The longer Brooks spoke, the more his fervor increased. He raised his arms to the ceiling, and his voice grew louder. In the back of the chamber, people in robes started to enter from various passages hewn in the rock.
Brooks continued pontificating. “But the Watcher’s enemies came also from the stars and waged war against him. He threw them down and waylaid their great cities. But the war left the Mighty One weak, so he slept in his glorious city at the bottom of the sea, out of reach, until his power would again be at its fullest.
“That time is coming soon! It is almost here! He will rise from the depths and rule the earth once more. He will reward those of us who served him faithfully and give us dominion over all else.”
The robed worshippers filed into the pews. Many of them wore half-masks over their faces, but others did not. Richard recognized some of them as people he’d seen around Perry’s Landing. Most he didn’t know personally.
Dr. Vogel was there among them. Richard also placed the decrepit Damon Black, who was impossible to miss with that vile cane and an oxygen tank in tow. The old man hobbled in with the assistance of Lucius Mortel and another concealed acolyte. The lawyers made their way to the front row, to the very edge of the water.
As the worshippers entered, they chanted in low, guttural tones. The words they uttered, Richard had heard before. They were the same words Penny had spoken on the cliffs outside Blackwater.
“N’gai, ga’shotheth, mor’golathe’ye. N’gai! Dagoth’he’sthule! Dagoth’he’sthule! Ga’shothethe’ye, mor’golathe’ye!”
Richard reeled with horror. He jerked at the chains, desperately trying to free himself from his bonds.
“George!” he said. “Where’s Penny? What have you done with her? If you’ve hurt her—”
“Quiet now, my boy,” said Brooks. “That caterwauling won’t do. Your wife is just fine. In fact, here she is now.”
One of the robed and masked parishioners—the same one who’d been helping Mortel usher in Damon Black’s dreadful carcass—came forward, moving around the pool. As Penny mounted the platform, she removed her cowl and mask and came to stand in front of her husband.
Stunned, Richard stared at the face of his once-loving wife. She wore the same mesmerized expression she had those nights when he found her sleepwalking.
In unison with the others, Penny chanted the infernal words that made Richard shake with fear.
“Penny!” Richard said. “Wake up, Pen! It’s me! It’s Richard!”
“Save your breath, my boy,” said Brooks. “Penny’s with us now. She belongs to the Old One. She’s come to understand her true destiny, just as you are about to.”
“What are you talking about, you deranged lunatic?” It came out as a snarl. “Penny, get out of here! Run! Save yourself, do you hear me?”
Brooks went on. “She can’t hear you, son. She hears only the call of the Watcher. She was born to serve him as high priestess of his temple. Eugenia Mallow, who was high priestess before her, was not a distant cousin as you were told. She was her grand aunt. The woman you know as Penny is actually Eleanor Mallow.”
Richard reeled as if struck. It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. He wanted to make Brooks shut up, wanted to smash his face in, and make him take it all back.
But Brooks didn’t shut up. “As a child, she was brought up here, among the faithful, but Eleanor’s mother shunned the way of the Old One and ran with her daughter to the cities of the unbelievers. She thought she could escape the Watcher’s call, but the arm of the Old One is long. His servants are always watching, and when the stars were right, Eleanor was called back to take her place as one of us.”
Richard couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He tried to get Penny to acknowledge him, to give some sign of recognition. But all she would do is stare blankly ahead, continually uttering those maddening words.
Brooks wasn’t finished. “I sent my own son into the heathen world to be near Eleanor. We made him forget us but instilled in him the secret knowledge that, when it was time for Eleanor to fulfill her destiny, he would bring her back here, to the island of her birth. And you have done it. I’d hoped that, when you returned, you would also heed the Old One’s call and take your place with us. But whereas Eleanor has, you, my son, have not.”
Richard choked on his rage. What Brooks was saying was impossible, but even as the man was speaking, a series of images began to flash through Richard’s mind. Memories of the past, his past.
He saw himself as a small boy, playing alongside a little girl in the solarium at Blackwater Manor. That same boy exploring the caves of Askuwheteau Island with a younger version of the man who now stood in front of Richard. The boy, slightly older, standing atop the old lighthouse, learning how to operate the lamp. And other memories followed.
Richard realized, with shocking clarity, he was that boy. He was Edward. Edward Brooks.
He remembered it all, then—leaving the island when he was sixteen and being placed with a foster family before eventually being adopted. That was when his life as Richard Cadeau had begun, when he’d had all his memories of Askuwheteau Island replaced with some vague sense of a lonely, troubled childhood.
But even as Richard’s true recollections came flooding back, who he’d been for the past fifteen years did not change. He still felt like Richard Cadeau, not Edward Brooks. And he still loved a girl named Penelope Cadeau, not Eleanor Mallow. And all Richard wanted to do was take his wife and escape from this island and from these crazed people who believed in ancient gods from space.
“Penny!” he said. “You’ve got to remember me, sweetheart. You’re Penny, not Eleanor!”
But Penny continued chanting, no sign of recognition on her face.
“What are they saying?” he said to Brooks.
The man turned and faced the congregants. “Behold! Cower in fear. Lay down and perish, hopeless ones. Behold, the Old One, the Watcher rises!”
