“Where are you? Are you in my head?”
Chesney was almost bent double now, the pressure almost unbearable. As his face made contact with the ground, he turned his head to one side to avoid smothering in the dust. Still the pressure worsened. He could feel the barbs of the thing that held him piercing the material of his shirt, digging into his skin. They felt like pinpricks at first, then tiny daggers, each one digging into his flesh and piercing his nerves. When they scraped his bone he screamed.
I am everywhere and nowhere. I am both the cause of your damnation and your only hope of salvation. To earn that salvation, you must answer one question and answer it truly.
“What?” The pain was almost unbearable. He could feel blood running down his sleeve and trickling from his wrist onto the lifeless surface beneath him. He imagined a thousand tiny hungry mouths erupting from whatever depths of Hell lay below the dust and sucking away greedily at his life. His head was beginning to sink into it too. Soon he wouldn’t be able to say anything, much less answer a question.
Will you serve Him as His chosen servant?
What else was he going to say? As far as he was concerned he was damned anyway. If there was the slightest chance of him getting out of this, he was going to grab it with both hands.
“Yes!” He spat dust. “Yes! I will!”
At once the pressure was gone. Chesney wiped dust from his face with hands sticky with blood, and lay there for a moment, crouched in the near-darkness, resisting the urge to weep.
At least it was no longer total darkness. Whereas before there had been nothing but unending void, now it was possible to see . . . something. By the time he had levered himself to his feet there was yet more light, gloomy and dim but nevertheless enough for him to make out where he was.
And it filled him with horror.
It was the unendingness of it that was the worst, the way the gray, dusty plain on which he found himself standing seemed to go on forever, with little variation in the landscape other than occasional spots where the dust had become heaped into low dunes. It reminded him of the desert, but a desert where the sun never shone and where, he knew, souls came to spend eternities.
I felt it only appropriate to show you, said the voice.
Chesney turned around, expecting to see the creature that had held him down, had made him bleed, had forced him to make obeisance to it, but there was nothing. Just more of the same. Unending, unchanging.
Unbearable.
Chesney coughed and wiped his face once more. He could see the blood on his right hand now. The crimson rivulets that glistened between his index and middle fingers looked gray in this light, but then so did his skin.
So did everything.
“What is this place?” he breathed, the words snatched from him by a cool but fetid breeze that played with the dust piles and was presumably responsible for forming them in the first place.
It has many names, some of which you will be familiar with, came the reply. Its true name cannot be spoken properly in your tongue, nor should it be. It is a word of too great a power for any human to be permitted to wield. You may think of it as the Sea of Darkness. Never-ending, a repository for the souls that have been sacrificed in His Master’s name.
“His Master’s name?”
The one whom you now truly serve, whose servant Himself has blessed you with his touch and put his mark upon you. Should you ever have second thoughts concerning your devotion to His will, that mark will cause you unendurable agony. I would suggest that you remember that.
Chesney clutched at his right shoulder. It felt curiously numb, as if the life had been drained from it, and the flesh felt strange through his shirt. Puffy, boggy.
Dead?
“I’ll remember,” he said, more to himself than the voice that had offered him up for enslavement. “And who are you?”
I am merely a vessel, a conduit for His power to reign upon the Earth. I have had many names throughout history, though I see no reason why I should give you any one of them, as none are my true name.
“And what is your true name?”
Another word that is too powerful for you to know. I shall not give you my name, but I will give you His, so that you might know who it is whom you now ultimately serve. He is the Mighty One, the Powerful One, the Bringer of Death, and the Giver of Life Anew. He is the Great God Cthulhu, and it is time for you to gaze upon his visage!
Even as the voice cried out its litany of appellations, Chesney became aware of something rising up behind him, erupting from the dust and at the same time being fashioned from it. He could feel it rising higher and higher, this thing that had been fed with the souls of billions that had fallen and been sacrificed in its name. As high as a mountain, as overbearing as a tidal wave, and vaster than both. He didn’t want to look. To gaze upon such a thing would surely be to invite eternal madness.
He was unsure as to whether unseen forces were turning him to look at it, or if the ground beneath his feet was being rotated to achieve the same effect. Either way he suddenly found himself unable to move, his eyes forced wide open. He felt the whites of his sclera beginning to burn even before he saw the many-tentacled thing that towered over him, the creature to whom he was now a hapless servant.
The God to whom he had promised his soul.
And it was with that realization that he finally let out the longest, loudest, and most despairing scream of his entire life.
EIGHTEEN
Thursday, December 22, 1994. 2:23 P.M.
THEY FOUND HIM COWERING by the open refrigerator, bathed in the blue glow of its internal light.
“The bulb’s gone.” Paul Hale was flicking the overhead light switch with all the manic energy of someone who believed the electricity would come back on again if only he tried hard enough.
“He’s freezing.” Karen was already trying to help Chesney up.
“Of course he is.” Chambers came to her aid. “He’s been lying next to the fridge.”
“But that can’t have been for very long.” They had only moved Chesney just far enough to be able to close the fridge door and already the two of them were having to blow on their fingers. “He’s ice cold!”
