by P. W. Child
“Where are we now?” Nina panted, falling against Gretchen as the thing shrieked through the water again, shaking the vessel with such intense vibration that Sam woke from his unconsciousness.
“I think we are just past Cruden Bay!”
“Where the fuck is Cruden Bay?” Nina bellowed over the bludgeoning taking place at the bow around the companionway of the vessel.
“Just off the coast of Aberdeen, round about!” Gretchen reported.
The entire front of the submarine was being crushed like a discarded beer can and the clank of it was unlike anything the occupants had ever heard. It sounded like a plane crash right in front of them, sending panic through all four of them.
“Jesus Christ! We’re going to die!” Nina screamed, nearly falling, as she trudged her way to Sam. “Sam! Wake up! We have to bail, I don’t care how!”
“That is preposterous, Nina!” Richard shouted.
“The whole fucking boat is coming apart, Richard! Now, you are welcome to go Free Willy with your own bloody monster, but we are getting out of here before it crushes us to death and we drown!” she barked.
“And how are we going to get to the coast without being caught by the creature?” he asked, reminding Nina that it was hardly a stone’s throw from the deep sea to the coast.
“I’ll take my chances,” Nina said, helping Sam to sit up. “Sam! Sam, can you hear me?”
He nodded, but his skin was on fire from the fever, his brain burning with disorientation. Gretchen stumbled toward them, “Come! Aft!”
“Sam?” Nina said in his ear. “Are you strong enough to come with us? Can you walk?”
He nodded, and she was elated to feel his fingers locking over her forearm. With much trouble he blinked to stretch his eyes enough to guide him along with Nina and Gretchen.
“Richard! Are you coming?” Gretchen called back to him, as the three of them crossed the doorway into the passage to head to the back of the submarine.
“Leave him behind if he wants to stay,” Nina said. Gretchen shook her head, admitting that she had been wrong to trust him. She looked back through the door and saw the tall, thin man on his knees, gathering up the scattered books with unnatural patience, almost reverence, regardless of the peril he was in. Another growl echoed from all around the vessel, shaking the bolts and vibrating through the breaking vents.
“Oh, my God! It is everywhere now!” Gretchen cried.
“It is wrapped around us,” Sam muttered. “I can almost feel its breath on me.”
“No, Sam. That is your fever,” Gretchen soothed him. The two women exchanged looks as they made it to the mess room.
“I’m so hungry,” Sam remarked, as they traversed the mess hall and all its utensils strewn across the counters and floor. Nina ran her fingers through his wet, black hair.
“Me too, love,” she said softly, her words drowning in the next thunderous bellow of the freakish, squid-like colossus. The women screamed and instinctively bent their knees to cower with Sam in the middle.
“Where are we going?” Sam asked. All he could see was pipes and knobs and rails against old plating of iron and copper, gauges, and rust. He had no idea if he was awake or asleep, dead or alive. All he knew was that he had to bear forward, because that was where Nina’s sweet voice was beckoning from. His buckling legs made him heavier for the two girls flanking him, carrying him onward.
“We are going to the escape hatch, Sam. I just hope to God that we get there before this slippery Cthulu bitch mashes the back of the boat into our bodies,” Gretchen said. Behind them came a tapping sound that propelled them forward.
“What the hell is that?” Gretch gasped as they accelerated their pace.
“Something is tapping on the steel! For fuck’s sake, like we don’t have enough shit with this thing,” Nina puffed. The rhythmic tapping grew louder along with the mighty crack and subsequent hiss they heard in their wake. The two women looked at each other in terror at the sound.
“I think that is water rushing in,” Gretchen announced. “I can’t go any faster.”
“Ladies, let me try to test my legs and you can go ahead!” Sam told them, even among their protests to let him go. He unhooked his arms from them and pushed them forward with force, but he stumbled. As he went down, he was scooped up by the pale-faced Richard. His tapping footsteps came behind them all this time while he shouldered the sling bag. With it he had also collected their possessions.
