.
“Don’t sugarcoat it.”
“I don’t think I can,” he admitted. “From what you’ve said something powerful has been activated. Vortex, portal or whatever, you know where I stand on these things, Kase. It could very well be a door for The Great Old Ones, as we always feared with The Dhaklim tome. If there was time, any way I could be there to diffuse it for you….”
“What do I do, Martin?” she insisted.
“You need to get out of there.”
“I can’t do that. I’m responsible for this.”
“It was just a matter of time, Kase. This isn’t on you.”
“It is. Tell me what to do. What would you do if you were here? The clock is ticking.”
Silence was the sound of him abandoning his protective dance.
“The thing is….I can’t be sure. There’s an artifact that will likely work, but, well, it’s here. I’m bringing it now. Just getting ready for takeoff. The plane will be there in a couple of hours. For now, I’ve found a symbol and an incantation. You could probably chant the phrases from The Mermaid, but the symbol has to be drawn at the portal opening.”
Kasey’s fingers tightened around her phone.
“Send it to me.”
She committed the words and symbol to memory as quickly as possible.
“I know you don’t buy into any of this,” he trod carefully around the rift between them, “but be prepared for anything down there. If you can’t get close enough to carve the glyph just get out. We’ll find another way. Remember, I’m on my way.”
Kasey fought back tears.
“That means everything.”
“Don’t hang up. Leave the phone on, ok?”
“Will do.”
She set her android on the bench seat, checked her mask and slipped it on. The sea was choppy now. The Mermaid rolled atop disturbing waves of sargassum clotted with bodies.
Disturbing didn't cover the swirling emotion Kasey swallowed down as she parted the debris, trying not to focus on dead eyes staring up at her. She slipped into the sea, rehearsing lines in her head. No living creature was visible.
Now was not the time to wrestle with the riddle of her life. Martin believed, but it was a road she could not tread without sacrificing her sanity. In the moment all that mattered was stopping this very real threat. Whatever consequences that entailed could be dealt with later.
Her eyes stung and teared again at the sight of so much devastation beneath the surface. Entire schools of beautiful fish floated lifelessly past her. Anger welled in her chest. Diving down she took out and clutched her knife.
The unusual murkiness of the water made visibility sketchy. Forced to rely on her flashlight made her more of a target and slowed her descent. The water had gone cold. She almost collided with the dark tail of a plane before realizing she had reached the area. Stars within the black cavern gleamed more brightly now and seemed closer. Something she couldn’t quite make out wriggled in front of them, obliquely blocking out the lights and drawing her attention like floaters on the outside edge of her vision.
Approaching cautiously Kasey found a spot above the cave entrance to carve the glyph. It was a simple design. Barnacles had died and released their hold, floating toward the surface to leave a clean shelf of rock. This would only take a minute.
The tip of her blade snapped off as she carved the first vertical line. Obscenities buzzed in her head. She stifled them and envisioned Martin, letting his calming spirit get her back on track. A notched blade could still cut. And an incantation spoken underwater surely packed a bigger punch than one on the surface. No one else’s words could have sent vibrations through the sea. Even Martin would have been limited by an oxygen tank.
As she finished the symbol a tremor shook t
he ocean floor, knocking her backwards. Her flashlight dropped but fell face up, illuming the vicinity like a theater spotlight
No you don’t, whatever the fuck you are. I’m doing this.
Kasey regained her feet but was instantly nauseous with vertigo. Everything was spinning. She clutched her head and curled down against the slack, lifeless kelp, waiting for the dizziness to pass. A sharp pain pounded at the base of her skull. The first sparks of a panic attack swirled inside her, but she forced it back, pressing her head with one hand and keeping a death grip on her knife with the other.
Inhuman thoughts drifted through her psyche. Chillingly brutal, they slithered from a lightless depth toward her consciousness, demanding validation with a visceral hunger that sent her stomach into spasms. She reached weakly for her lamellae. Unbearable pressure was building there, likely from whatever poison had been unleashed into the sea.
Dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.
