Necropolis: Book 5: R'lyeh

by Michel Weatherall

  She wept, prayed to God, cursed God's name, panicked, ran herself to physical exhaustion. Veronica had extinguished all of her emotions. There was nothing left to feel. Her dirty face had mock warpaint on her cheeks; clean areas where the tears were. She felt nothing.

  Miles offshore, a mighty American warship sprayed death at an alien swarm of aberrations. From her position – the sounds of battle and death subdued – it became like watching some sort of deviant dance. She knew the ship had seen her flare. She knew the swarm of monsters were the obstacle. She no longer cared which won. It wasn't that she welcomed death. She felt nothing. Empty. It didn't matter.

  * * *

  “Sir? The creatures have broken... formation,” the bridge officer struggled with the last word as he reported to the Admiral. Where the Shoggoth swarm had once acted extremely organized, like they were of a unified body, a hive-mind possibly, now, suddenly, chaos reigned – anarchy! Many of the soaring behemoths dropped from the sky, slamming into the ocean with mighty splashes. Others fled, making their way back towards Leaman's Island.

  “Concentrate our fire on the creatures retreating to the island!” the Admiral ordered, his Southern drawl more pronounced in his excitement. “There's survivors on that island!

  “Get any intel from the Curtis Wilbur and John S. McCain. We need to know why they're running,” he spoke to the communication officer.

  “Make sure our medics and sick bay are ready. Prepare to take on casualties and survivors from the Curtis Wilbur. Clear a path for those lifeboats!”

  “Sir!” the com officer interrupted, “I'm putting Sentinel on.”

  Sentinel: “New orders. Priority is attempted capture of a live Shoggoth. All resources should be dedicated to -”

  “Negative, Sentinel,” the Admiral cut the orbiting A.I. off. “Priority is towards our men, survivors, and to completion of mission. Yamayuki file is to be secured or destroyed.”

  Sentinel: “Synchronicity Mandate authorized...”

  “Shut if off,” the Admiral commanded the com officer.

  “Sir... I, I can't,” the com officer stammered while toggling through several menus, “Sentinel... Sentinel's overridden communication's controls.”

  “...all military and naval resources fall under jurisdiction of...” Sentinel droned on.

  A second radio signal came through, its static interrupting Sentinel's primary channel: “...is Commander James Leaman of the... CSIS. Secret file is inaccessible... -puter systems corrupted. Any vessel receiving... call. Open fire... the Yamayuki. I repeat, open fire upon the Yamayuki.”

  “Son, pull up information on this Leaman.”

  Sentinel was quicker than the officer. “Commander James Leaman. Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Ottawa, Canada. MIA ten years ago. He was aboard the JS Yamayuki, DD-129 when it was struck by the Tsunami of November 7, 1994. All hands lost. Final mission under authority of CSIS-SAT-RCMP-JTF: Code name: Foxhunt.”

  The Admiral continued talking over Sentinel. “Son, clean up that signal. I -”

  “Got it , sir...”

  “...destroy the Yamayuki,” Leaman finished, his voice less static and tinny.

  * * *

  The ship was moving, accelerating as Tamara teleported onto the USS John S. McCain's deck. Men, sailors, and soldiers scrambled about the decks, but they were anything but organized. Madness reigned – chaos! Some were screaming, others running aimlessly, and others still attacked one another.

  Tamara immediately summoned that inter-dimensional window. She needed her mother! No sooner had the window opened than the Remnant-Marie screamed at something behind Tamara.

  The tiny ten-year old Japanese girl turned only to see a pair of drooling lunatics racing towards her, their hands stained red, their murderous intent etched into their insane faces.

  The Remnant-Marie's pounding was futile as she screamed her denial. There was no breaching the inter-dimensional window.

  Tamara's face grimaced with determination as she released a psychic concussion wave. The two lunatics were launched across the American destroyer's deck like leaves caught in an autumn's blustery windstorm. One crashed into the ship's superstructure, the other mashing into a running madman, the pair tumbling overboard! She had no time for this!

  “Tamara!” roared her mother, “Don't!”

  Tamara blanketed the warship with her mind, searching for any telltale sign of Krulgh. The ship was masked in the Star-Spawn's obscuring mental miasma. Nothing was obvious. Everything was in shades of obscurity... and that was exactly what she was looking for!

  There! In the lower cargo bay, the blanketing obscurity was thickest!

  “Tamara,” the Remnant-Marie's voice was barely recognizable in her fear, “Don't!”

  Tamara teleported.

  * * *

  The cargo hold was dark when Tamara appeared. She could hear sounds, shuffling, gibbering in the shadows. Immediately she again summoned the inter-dimensional window; her mother. She needed her mother beside her.

  “Tamara-” the Remnant-Marie began.

  “Shhh!”

  The gibbering from the darkness became more pronounced, more agitated. The shuffling became more animated. Not only was the cargo hold bathed in Stygian darkness, Tamara was psychically blind in Krulgh's mental miasma. She could see and sense nothing.