“Richard! You are here!” Gretchen shouted, almost smiling.
“Thanks, Pasty,” Sam murmured.
“Don’t mention it, Mr. Cleave,” Dr. Philips answered with a crack of a smile. “I have managed to collect all our cell phones and IDs,” he reported as they approached the hatch. “They are secured in the plastic wrapping of the Purely Scottish six pack, so I hope that keeps them dry.”
“Thank you so much, Richard! You did us a hell of a job!” Nina cried out as the water thundered down the length of the submarine, catching up with them rapidly.
“Here! Here!” Gretchen shouted and stopped.
At their feet the water rose at an alarming rate, moving toward their knees and thighs. Sam whimpered at the freezing cold water on his scalded skin, as Nina struggled to loosen the hatch.
“It’s rusted, I think! It won’t budge!” she shouted back down to them. Without a moment’s hesitation Richard left Sam’s side to jolt up the ladder behind Nina, and, like the monster sea creature wrapped itself around the vessel, the tall man covered her small body entirely with his to reach up to the hatch.
“How close are we to the surface, Gretchen?” he asked.
“Close enough! About four meters from the hatch to the fresh air above,” she answered.
“I hope you’re right, Gretch. If that thing has not yet turned us topsy-turvy yet,” Nina worried. Both Sam and Gretch gave her a negative shake of the head.
“Please, don’t even go there, doll.”
The deafening clap of what sounded like cannons assaulted their ears. Stunned, the party looked at one another, shrugging, and frowning in hopeless perplexity at the rising, white foam of the salt water. Richard managed to unlock the hatch with a bit of toil, but he did not open it yet.
“Everyone ready? Hold on to something until you are completely submerged and then swim out,” he suggested and they all made ready to go under. Around the lid of the hatch the foaming water started to pour in, in a perfect waterfall circle. He nodded one last time as the immense clap of thunder sounded again, shaking the powerful body of steel as if it were a flimsy pencil case. Nina and Sam held hands, and with Gretchen holding on to Nina’s sling bag, they sucked in their last breath for the next few minutes, hopefully not their last ever.
The ice-cold North Sea swept into the small compartment where they stood, assaulting their bodies with frigid smothering liquid that fell hard on their heads and shoulders before swallowing them. Their feet began to lift off the floor as gravity gave way to the cool blue and slowly peeking out before leaving the vessel, they emerged one by one into the great and dangerous expanse. Escaping the submarine successfully without getting crushed was one success, but what bothered Nina most was laying eyes on the thing that was eating the boat. Her heart could not take such a vision, she knew, and her friends felt much the same. Another clap pulsed through the water, propelling the half-drowning bunch out of orbit. Much as they tried to stay together, there was chaos in the water.
Profusely paddling to go up to the bright sunrays that streaked though the surface, the group could all see one another. In their observation, they also could not ignore the strange massive bubbling spears of great force falling at the same trajectory around them. The slipstream of these white fizzing shafts challenged the group’s ability to stay their course upward, but their survival instinct was far stronger.
One by one, Sam, Nina, Gretchen, and Richard broke the surface, inhaling deeply at the relief of oxygen above the watery hell. Around them was a sight they would never have
expected. On the water off the coast of Aberdeen several Navy vessels along with the Coastguard rode the swells. Above them, the Royal Naval Air Squadron Sea King Mk5 hovered over two Type 26 global combat ships, pumping an arsenal of Mk45 Mod 4 shells at the enemy vessel that showed up in local waters and would not return communication.
Only when their sonar picked up the obliterating sounds of the perceived vessel, did they realize that it was not a military assault, but something a little more alarming. From the radar readings, the thing moved immensely fast for its colossal size. They never even noticed the body of the HMS Trident that was crumpled and sinking quietly into the depths off the Aberdeen shoreline. Relieved beyond measure, Nina and Sam watched as the Coastguard rescue boat approached the four of them. Richard was paddling just behind them, casting a glance into the depth beneath him every now and then. Gretchen, a strong swimmer, had already reached the other rescue boat.