Even though a large percentage of the relics she had salvaged for the Miskatonic had little to do with The Great Old Ones, Kasey had worked alongside Martin long enough to know what that phrase meant. Cthulhu, a cosmic, ancient being of malevolent intent who hibernated in an underwater city named R’lyeh, waiting to rise again. She had been vocal in her skepticism. Yet considering her own freakishness she could not deny that the legend had played a small part in her decision never to have children.
I have to finish this.
She made herself stand. As her eyes sought focus she was sure the poisoned sea was the source of her dementia. Movement toggled the cave entrance. Something blocked out the stars. The bitter cold of deep space shocked the sea. Kasey could not make it out at first, but as the tip of it wriggled over sandy floor, serpent-like, yet so mind-blowingly gargantuan, the probable scope of its entire being made her racing pulse burn like liquid fire in her throat. The thing would be mountainous in size.
The enormous tentacle writhed toward her. She spoke the first line of the banishing incantation, cringing as the pain in her head throbbed. The great arm thrashed, throwing sand and debris and knocking Kasey off her feet again. She lay alongside the bones of doomed pilots, watching the monstrous thing rise up to hover over her. It blocked out her path to the surface and every possible angle of escape as if it were some undocumented form of ocean eclipse.
Though burning on its last spark, Kasey’s determination refused to die. Gripping her knife with both hands she lunged upward. The great arm parried, wrapping around the blade and wrenching it free as easily as if it had read her mind. The sound of her right arm snapping was no more than a soft click in the sea. White-hot pain exploded through her.
Descending, the tentacle caressed her with a numbing embrace. Her pain subsided, but the crown of her skull felt as though it had been pulled back on hinges. A steady drip of connective current flowed to her from the thing. The coldness of it, an alien bleakness and phenomenal power devoid of emotion, was almost unbearable. She tasted vitriolic atmospheres light years distant from the Earth; viewed unforgiving landscapes through inhuman eyes beneath the light of double, violet moons; and breathed in the moist aroma of faceless, corpulent things wriggling in an underground hatchery. Slow, throbbing visions of obliterated civilizations laid to waste in rivers of blood made Kasey’s horrific perspective of Pompeii seem trivial. She could not move, but sensed Tsunami-like waves of inescapable madness rushing toward her.
At the edge of these flashes she heard the faint scratch of whispering. It was not unlike the sound of disembodied voices in white noise or radio signals. She could hear them individually, each with a unique cadence and degree of urgency. Such a strange, subtle curiosity would normally have claimed her attention, a gift she unconsciously shared with the thing wrapped around her torso. It disengaged partially, lifting up and interrupting their connection of what she assumed was assimilation. A small part of her clung to hope, but her overriding wish was that the creature would simply get on with her destruction. She had been shown what she was---from whence she came. Kasey saw no reason to continue in this world.
God help them all.
In that moment she felt a quiver of uncertainty pulse from the great tentacle. The octopodal behemoth drew back further, releasing her. Kasey’s focus fell immediately upon the glowing eyes of small slug-like beings living in its folds that regarded her with malice. And then she saw what now commanded the beast’s attention. White mist swirled and rose from within skulls and ribcages beneath the planes.
A flashback played in her mind’s-eye as she cradled her broken arm and tried to gather herself to move away from the creature.
“It starts with simple things,” Martin had explained when they first met in The One-Eyed Raven Pub in London. “ESP and déjà vu, for instance. Most people have had experiences of some sort in their lifetimes. Studies have shown that also applies for ghosts. A large percent of those asked admit they’ve had an odd event they can’t explain, or have actually seen a figure. Take it one step further. How many believe in UFO’s? A surprising number. It would be arrogant of the human race to think there’s no intelligent life beyond the reach of our telescopes and satellites. The possibility that something else is out there, or has been out there longer than us, is very real. If one keeps an open mind wonders are all around us.”
Nine white phantoms took the misting form of men in flowing robes at least ten feet tall. They moved gracefully through the sea, but with a rapid progression Kasey’s vision in the diving mask could scarcely follow. And each carried a raised, ghostly sword.