  Tamara took the luxury of a deep breath and slowly, quietly, exhaled.

  As she suddenly clapped her hands together, white light burst from the energy in her hands. The cargo hold was bathed in a hard light – only hard edges and etched outlines were visible, putting everything a stark contrast.

  In the all too brief flash of light Tamara saw more than she needed. Krulgh loomed above her, its rudimentary wings spread, its shoulders and back arched over her, ready to pounce! Tamara was aware of the other men in the room but hadn't the time to count. As the Star-Spawn lunged at her she released a fear driven and unrestrained concussion wave.

  Crates and metal storage containers thundered, echoed, and screeched as they pounded against the outer bulkheads of the hold. She heard the wet thumps of bodies caught in the blast. Although Krulgh attempted its strange shifting, its outré movement shimmering, the alien Star-Spawn had nowhere to evade the shock wave. Its bulk was far too massive to be blown back, but its flesh peeled from its alien bones. Its painful squeal reverberated deafeningly through the metal chamber. But no sooner had the damage been done than its gelatinous flesh reformed!

  Its retched hand, the same size as Tamara, violently latched onto her chest and around her shoulders! It struck her so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of her!

  “No! No!! NO!!” her mother slammed her ectoplasmic form against the impenetrable barrier, “TAMARA!”

  Tamara knew her teleportation was severely affected so close to the alien Star-Spawn, but she didn't need to travel far. She teleported, blinking out of the monster's grip.

  “Tamara! No! NO!”

  She reappeared only a short distance beside Krulgh, but still within the monstrosity's reach.

  The Remnant-Marie's panic had peaked! Her words became feral animal noises; her form shifting into nightmare manifestations of her worry and fury!

  In her controlled panic, Tamara opened a Gatesphere, its ebony boundary rushing past them all, encompassing the ship's cargo hold.

  The Remnant-Marie's voice was filled with dread and horror. “No! Tamara, NO! It'll only trap you!”

  * * *

  Something was wrong. The USS John S. McCain showed no sign of damage or being under attack. There should have been no order given for radio silence. It made no sense. The lifeboat's radio link simply just went dead. In the open waters half way between the crippled and sinking Curits Wilbur and John S. McCain something just didn't sit right.

  It was a large rigid-hulled lifeboat. Thirty-seven feet long with its own radio, electronic equipment and supplies. He had time. They weren't obligated to rush to the other ships. He'd wait it out. Something was amiss.


  Lt-Cmdr Murdock knew the men were beginning to worry. He issued some orders, tasks he wanted done, supply inventories, head-counts, and other make-busy work; keep the men busy. Keep them occupied. No time to worry.

  But more worrying was the boy. Still unconscious and unresponsive, now his blood-pressure was dropping. Murdock rescinded command of the lifeboat to another officer, his task as a medic taking precedence.

  As he unpackaged the extensive medical kit and equipment he spoke to the boy under his breath, “Come on. We can pull outta this.” He gave the blond boy an injection. “Stay with me.”

  As Lt-Cmdr Murdock was attaching the heart-monitor onto the young boy he heard commotion on the boat – yelling, and guns being cocked!

  A strange black man was on board. His hazel eyes wide with concern. Murdock had no idea where he could have come from. He was dressed in what could only be described at ancient desert-nomad clothing. The soldiers surrounded him, their sidearms drawn. They were shouting at him to put his weapon down and lay face-down on the deck.

  It wasn't clear whether the stranger understood English, but he carefully put the staff he carried down. He seemed to be armed with no other weapons.

  “On the ground!” a soldier yelled. “Do it! Do it now!” His face was flushed, adrenalin pumping.

  “שהשלום יהיה עימך. התכוונתי לא לך נזק" the black man spoke. He raised his hands, but not in a gesture of surrender. His eyes seemed to catch and reflect the noon-hour sun, near iridescent sparkles of green and gold twinkled as he ever so slowly and placidly lowered his hands, making a downward pushing motion. In unison, the soldiers surrounding him lowered their weapons, the fear and stress visibly dissipating from their faces.

  The strange black man gently and quietly spoke a single word, “Shalom.”

  Lt-Cmdr Murdock was shocked. That wasn't the word he heard. It was foreign, Hebrew possibly. And as if on cue, the strange black man made eye contact with him.

  “אתה בטוח ממני”

  “You are safe from me.” His words echoed in Lt-Cmdr Murdock's mind.

  “אנא, הרשה לי לעזור לילד. אני מביא שום נזק.”

  “Please, allow me to help the boy. I bring no harm.”

  Lt-Cmdr Murdock nodded subtly and slowly sat back. A sense of peace and relief flooded through him.

  The strange ebony man moved forward carefully, his hand on his chest as he spoke, his accent thick: “Moshe.” He knelt down beside the blond boy keeping his eyes on Lt-Cmdr Murdock, seemingly waiting for a sign of permission.