“And injured.” Chambers pointed to the blood on the back of Chesney’s right hand. “I need to take a look at him. We’d best get him upstairs. Paul, can you give us a hand?”
Hale seemed distressed to leave the light switch, but he grudgingly came over to help take the weight of Chesney’s shoulders with Chambers. With Karen and Ronnie taking the feet, they began to carry him up the steps.
“What was that?” Ronnie asked when they were halfway up.
“I didn’t say anything,” said Hale. “It came from him.”
Chesney mumbled something else. “. . . Ph’nglui mglw’nafh R’lyeh . . .”
“What language is that?” asked Ronnie.
“If it even is a language . . .” Karen pointed out.
“Not far now,” said Chambers, concentrating on carrying Chesney upstairs. “Not far, and then we get to have a proper look at you.”
That didn’t seem to calm him down.
“I think you’re making him worse,” said Paul.
“Do you think he might have given himself tetanus?” Karen asked as they heaved the body over the top step.
Chambers didn’t think that would be the reason for his confusion. “Not just yet, anyway. It’s certainly grubby enough down there, but I would be very surprised if tetanus acted that quickly. Let’s get him onto his cot.”
Dr. Cruttenden moved some of Chesney’s equipment aside so they could lift him up. The parapsychologist groaned and tried again to speak as they righted him on the bed. The words were still unintelligible to most of them.
“. . . Cthulhu wgah’nagl fhtagn . . .”
Chambers immediately recognized the litany and got to his feet. “I’ll get my medical bag.”
“I can do that.” Paul was already making his way over to their sleeping area.
>
“What are you going to do?” Karen asked.
“I need to cut his shirt off so I can take a look at his injuries.”
“Oh, you bloody doctors, always wanting to use a knife when common sense will do.” She looked at Ronnie. “Help me get his shirt off.”
The job was done impressively quickly. By the time Paul got back, the rest of them were staring at Chesney’s right shoulder.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Chambers was pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “I have no idea,” he said. “But I don’t want anyone touching this in case it’s contagious.”
“I can’t imagine why any of us would want to touch it.” Ronnie was already backing away.
“You’d probably all best keep a distance until I have some idea of what this is.” By now Chambers had donned a surgical mask as well.
The others were quick to make their getaway, but Karen insisted on staying, stating as her reason that any story she was going to write she wanted to be as accurate as possible.
“Well it’s up to you,” said Chambers, “but make sure you keep out of the way. I don’t want two patients on my hands.” He also didn’t want anyone asking any more questions about Chesney’s ravings.
“I’ll keep my distance,” she said, looking as if she was going to do anything but. “So you don’t have to worry.”
The wounds Chesney had sustained were obvious—four jagged puncture marks arranged vertically down the outer aspect of his left upper arm. The bottom two had crusted over, while the others were still leaking a little blood that had yet to clot. What was strange was the color of the surrounding flesh. From his shoulder to his elbow joint the skin had assumed a pale blue pallor, with a sharp demarcation between that and normal healthy tissue at either end.
Chambers prodded at the skin over Chesney’s shoulder. He grimaced when his finger sank into tissue the consistency of wet putty.
“Does that hurt?” he asked.
“No.” Chesney seemed to be rapidly returning to his usual, irritable self. “But it does feel a little strange. Of course it would feel a lot better if you would just stop poking it about.”
“What about this?” Chambers had his fingers on the flexure of Chesney’s left elbow now. He only exerted a slight pressure but it left the impression of his fingerprints in the boggy tissue.
“Fine,” Chesney snapped. “Well no, not fine exactly, but annoying. You’re annoying me.”
“Just doing my job.” Chambers checked Chesney’s pulse and compared it with the other side. “Do you have any established vascular diagnoses?”
“Like what?”
“Subclavian Steal Syndrome? Coarctation of the aorta?”
“Nothing.” Chesney pulled his arm away from Chambers’s touch and rubbed at it. Even he seemed surprised at how it felt. “I’ll be fine.”
“Are you up to date on your tetanus shots?”
“Had them before I came in here. I thought we all did.”
“Thought I’d better check anyway.” Chambers was unfurling a length of bandage. “I’m going to dress the wound with some antiseptic cream and then put this around it.” He gave Chesney a serious look. “And you are not to disturb it, understand? I’ll inspect it again later, and in the meantime if your symptoms change you’re to tell me.” He secured the bandage with a piece of micropore tape.
“I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about.” Chesney tried to get up. On the second attempt he managed it. “I’m perfectly fine.” He began to struggle back into his shirt.
“What happened down there?” Karen was waving the tape recorder in his face.
There was no answer. Peter Chesney’s features had gone blank. He stared off into space for a moment, and then said, “Nothing. The light bulb blew and I didn’t know what to do, so I opened the fridge door. I slipped on something and must have cut myself.”
Chambers narrowed his eyes. “There wasn’t anything near you that could have caused wounds like that.”
Chesney glared at him. “Then it must have fallen somewhere when I slipped.” He was buttoning his shirt now. “Honestly, I do not see what all the fuss is. I just had a tiny accident, that’s all.”
“We were worried about you,” Ronnie said. “You weren’t yourself at all.”