“Thank God, Sam, now you can get to a hospital,” Nina gasped over the lapping waves that crashed against her face. Sam felt his brain darkening from the exertion and put his head against Nina, “And not a moment too soon either.”
Chapter 38
Purdue used his flashlight to find some sort of lighting, perhaps oil lamps as he had expected. Of course he could use his night vision to explore the library, but that would be very taxing on his eyes. Agatha followed him closely using her night-vision goggles. She was as amazed as he was, neglecting her attention on the surroundings every now and then to watch her step.
“Are you seeing what I am seeing?” he asked her.
“Yep,” she replied. Their voices echoed in the vast chamber of unrivaled knowledge capacity. By what they could perceive, the place covered more than a square mile just on the level they found themselves on. He pulled out his tablet to take a series of snapshots of the place.
“That is not allowed,” a voice said from somewhere in the limitless darkness around them. Agatha squealed momentarily with fright. Purdue used his pen-like contraption to use as a spyglass in the dark. Through the myriad shelves he scanned, but there was nothing. He looked for an old man, because that was what the voice sounded like, yet he found nothing. “If you make the existence of this library known, there will be trouble.”
“That’s an understatement,” Purdue jested under his breath.
“Yes, it is. I could impart to you of course the full extent of hell you would bring onto your primitive world if you reported this site,” it said again, but from another direction entirely, prompting Purdue and his sister to swing around and resume their search. Purdue put away his tablet.
“Who are you?” Purdue asked.
“And how on earth do you move about in this utterly irritating darkness?” Agatha added casually.
“I don’t need light. The dark has never bothered me,” it replied civilly.
“Would you mind supplying us with some light, though?” Purdue asked. He was amazed that his pounding heart was acting on excitement and not an ounce of fear.
“Certainly,” it said, and before the words were done echoing, the large hall was illuminated with bright light, illuminating the stacks of neatly arranged shelves in all their splendor.
“Aren’t you worried that we might be armed or something? You are rather casual about the level of arcanum you are hoarding here,” Agatha asked. She looked at her brother with a look of enlightenment, “David! That’s what the chiseled ‘ARC’ in the rock wall meant—arcanum.”
“That is correct!” the voice said, but now it had a distinctly female charge to it, although it was without a doubt the same voice.
“May we see you face to face?” Purdue asked. “It’s common courtesy, since you can see us.”
“Your assumptions are truly human,” it said. “The only courtesy I owe you, strangers, intruders, is that I do not kill you in your tracks. Furthermore, you cannot see me . . . ‘face to face’ . . . because I have none.”
Agatha could feel her skin shiver at the thoughts of what that could mean and she moved closer to her brother. Purdue looked at Agatha with the same unnerved expression, but he laid a hand on her arm to comfort her.
“Now, why are you here? You cannot be too idiotic if you managed to find us the hard way,” the voice informed them.
“The hard way?” Purdue asked.
“Why, yes, the star charts and points of reference by spire and tower. I must commend you. It was well deciphered. For that alone I decided not to rip you limb from limb for the intrusion. You deserved at least an audience for your efforts,” it said conversationally, almost coming across as amicable.
“David, it can rip us limb from limb. Let’s just leave,” Agatha whispered.
“You cannot leave. Once you have seen the Library of Forbidden Books you can never be trusted to go back to your erratic and regressed world with this knowledge,” it said.
We’ll see about that, Purdue’s mind kicked in.
“I only came for referencing, not to remove anything,” Purdue tried his luck, but he was up against an intelligence that surpassed knowledge and mind games. Agatha clasped her hands over her brother’s arm.
“How can you hear everything I say? It really is quite rude, you know!” Agatha barked, while her brother’s terrified stare reprimanded her for her arrogant insinuation.
“I am knowledge. I know all. Secrets are mere whispers of the mind. I can hear everything that is thought,” the voice went male again.
