Nathrotep

by William H. Nelson

  “Terry!”

  He punctuated his lingering scream with a shot that blasted the head off the lead creature, sending it reeling into the onrushing tide of its feral companions. They cringed back with hisses of rage, and then, much to his continued horror, stopped to devour their fallen comrade while still others leapt forward. Grasping the gun by the barrel, tears sprang up in his eyes as he stood protectively over Terry. He would use the weapon as a crude club; none of these foul creatures would touch her as long as he was yet alive! But there were so many of them! He knew his chances were slim as he glared at the howling cluster of demons, but he would fight them all, fight them to the very brinks of Hell itself!

  His laughter rang out in the chamber as he waded forward into the mob, swinging the shotgun in huge, bone-crushing arcs.

  Then a blast of energy threw him to the ground. As he slammed into the rocky floor, the air was driven from his lungs and his eyes were instantly drawn to Jarrod’s detestable-looking wand. It flared with power, a putrescent glow pulsing from the obscene foot that was fastened to its end. The murmuring creatures fell back before its sullen radiance, unsure of themselves, and this proved to be their undoing; the energy lashed out, catching them all in its crackling embrace. The screaming that arose as they burned was such an eruption of hellish sound that it brought a grim smile to Williams’ battered face. Then, those few that survived, poured off through the darkened tunnels, seeking their escape. The destruction had been so great that there were piles of twisted corpses littering the floor all around him, the sheer magnitude of scorched bodies making him laugh in crazed disbelief.

  Struggling to his knees, he moved to cradle Terry’s head in his lap. The light of the wand was slowly fading, but its soft glow still reflected off her bruised and bloodied features. Cursing himself for a fool, he ripped strips of cloth from his shirt and cleaned away the blood and grime before binding her forehead with a makeshift bandage. It was the best that he could do for now. Weeping uncontrollably, he moaned over and over in a low voice as he sat rocking back and forth. His stupidity had led them to this; he should have known to bandage her wounds long ago. Now, the loss of blood and rigors of their horrendous task had taken their toll. It was a miracle she was even still alive.

  He sat that way for a time, keening into the empty spaces of the cavern while the smoke of the burning dead rose all around him.

  19

  Loathsome creatures leaped and gibbered as they chased Terry through glowing, rune-encrusted tunnels. With her heart pounding and her throat full of dust, she fled down the ancient corridors, but the filthy creatures loped along just behind her, their milky eyes burning as they barked out their hungry desires. She knew she must keep running or suffer a fate worse than death, yet the warren was an endless maze that offered her no escape.

  The tunnel twisted in on itself, spinning around, and she was caught like a leaf on the wind, spiraling in dizzying circles as she flew across a foreign sky lit by unknown stars.

  As she clawed her way up from the depths of the nightmare, she could hear a high-pitched moaning in the air above her. With a small cry, she slapped at the scaly hand caressing her cheek, shrinking away from its sickening touch. But it was no use; she was too sluggish, too addled by fear to put much force behind the blows. She tried to roll away, but then realized there was someone speaking to her.

  The words were rough and blurry, at once familiar, yet somehow strange. As recognition blossomed within her fractured mind, she ceased her feeble struggling.

  So, they weren’t dead after all.

  Williams was trying to sound reassuring, but the effect was ruined by the hoarseness of his voice. Relaxing into his embrace, she decided she didn’t want to open her eyes just yet. After the horrible events of the last few hours it was a relief just to rest for a moment.

  However, it wasn’t much of a reprieve; she could still feel the cuts and bruises that throbbed across her entire body. As she drew in a deep, steadying breath, her senses were filled with the smells of rotten vegetation, gun powder, and the lingering stench of burning flesh. It broke the spell of her lethargy and she snapped fully awake, cracking her eyelids open to peer cautiously around.

  Williams was leaning over her, cradling her head in his lap.

  “W-what happened?” she mumbled.

