“If you could hurry and get it open, that would be great.” Chambers didn’t know whether to face the onslaught or get behind the two women, so he remained standing midway between them and the door.
“It’s definitely a door,” said Dr. Cruttenden.
“But it’s stuck,” said Karen.
Chambers was gripping the wooden stake so hard he could feel the splinters digging into his skin. “Do you need a hand?”
“We might actually.”
He had no idea if it was Dr. Cruttenden or Karen who spoke, but as the last of the crates were pushed aside and the three rotting things that had once been their colleagues shambled into the room, Chambers leapt to where they were crouching, groped for the small square of moist-feeling wood, and punched it as hard as he could.
Once.
Twice.
The rotting things were almost upon them as, on the third blow, the wood collapsed inwards. Chambers pushed Dr. Cruttenden through the tiny doorway, then Karen, before picking up the broken shards of wood and throwing them at the creatures that were staggering toward him. Then he grabbed a flashlight and followed the other two through the opening.
TWENTY-THREE
Thursday, December 22, 1994. 8:26 P.M.
“IT LOOKS AS IF it goes on for miles.”
Chambers wished Karen was exaggerating, but he was beginning to feel the same way. He shone the flashlight ahead of them as far as the beam would allow. All he saw was more of the same. The same flagstone-paved floor, dusted with grit and chips of stone that had fallen from a ceiling only inches above their heads; the same cylindrical pillars of red brick, the ancient cement that held them together and oozed out between the cracks when the bricks were first laid; the same sarcophagi.
No. Not the same.
Many had only minor differences: a different name on the tarnished brass plaque that had been affixed to the lid of pale gray stone; a slightly different design to the scrollwork carved into the edges; a few more cracks and cobwebs adorning the casing here and there to signify they had been here longer than their neighbors.
A couple, however, turned out to be very different.
Chambers shone the flashlight at his watch for a moment. They had been walking down here for the better part of half an hour. Every now and then they stopped and listened, but there was no sound to suggest they were being pursued. The tomb adjacent to the entrance they squeezed themselves through had been crumbling sufficiently that a good push caused it to collapse, sealing up the hole.
Let them try and dig their way through that lot with their rotting flesh and diseased bone, Chambers thought, before remembering that some of those shambling forms were people he had been conversing with not much more than an hour before.
Karen had not been impressed. “How are we supposed to get back through?”
“We’re not supposed to get back through.”
Dr. Cruttenden interrupted before Karen could snap back a reply. “I don’t think any of us will be wanting to retrace our steps in the near future, do you?” The wet gargling noises behind the mound of rubble sounded farther away than they actually were, but they were still loud enough to make them get moving. “Besides,” she continued, as they began to feel their way forward, “that can’t be the only entrance to this place.”
“Unless no one was ever meant to come down here.”
“Oh, great.” Chambers could tell Karen was glaring at him even if he couldn’t see her. “If you have any other ideas like that, would you kindly keep them to yourself?”
They had resumed their journey in silence, walking forward because heading west, toward the main road, seemed the most sensible idea. They circumvented the sarcophagi they encountered. Every now and then a rat scurried across their path, and once, Karen jumped as an especially fat spider plopped from its disturbed web onto her bare neck.
They only stopped when they came to the first statue.
Chambers couldn’t think of a better name for it. Whereas all the other tombs they had passed so far were of the same, functional design, now they suddenly found themselves faced with a structure roughly the same shape as the church from which they had escaped, but in miniature. It rose almost to the height of Chambers’s shoulder and seemed to have been carved from several pieces of interlocking granite. The detail was lacking, but attempts had been made at carving windows and doors.
“Can you see a name anywhere?” Dr. Cruttenden asked.
Chambers shone the flashlight around it but could find nothing. “Is it important?”
“It might be.”
“Why?” said Karen. “Because someone paid for an over-the-top method of being buried here?”
“Because it may not be a tomb at all.” Dr. Cruttenden waited for Chambers to take the lead again before continuing. “And don’t forget that Thomas Moreby is rumored to be buried here somewhere. I think it’s highly likely that if he had any intentions to return from the grave, he would have left some kind of mechanism to effect that.”
“If it is the only one here, I’m amazed we came across it,” Chambers replied, shining the flashlight from side to side. “This place seems to go on in all directions.”
“So we could easily get lost.”
“We could, Karen, but we’re not going to.” Dr. Cruttenden was bringing up the rear now. “Carry on, Professor Chambers!” Her words were bristling with too much enthusiasm, but Chambers preferred her attitude to Karen’s pessimism.
The second church was made of wood.
It only became obvious when they were right upon it. It was probably oak, or something else resilient enough to stand the test of time and the freezing damp down here. A much better effort had been made at carving the windows and doors, and this church had an interior as well. As Chambers shone his flashlight in, he could see there was more inside it than just a hollowed-out interior.
“I think I can see something in there.”
Dr. Cruttenden bent down to investigate, and Karen did the same. Their eyes followed the beam from Chambers’s flashlight.