The Nine. Not ring wraiths, her thoughts pinballed. Dhaklim Wraiths?
Accursed evil was not what she sensed. Although she deemed them perhaps as ancient as the tentacled thing, and as equally removed from the natural laws governing mortal man, there was a calm strength of brotherhood and purpose radiating from them. Whatever their history, it raised caution in the great arm. It rose up, allowing Kasey the chance to retreat into the shadows of the plane reef. All but one of the phantoms closed ranks at each side of it and the cavern rumbled again. The great arm took up nearly the entire entrance, but angry tips of more tentacles squirmed around it trying to push through into the sea.
The remaining phantom came toward her. Kasey could see through it, could watch the others fly and strike at the tentacle, their swords drawing black blood as it twisted and lunged, reminding her of men fighting a dinosaur. She had neither the strength or will to flee. She could discern a face in the white mist. The ghost knelt down, placing a gentle hand on the left side of her neck, covering her lamellae. Her body responded with a fire she had never known. She could see her soul within his bright, blue eyes. When he let go he took the words of incantation from her.
With its hand on the symbol she had carved the phantom recited those words, each syllable sure as a sonar call through the deep. The arm retreated, but not before releasing a scarlet, inky substance from its underside that completely devoured one of the ghosts. With the uttering of the final word the tentacle and its brethren receded into the cavern. Rock collapsed, sealing the opening.
Transfixed on the phantoms as they changed back into formless mist and disappeared, Kasey was unaware of the three divers until one touched her hand. Weakness and pain washed through her and she surrendered to oblivion.
Martin was sitting beside her bed when she woke. Her arm had been set; lamellae cleared and minor wounds tended. He was patient with his questions but there was no denying the indomitable curiosity in his eyes. Kasey told him what she could.
“We didn’t know The Miirdia piloted those planes,” Martin explained. “It answers a lot, but they were believed to have vanished ages ago. They were an esoteric sect sworn to fight The Great Old Ones. Their origin has never been established.”
“They were very real.”
“What did it give you in return, for taking the spell?”
She avoided his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“That’s generally the way such magic wor
ks. There’s an exchange.”
She measured her answer, hands fidgeting with the bedspread.
“It showed me what I could be, either way. Good, or evil.”
Which wasn’t a lie. He let it drop for now, understanding more than she herself did about the secrets that had been unleashed like sins from Pandora’s Box. He sympathized with her struggle, and wanted more than anything to be a part of that future.
“You have a purpose in this world, Kase. You had a hand in awakening The Miirdia, and may in fact be their successor. It’s up to you, but certainly an option to consider. Or you can walk away. Whatever you decide, you have my support.”
He went off to make her lunch, leaving her alone in the rented yacht’s bedroom. She had revealed most of the truth. Each being had touched her and revealed who she was and could be. Each had embedded itself into the nuances of her psyche.
Would she turn out to be: Hellboy or the monster?
Kasey drifted to sleep with a hand on her lamellae, dreaming that her arms had morphed into tentacles.
The work of Morgan Griffith has recently seen publication in The Literary Hatchet; The Horror Zine Magazine; In Creeps the Night and Cellar Door. A tale called “Sticks and Stones, Skin and Bones” will be included in the Lovecraft/Brothers Grimm mashup anthology, A Mythos Grimmly, due out in October. She lives with pet rats.
THE OUROBORUS BITE
by
MARIE VICTORIA ROBERTSON
“Will it hurt?”
It was a childish question, but Carmen couldn’t help it. The old woman continued to work, ignoring her question. The room was lit with a cheap bulb that teetered from the ceiling, its weak light barely outlining the old woman’s thin, twisted body. Her joints popped as she vigorously stirred something on the worktable in front of her, filling the room with a thick, spicy scent that made Carmen’s skin twitch.
“Of course it will hurt,” the old woman finally said. Her voice was weak and brittle, like crumpled tissue paper, and she spoke with an accent Carmen could not identify. “It will be the most excruciating thing you’ve ever felt.”