Chambers backed her up. “It’s easier than you might think to pick up an infection off all this old stone.”
“And that’s all that happened?” Karen was still after her story. “You just fell and cut yourself?”
Again that pause before his reply. Not as prolonged this time, but very definitely there. “That’s all.” He got to his feet. “Now if you don’t mind, I have work to be getting on with.”
“Developing those photographs you mean?” said Hale, gesturing to the steps that led back down to the undercroft. “It’s nice and dark down there now for you.”
“No.” Again Chesney was lost for words for a moment. “No, that can wait until later. I’d be a fool to go down there now and injure myself again. Perhaps you might like to make yourself useful and go down and replace the bulb?”
Whatever Hale said in reply was muttered under his breath.
“If you don’t mind all getting out of my way,” said Chesney to the crowd still assembled in the south transept, “I have work to do.” The tremor in his voice suggested he wasn’t as confident as he was trying to sound.
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” Chambers thought he had better try once more before leaving the man to it.
This time Chesney was emphatic. “I will be fine, just as soon as you all stop bothering me.”
“All right.” There was obviously no point in pursuing things further. “Just as long as I have your assurance that if you start to get any symptoms you’ll let me know.”
There was something about Chesney’s reply that made it sound more like a threat. “Don’t worry, Dr. Chambers. If anything happens to me, I promise to make sure you’ll be the first to know.”
NINETEEN
Thursday, December 22, 1994. 7:03 P.M.
THE FIRST EVENING.
Paul Hale looked at his watch again just to confirm it. Three minutes past seven. He still found it hard to believe they were yet to spend a night here. So much had already happened, culminating in Chesney being injured.
Hale didn’t care how much the guy told them to stop fussing—that shoulder had looked wrong, almost as if the blood had stopped flowing through it, or the flesh had died. He had thought about mentioning it to Professor Chambers, but he figured the doc knew what he was doing, and he had done his best to convince Chesney he needed to rest. It hadn’t made any difference, though.
There he was now, fiddling with that earthquake device thing of his over on the other side of the church. At least he was quiet. They were all quiet, in fact. Ronnie and Dr. Cruttenden had gone back to their—what had someone said those cubicles were called? Apsidals? The Prof had gone with Karen back to the vestry, presumably to wait for Father Traynor to pop his head out of that trapdoor they’d found.
The whole business with Father Traynor still bothered him. Even though it was possible the priest was exploring the depths of the church crypt or something, shouldn’t he have come up for air by now? Or at least to reassure everyone he was all right? And where had all that stuff come from that Hale himself had blurted out? He’d never been the type to have much of an imagination—even in school the best he could manage with his mates was to pretend to be something from Star Wars. So how the hell had he come up with what was in his head right now?
He lay on his cot and shivered. The worst of it was that he could see it vividly—the thing he’d been trying to describe to the others. He could see it down there, but it wasn’t in a cave. It was creeping around a plain covered with gray dust, a plain so far away and so deep down that you’d have to sink a mineshaft down from the trapdoor to get to it. A huge place, the size of a desert and then some, lit by a kind of purplish glow in the sky that caused e
erie shadows to be cast by the ranks of small dunes where the dust had gathered.
The more he tried to shut out the idea of something living far beneath the church, the more it refused to budge. Every now and then his imagination allowed him a glimpse of it—all shiny and glistening, clutching at the land as it tried to gain purchase on the dust with its weird, three-fingered hands.
No, not hands. They were more like claws—tapering claws crowned with bristles, and as the thing heaved along, he could see that it had more than one pair of them.
Jesus Christ, what the fuck was in his head?
Suddenly he wished the others hadn’t left him alone. Suddenly he wanted to run to the main doors and push the panic button. Never mind what anyone else had said—he had to get out, he had to get away from this place, far away where none of the things that lived here and under here could get to him.
Calm down, Paul, mate, calm down.
He held his breath the way he’d seen people do on TV and waited for his heart to stop pounding in his chest. Then he exhaled slowly. It seemed to work a bit, so he did it again and felt even better the second time. God, he could be an idiot sometimes! It was a good thing he hadn’t gone running to the door, or he would have ruined it for everyone. Father Traynor hadn’t really been gone that long—only a few hours. It just seemed longer because being shut up in this place was starting to feel like he had been imprisoned for an eternity.
Stop thinking like that. It’s only the first night. You’ve got three more of these to go, and you’re going to look bloody awful for the cameras if you keep yourself awake dreaming up this sort of bullshit. If you can’t think of anything else to do, read your book.
It was an idea. Paul wasn’t much of a reader, but he had figured this would be the ideal time to discover if it was something he might like to do more of. He’d asked Dave Maskell at work for some recommendations (Dave always had a book open on the bus or during the lunch break), and now he reached into his bag and took out the first paperback that Maskell had suggested he might like. It was a new one about the Special Air Service, and apparently Dave thought it was great. Mind you, Dave had watched Rambo: First Blood Part II over a hundred times, and once had been enough for Paul. Still, he hadn’t known anyone else who could recommend anything, and so he turned to page one of Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab and started to read.
The Lovecraft Squad Page 18