“Someone’s done a model of the inside of the church,” said Karen. “There are pews and there’s the pulpit. You can see the altar. And on the far wall is . . . is . . .” she screamed and pulled away. Chambers grabbed her wrist to stop her running off.
On the far wall, in exactly the same place as the actual life-sized church they had recently left, was a picture of the same thing that had appeared to them, with the same Greek word written beneath it.
“So someone did plan all this, then.” Dr. Cruttenden leaned on the arm Chambers wasn’t using to keep Karen close to them for support. “I’m afraid I can’t see what you mean by something inside, though.”
“Look at the center of the model.”
Dr. Cruttenden followed the flashlight beam as Chambers moved it around within the structure of the church. She gasped as she saw he was outlining a shape.
“What is that?”
Chambers shook his head. “I don’t know. But someone—or perhaps something—could be buried in that model.”
“And inside the granite one too?”
Chambers breathed a silent sigh of relief that Karen seemed to be recovering from her scare. “Who knows? I guess it’s possible.”
“But why?”
“All kinds of reasons.” Dr. Cruttenden straightened up, and Chambers heard several joints pop in her back as she did so. “The simplest would be that this, and its predecessor, are merely extremely ornate sarcophagi, monuments to the dead buried within them.”
“But this is All Hallows Church,” said Karen, “which means . . .”
“. . . it’s more likely that these are based on John Verney’s original designs.”
“Who was John Verney?” Chambers moved the flashlight beam away from the model’s interior.
“He was the maker of Thomas Moreby’s architectural models. Before any large building is undertaken, a scale model is usually constructed. Verney was the one who built such things fo
r Moreby.”
“And he was mixed up in the things Moreby was?”
Dr. Cruttenden frowned. “Much of his life is as mysterious as Moreby’s, and as tragic at the end. Verney also died in a lunatic asylum. In fact, Moreby visited him on several occasions before his death. Records of the time state that Verney claimed to have found a way to travel between worlds, and he made no secret of it to Moreby when he visited at the end.”
“Did these records of yours say how he was able to do that?” Karen was becoming her old self again, now, and her voice echoed off the surrounding stone.
“Not exactly . . . but they do mention that the main reason he was there was because of the things he ate.”
“Ate?” Somehow Chambers knew this wasn’t going to be pleasant.
“It’s nothing too disgusting. He didn’t feast on the flesh of children or anything like that.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Karen. “All the more for Moreby to feed to his giant flea-slave-thing, then.”
“It was fleas that he ate.” As Dr. Cruttenden spoke, Chambers could swear the air got even colder. “Fleas and other insects, and sometimes spiders. But fleas more than anything else. And not the entire insect. He would crush them between finger and thumb and suck at the fluids that burst from them.”
“Thank you so much for that image.” Karen shivered. “I needed something else to scare me as I was starting to feel just a bit too comfortable down here.”
“Don’t mind Miss Shepworth,” said Chambers, returning the journalist’s glare as Dr. Cruttenden started to look upset. “She has her own way of dealing with the stress of this, as we all do. So you think these models could be part of some plan of Moreby’s?”
The lecturer nodded. “He’s probably down here somewhere, and I think these models may hold the key, either to where he is or how he plans to come back. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the bodies in those models are sacrifices that had to be specially prepared before they were interred and these constructs placed around them.”
“But why build more than one?” said Karen. “And sorry for being sarcastic.”
“That’s all right. I think we’re all feeling rather stressed right now.” Dr. Cruttenden gave her a reassuring smile and Chambers angled the flashlight so that Karen could see it. “There might be more than one because whoever did this was trying to get it right, but a more likely explanation is that more than one is required for any transportation ritual to work.”
“So what do we do?”
“We keep going,” said Chambers, shining the flashlight ahead of them. “The plan is to get out, remember? Without releasing those things that we’ve hopefully trapped in the church. Then the authorities can deal with it.”
“You really think they’ll know how? That they’ll even believe us when we tell them what’s happened?” Karen’s voice cut through the darkness. “The first thing they’ll do is open those church doors and then what’s left of Ronnie, Chesney, and Father Traynor will be out. And there’ll be nothing anyone can do to stop them.”
“What should we do, then? Find Moreby’s coffin and destroy it?” Chambers had never felt so lost in his life. He just hoped he didn’t sound it. “And what about Paul? And what they said he’d become? Should we try and find him, or it, as well, and . . . I don’t know . . . kill what he is now?”
“How do you know it can be killed?” Dr. Cruttenden’s voice was calm to the point of cold detachment. “How do you know any of this can be stopped? Perhaps it is as inevitable as the seasons, or evolution. Perhaps this is merely the next step in the life cycle of the Earth, and the final step for the human race, and there’s nothing we can do.”
There was silence from both Karen and Chambers as the horrible realization sank in. Eventually, Chambers spoke. His voice was a dry croak.