  The Lt-Cmdr had nearly stated his last name but caught himself. It just didn't feel right or appropriate. “Robert,” he said with his hand on his chest. Then he nodded his approval.

  “Dante,” his foreign accent framed the name queerly as he pointed at the boy. Then Moshe lay his hands on Dante. His eyes glowed but it was not overly pronounced in the noon-hour sun. Moshe had the power to heal him... but there was no apparent damage done... there was nothing to heal... Dante was dead.

  * * *

  Krulgh turned to face Tamara. In her desperation the young girl had sealed her fate. If Krulgh had a face it would have laughed. It could sense the girl's fear. It knew she had no where to run now. The Star-Spawn could taste her mother's helplessness, her unbridled and delicious fear! It would savour her death! It would revel in her mother's horror and angst as she watched helplessly. It would luxuriate in this pocket-universe between the worlds, fleecing her flesh from her living body, relishing her juvenile screams!

  The Remnant-Marie became unhinged at her daughter's endangerment. Driven frantic, driven beyond emotions, beyond instincts. Tapping into the deepest darkness that lurked in the heart of Man and Alien alike, her ectoplasmic form morphed and raced faster than the eye could follow. Like a nightmare caught in a strobe-light she thrashed and pounded against the dimensional window, becoming an incarnation of madness itself.

  Even Tamara was frightened by what she saw beyond the window, second guessing her choice of actions.

  Breathlessly Tamara pushed her hands apart, mimicking an opening motion, while her metaphysical mind opened the portal.

  An echo of the Outer Chaos, the Remnant could find no existence within our universe, but within the confines of this pocket-universe? Within the half-way world of the Gatesphere, the Remnant-Marie could find existence! In this shadowy-realm between worlds, this Ghost-of-Sheol could manifest all of her nightmarish anguish and angst!

  An echo, a remnant, a ghost, a byproduct, a memory of the Marie Gibbons she used to be, now her polymorphic ectoplasmic form took on a new life all its own! No longer a Remnant, now her madness blossomed into a Revenant!

  It was only during the war with the Old Ones millions of years ago that Krulgh ever experienced anything close to fear. But that was more akin to doubt and uncertainty. Krulgh understood fear in others – it thrived off it. But this emotion was wholly new to the alien monstrosity. For the first time in its existence, it knew fear.

  A thing that used to be Tamara's mother raced into the pocket-universe that was the Gatesphere, faster than anything human could possibly move. A creature, an afterthought, a byproduct of the Outer Chaos, the ordered temporal laws of our Universe held no sway over her. Krulgh's time-saddling nature was naught.

  Her first sweeping taloned attack tore half of Krulgh's face off, its hanging tentacles shredded to dangling pulp! Its scream was shrill! This time its alien flesh did not regenerate, contaminated by the essence of the Outer Chaos. Its sponge-like skull exposed, it attempted to protect itself with a raised arm only to have it viciously ground to a spaghetti-like mess!

  The thing that was Tamara's mother roared with blood lust. Krulgh desperately tried to escape, stumbling and falling on its back, exposing its bloated and inflated bladder-like abdomen.

  Marie, a Ghost-of-Sheol, was driven past the edge of sanity in fear for her beloved daughter, Tamara. There would be no quarter given. There would be no mercy.

  “Kill. Douleur. Vemichtung. Pain. Muerte. Tuer. Dolor. Mort. Töten. Death!” she screamed like a banshee, language lost in her raging fit as she fell upon Krulgh, her bone-claw scythe hands piercing its guts and flailing and thrashing wildly.

  Blood, ichor, jelly, organs, and soft tissues resembling the dead and sun baked things that died in tidal pools exploded from the Star-Spawn's ruptured belly, and still it screamed! It howled in its torture! It begged, but still the insanity that was Tamara's mother continued to bore deeper through its flesh! It wept to its god Cthulhu, and for the briefest moments Tamara caught a glimpse of its god! Dead but somehow dreaming. Somehow stirring!

  Buried up to her hanches like a tick, Krulgh desperately tried to grab what could only have been her legs, but with a single motion she carved its arm off and raked what was left of its head. The sea-conch shell-like head shattered and split, its soft innards spilling out. Krulgh's body spasmed and finally lay still. Its wailing cries stopped. The last Cthulhu Star-Spawn died.

  The insanity that used to be Marie exhumed itself from the violated corpse, violently tearing itself from its clinging entrails and sinew. Blood sprayed off it as it thrashed its demonic head about, searching the confines of the Gatesphere, its rage and blood-lust unsatisfied.

  “Mama?” Tamara cried, hope having already fled. She sensed nothing of her mother in the horror before her. With inhuman speed the thing bolted towards her. Tamara collapsed the Gatesphere.

  A fractured memory, a ghost, the Remnant could find no existence outside the Pocket-universe the Gatesphere allowed. With it extinguished what remained of the Remnant-Marie simply ceased to exist. Like a light-switch turned off, she was just gone.