Brooks turned back to face Richard. “Edward, my son, I wish you, too, had heeded his call, as Eleanor did. But it seems your role is completed, and your fate will be the same as the unbelievers.”
Richard’s blood went cold. “What fate is that?” he said, dreading the answer he knew was coming.
Brooks’s thin lips formed a tight and near vomit-inducing smile. “Sacrifice, my child. You are to be a gift, my gift to the Old One.”
And with those words, he nodded to Penny (Eleanor?), who drew a curved dagger from beneath her robe and started moving toward Richard. One of the acolytes who’d chained Richard to the beastly statue—the one who wasn’t Tom—ripped Richard’s shirt open, exposing his chest.
Eleanor stopped chanting long enough to say, “You should feel honored.”
And then she cut into Richard’s bare skin.
He screamed as Penny used the blade to draw a crimson shape into his flesh, a circle with four crooked lines extending down from it.
Then the one named Tom pulled a lever on the wall next to the statue, and hidden gears retracted the chains binding Richard’s wrists up into slots in the stone tentacles above. Richard was lifted off the ground, while the chains attached to the manacles on his feet rose up through the holes in the floor.
The gears stopped, and Richard found himself suspended in mid-air. His arms and legs were stretched wide, and his body leaned slightly forward at an angle. Blood dripped from the wound on his chest into a groove on the floor he hadn’t noticed before.
The crimson fluid followed the incline of the sloped platform as it flowed to the pool’s edge and drained into the water. The unholy parishioners intoned louder, working themselves into a frenzy.
Then the water in the pool began to churn and bubble.
“He comes!” said Brooks, euphorically.
Richard didn’t know what was going to come out of that water but was sure he didn’t want to find out. He looked down at the woman he’d known as Penny, his wife. She was gazing at the frothing water, her expression one of almost maniacal
fervor. Richard knew he wouldn’t have another chance to break through to her.
“Penny,” he said, this time trying to inject as much calmness into his voice as he could. “Penny, I know you’re still in there. Listen to my voice. It’s me, Richard.”
She ignored him. The worshippers chanted even more frantically.
Calm hadn’t worked, so Richard screamed. “Penny!” He thought he detected the slightest flinch, just under Penny’s eye.
She’s in there! I knew it!
But how to get through, to break the thrall these people, this thing in the water, had over her? Richard searched his mind and soul for the right thing to say, the right combination of words that would shatter the spell.
Then he saw it, rising up from the pool.
First, two long tentacles lifted out of the water, followed by a third and a fourth. The undulating arms were black and covered with slime. Each was as thick as a telephone pole—not completely round, however, but somewhat flat, like the body of a fluke worm. On the underside of each was what closely resembled the suction cups of a cephalopod but lined with razor sharp spikes like shark teeth. Rows of spines ran along the sides of each tentacle, twitching as if searching for something to shred.
It was all Richard could do to stop from screaming. The sight of the repulsive horror, ascending from the murky deep, almost made him pass out from terror.
“Penny, please!” he said, desperation bleeding from his voice. “Remember the day we met? At Miskatonic? You were reading in the student center, and I stopped to ask you directions to the Humanities building. Only I knew perfectly well where it was. The truth was I saw you there as I was walking by, and I had to talk to you, had to know your name.”
Penny twitched again.
It’s working, Richard thought. I’m getting through!
Brooks, who was watching all this unfold, shouted up at Richard. “It was only the will of the Old One, compelling you to seek out Eleanor.”
“That’s not true, Pen! It can’t be!” said Richard. “I can accept we were meant to find each other, meant to be together, but not because of some monster, not because he says so!”
A black, domed shape broke the surface of the pool, a monstrous cranium with two pupil-less black orbs for eyes. The elephantine head lifted out of the pool, causing seawater to displace onto the platform and onto the pews, soaking the rows of followers, particularly Lucius Mortel and Damon Black. They welcomed the unholy baptism with trembling zeal.
As the creature rose up, Richard saw the tentacles were a part of the thing’s head. They extended out beneath the flat, fleshy section under its eyes where a nose might have been on a person’s face. If this hideously massive form was merely the head of the beast, Richard couldn’t begin to fathom how much more of the creature existed below the surface.
The tentacles parted, revealing a gaping, beaked maw, with row upon row of knife-like teeth, each the size of Richard’s forearm. The monster let out an earsplitting shriek that shook the chamber, causing the chandeliers overhead to swing and sending a wave of pain through Richard’s damaged ear and into his skull.
But the ringing in Richard’s head was more than just pain. It was as if the beast was giving off some kind of psychic energy, boring into Richard’s mind. He could almost feel his sanity slipping from him like sand through grasping fingers.
One of the creature’s tentacles lurched toward Richard and wrapped around his mid-section. He screamed in pain as the blade-like spines tore into him. Richard could feel the barbed suckers gnawing at him mercilessly, exsanguinating him.
He looked down at Penny and saw her looking back at him, her face contorted, struggling (Richard hoped) against the power that held her.
“Ri–Richard?” she said.
Richard gasped. “Penny!”