“Perhaps,” he said. “But seeing as the alternative is sitting here and either starving or freezing to death, or going back the way we came to literally join our former colleagues, I think I’d rather try keep fighting for now.”
Dr. Cruttenden clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit! Now, even though we’re looking for a way out of here, I think the best thing to do on our journey is try and find out how many of these models there are.”
The third one was made of black marble.
The stone was so dark Chambers walked straight into it, even though he had the flashlight held in front of him. Was the light getting dimmer? He hoped not.
“My God,” Dr. Cruttenden breathed as they examined it in more closely. “It’s absolutely exquisite. It must have been sculpted from a single block. Look at the detail!”
The model was perfect, right down to the layering of individual roof tiles. Within, there were not just pews but a couple of people sitting on them, listening to a priest the size of a matchstick frozen in mid-gesticulation standing on the altar step. On the wall of the north aisle was the image of the Anarch, and on the altar lay something indescribable, made all the more twisted and hideous by the flickering shadows cast by the flashlight. The outline of the inhabitant contained within the construct was more difficult to make out, but it was there.
“What’s that on the altar?” Karen was peering over Chambers’s shoulder. “Is it human or insect?”
“It may well be both,” Dr. Cruttenden replied. “I’m not even sure if it’s safe to look at it for too long.”
“Then let’s not.”
They moved on. Ten minutes later they found themselves facing a wall built from heavy stone blocks. The mortar between them was damp and matted with algae. When it became apparent that the wall went on for some distance, Chambers shone the flashlight back the way they had come, to reveal something none of them had noticed.
“We’ve been descending.”
Dr. Cruttenden was right. It was only obvious when they turned around. Gradually and imperceptibly, the ground on which they had been walking had been sloping downward.
“I wonder how far down we are now?”
The flashlight revealed that, while the floor had sloped, the ceiling had remained level. The wall against which they were standing now extended upward for more than their combined height.
“Can you hear anything?” Karen asked.
Chambers shook his head. “Why?”
“Oh, I was just hoping we might be able to hear the road, that’s all.”
But there was nothing—no traffic and no voices. Just the endless drip of water from somewhere that sounded very far away.
“Standing here isn’t going to get us anywhere.” Dr. Cruttenden was rubbing her hands together as she stated the obvious. “I suggest we get moving again, if only to help my aging circulation.”
Chambers licked his right index finger and held up his hand.
“What are you doing?” Karen asked.
“I was right.” He had suspected it before, but had forgotten when they had come across the first of the models. “It’s been getting colder because there’s a breeze in here.”
Karen followed his gaze. “Could it be coming from where we came in?”
“No. Although it was still bloody cold, it was definitely a bit warmer in the undercroft than it is in here. It could be a way out, or if nothing else, perhaps part of this structure has collapsed into a nearby sewer and we can get out that way.”
Karen actually laughed. “I never thought I’d be happy to hear mention of a sewer.”
Their moment of levity was brief as the beam from the flashlight noticeably dimmed.
“We’d better hurry.” Chambers shook the flashlight, but that didn’t help.
They followed the direction of the breeze for the next quarter of an hour, until they came across the fourth model. This time it was Karen who bumped into it.
“Ouch!” She nursed the cut she sustained on her hand from the sharp angle of the roof. “Since when did stone cut like that?”
“Flint can,” said Dr. Cruttenden, coming to take a closer look at the model. “But that’s
not what this is.” She gave the body of the building a tap and was rewarded with a metallic resonance. “Steel,” she proclaimed. “Or possibly iron—I’m not qualified to say which.”
If anything, the steel version of All Hallows Church was as exquisite as the version rendered in black marble, and even more detailed. It was difficult to see where the individual components had been welded together, and the models within were more accurate than before.
And more terrifying.
“That could almost be Father Traynor,” said Karen, pointing to the tiny metal pulpit.
“I think it is.” Chambers pointed the flashlight to the south transept. “What does all that remind you of?”
“Chesney’s equipment!” Karen gripped his hand. “Which means that the people in the pews are us and . . .”
“. . . the thing on the altar must be Paul, or what was left of him by the time they had finished.”
“But how did they know?” Karen kicked the base of the model. It resonated with a deep clang that reverberated throughout the chamber. “How could they have known? This model is . . . well . . . it’s . . . old.”
Dr. Cruttenden nodded. “It is,” she said. “I can’t say how old, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been here for over a hundred years.”
“So I ask again: how did they know?”
“Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps we’ve been helping shape these as events have unfolded.”
Chambers shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No more so than a lot of what we have already witnessed here. I know I’m just thinking aloud but please, it may offer us either a chance of escape or a chance of stopping this thing. Hopefully both.” Dr. Cruttenden was staring at the steel church. “Imagine these models being placed here, imbued with some power that allows their interiors to alter when the appropriate series of events is put in motion.”
“You mean us coming here?”
“Yes, or farther back. Our meeting in Oxford, or the discovery of those manuscripts. Even the original disturbance of the ground where they were buried might have been enough.”
The Lovecraft Squad Page 22