“May we at least ask for a morsel of knowledge about who . . . or what . . . you are?” Purdue asked respectfully, secretly pressing his record button on his tablet in his pocket.
“I believe I just told you,” it said bluntly. “I am the librarian.”
“Ha! Just like me,” Agatha chirped.
“But are you a subliminal manifestation? Or do you in fact exist externally?” Purdue persisted.
“Is there a difference?” it asked. “The closest humankind ever came to understanding the bigger scheme of things, was when men experimented with the basic knowledge they possessed to seek out what other men dared not. From what I remember, those wicked men who tested the unified field theory came very close to understanding that not all reality is tangible.”
“Unified field theory?” Agatha asked in a whisper.
“The SS,” Purdue quickly mouthed back to her.
“Unfortunately, the human race is far too inadequate in temperament and wisdom to be allowed this knowledge, save for a few of those men who hid the library here. Others, the magnitude of humankind, lack the insight and ambition to find the truth. They are held back by religion and other fabricated rules that impair their capacity to seek,” the voice explained.
“They put you down here? If you are wisdom, you could surely devise a way to escape,” Agatha challenged the librarian again. Her curiosity was steering her attitude in a dangerous direction.
“Escape from where? I am not restricted to geographical location like you are,” it argued.
“That must be really neat,” Agatha smiled with a nod of approval.
“Oh, it is,” the librarian replied.
“Excuse me,” Purdue interrupted, “what do you mean we came here the hard way?”
“You utilized the physical option, when you could have employed what the Nazis did when they hid the library from the world for their own gain. They used something very similar to unified field theory—physics. Remember the experiment on the USS Eldridge?” the voice asked, sounding a bit like an old woman through its electrical vocal cords. “Only there, the aim was invisibility, while these officers and scientists used a wormhole.”
“Bending space,” Purdue marveled to himself.
“Correct. I suppose you do not possess the information missing from this library, then,” speculated the librarian.
“Missing information?” Purdue asked.
“In 1939 the records contained herein were ransacked by three SS officers and one Allied turncoat, said to be part of some clandestine operation
to use the properties of physics and science to commit global genocide and return the Earth to its former masters,” the voice rambled, while Purdue reached into his diving suit for a pod-like device he had invented for situations just like this one. It had but one switch, fitted on a pod the size of a tennis ball, and its deflective materials made it impossible to detect by any tracking device or electrical interference.
“That sounds familiar,” Agatha remarked.
“It is happening again, I assume,” the librarian said, and Agatha affirmed with a nod.
“How did they get away with the information? Why did you not kill them?” Purdue asked.
“They wrote it down in boxes of paper sheets bound together. It was undetectable by the advanced electromagnetic currents of the library, but once they were discovered they used their miniscule acquaintance of the Einstein-Rosen bridge theory to teleport elsewhere,” the librarian revealed.
“Books. Common books foiled your defenses?” Agatha asked with a measure of self-righteous boast for her beloved books versus her brother’s technology.
“Yes, but there was a price, of course. All three German soldiers—Mannheim, Schaub, and Kretz—disappeared without a trace, obviously failing to predict the outcome of their space-time wormhole. They took their books with them to wherever they ended up. But they used the Allied officer to obtain passage through the portal. A sacrifice, if you will,” it continued its sermon to satisfy their curiosity.
“Did he die? The Allied soldier?” Agatha asked.
There was a long silence.
“His flesh did, I suppose. But the consciousness is energy and cannot be destroyed,” the librarian explained, and with more distinct emphasis on its words, it added slowly, “Only when its energy is displaced or its properties altered, could it be undone from its current state.”
Purdue took note of its deliberate message. And with a flick of the switch, the eccentric inventor pushed his sister out of the way and placed the pod on the floor. The electromagnetic pulse rendered the librarian and all electrical currents powerless and the Library of Forbidden Books was unguarded for Purdue’s scavenging.