He tried to reach toward her. He could feel his life slipping away and knew the next words he said might be the last sentiment he’d ever get to express to her.
“All the way … and back again.”
And with those words, Richard’s body slumped in the vile beast’s grasp. His head fell against his chest.
In a flash, Penny’s expression changed to one of sheer horror. She gasped as the monster moved its yawning maw toward Richard’s limp body, clearly intent on devouring the man she then remembered—all too clearly—she loved.
Penny screamed. “NO!”
She threw herself at the terrible thing. Anger filled her as a flood of memories, once suppressed by the god’s psychic energies, rushed over her. Feelings of defiance, mixed with shame and anguish, catapulted her into a boundless fury.
With a cry of seething rage, Penny plunged the dagger—the one she’d used to carve Richard’s skin—into the creature’s eye. She threw all of her strength behind the strike, pushing the blade deeper until her entire forearm was inside the beast’s orb.
The monster roared and lurched. A tentacle flailed and swatted Penny away like she was nothing more than fabric stuffed with straw.
Penny’s body struck one of the structural columns, and she fell onto the platform, badly dazed and barely conscious. The arm she’d used to stab the creature was covered in black gore.
The behemoth released Richard’s body and thrashed its deadly appendages about, maddened by its wounded eye.
Its flailing tentacles slammed into the statue on the platform, smashing it to pieces and sending it crashing to the ground.
Richard fell with it.
Tom and the other cultist who’d been guarding Richard were crushed beneath the toppling hunk of carved stone.
The monster’s bulbous head lurched up, its colossal and unseen body ramming the ceiling of the underwater cavern beneath the chamber. Large cracks formed in the temple floor, allowing the freezing water below to rush into the room.
The cultists scrambled, trying to get away from the wrath of their pagan god. Some escaped through the passageways in the back of the room, but most became trapped when those passages started to collapse before them.
One of the chandeliers broke loose and swung down on a single tether. It struck two of the panicking worshippers, nearly cutting them in half. One of them was Lucius Mortel.
Damon Black was scooped up in one of the monster’s tentacles; his cane with the silver representation of the false god clattered to the ground. The beast thrust the old man down into the icy pool. He never resurfaced.
The creature’s other tentacles were slamming against the structural columns, which crumbled under the crushing force. The ceiling started to come down in pieces as Brooks fell to his knees before the object of his mad devotion, his arms raised in supplication as he begged for mercy.
The god swallowed George Brooks whole.
Penny, badly injured, crawled on her hands and knees over to Richard, who was lying a few feet away, his mangled body bloody and raw where the monster had gripped him.
When Penny reached Richard, she cradled his head in her lap.
“Richard.” Her voice was a soft whisper. “I’m so sorry.” She wept uncontrollably.
Richard’s eyes fluttered open. “Don’t be … not … your fault.”
He gasped, each breath appearing to cause him great pain.
Large pieces of the chamber’s ceiling fell all around them.
“I’m just glad … you remembered us … in the end,” said Richard.
“I’ll never forget again,” Penny said, smiling as mucky tears streamed down her face.
The man and his wife locked eyes and held each other one last time.
The world around them faded away. The raging monster disappeared, and the screams of the panicked cult members dissolved into nothing. Even the falling rocks that were then starting to rain down on their own bodies seemed to cause no pain.
They were together and were transcendent. No man or monster would be able to separate them again.
And for that they were both grateful, to the very end of their days.
TWITCH
I
The boy was alone in the world.
Young Raj’s solitude was a relatively new development, made possible by the very sudden passing of his drug-addled parents.
Passing.
The word implied something peaceful and natural. Their deaths were anything but. They died in agony and in a manner that somehow ended with several pints of blood decorating the walls of the Fleet Street hovel they’d occupied for the previous few weeks.
Raj hadn’t been there when it happened.
Earlier that evening, his father had come in, elated over some new synthetic he’d scored, and the boy had decided to clear out. He didn’t like being around his mother and father when they were hopped up on synth.
When Raj wandered back in, a few hours later, he found his parents lying on the floor, frozen in contorted poses, their faces barely recognizable as anything more than bloody piles of shredded meat.
Raj’s kind weren’t missed when the Reaper Man came knocking. No investigation was conducted by the Constabulary. In fact, the police were a rare sight in the slum referred to as Butcher’s Alley, and when people died there, it was a rare occurrence to see the cops do anything about it. The bodies would pile up in the streets if the other residents weren’t sufficiently motivated to make sure the place didn’t end up smelling worse than it already did.
Raj thought he’d been the one to discover his parents’ bodies, but that must not have been the case. Raj was later told by one of the neighbors that a priest had come, presumably to offer last rites. But the neighbor couldn’t tell Raj who summoned the priest. Raj supposed it didn’t matter. The sacrament was the only ceremony his parents’ deaths would receive.
Within an hour, a trio of burly men, with handkerchiefs tied tightly over their mouths, carted off the bodies. Raj followed the men as they carried the corpses to the basement and tossed them into a large furnace. No words were said over the bodies. No one made any effort to comfort Raj or tell him what he should do then. And at thirteen, he was completely by himself.
The Lurkers & Other Strange Tales Page 6