  He gazed down at her, his eyes haunted by the shadows of doubt.

  “The wand,” he finally replied. “It... did something to them. Before that... well, I think you must have fainted.”

  With a groan, she pushed herself up, scanning their surroundings. The moss and lichens had been somehow blackened and there were a great deal of smoking carcasses laying in piles all around her. The sight of so much carnage sickened her, as did the disgusting slime of the mushrooms that she’d crushed beneath her. The odorous pulp clung to her clothing, resisting her halfhearted attempts to wipe it away. Wincing, she reached for her pack and dragged it over. Her throat felt dryer than desert sand and her stomach was roiling with nausea.

  Taking out a bottle of water, she opened it before raising it to her lips to take a long swallow. Then, she slid away from Williams, attempting to draw the tatters of her scattered intellect together enough to function. He watched, his features twisted in confusion, as she picked up her gun and ejected the clip with trembling hands.

  “How long was I unconscious?” she asked, digging around in the pack for a box of ammo.

  “I-I’m not sure – about two or three minutes I’d guess.”

  The quaver in his voice caught her by surprise, and she turned to study him. He was staring at her as if she’d just sprouted a third eye. “What?” she demanded.

  With a shaking hand, he reached out to stop her from loading the clip. “It’s my fault; I should have been paying better attention.”

  Puzzled, she tilted her head to one side. “What do you mean?”

  He gestured at her head. “Your wounds! You might have bled to death, and it’s all my fault. I should have been more focused, more aware of what was going on around me. When you fell from the ledge, I didn’t even know what to do. I just attacked those creatures and tried to keep them off you. But after the wand’s energy had consumed them, all I could think of was how badly you’d been hurt. I should have done something for you earlier, helped you before you’d lost so much blood...”

  As she listened to his anguished confession, her free hand moved to explore the ragged bandage tied around her forehead. It was sloppily done and caked with blood, but she felt her heart swell with compassion.

  “Barnaby,” she said gently. “Don’t. Don’t take this all onto yourself. I wasn’t thinking about my wounds either, at least not in any rational way. This place, it’s affecting us both. If you have to blame someone, then blame me; I was the one who convinced you to come here. But this ritual, these creatures – I think we’re in way over our heads now. Maybe we should try to get out of here before it’s too late. Is that thing around your neck still pulling at you?”

  “Yes,” he answered, “but you’re not to blame for any of this; the responsibility was mine to begin with. You just helped me to realize its importance. Those creatures – I wasn’t expecting there to be so many of them. As it stands now, we don’t even know what else we might find down here. And yet the stone, it is still affecting me; it’s a part of me now, like the beating of my heart. It wants me to move forward, but you’re right; we should probably try and find a way out instead. It’s just that... I feel like I’m losing my mind! It’s like I’m being pulled in two directions at once!”

  She found herself reaching out to squeeze his shoulder in acknowledgment of all he was going through. There was nothing more that she could do for him now; they’d just have to find a way back to the surface and deal with it then. She finished loading the clip, slammed it back in the gun, and then flipped the flashlight back up into her other hand as she climbed shakily to her feet. For a moment, she swayed with dizziness, but then shook it from her head like a dog
shedding water. The unwelcome movement caused more pain, but it also snapped her senses back into sharper focus.

  “Let’s get going,” she said, shouldering her pack and then tucking the gun into her waistband. “I don’t want to wait around here for those things to regain their courage.”

  Nodding in agreement, he gathered up the fallen shotgun shells, jacking them into the chamber one at a time. After he’d finished loading and then gathered up his pack, they picked their way down the scorched, body-strewn incline, heading toward a large archway that awaited them at the other side of the cavern. She hoped it would lead to a way out; the side tunnels were probably choked with hideous creatures just waiting to pounce. As they crossed the chamber, she shined the light ahead of them, and was caught off guard when she saw what was resting on the ground where the creatures had been congregating. Its paleness stood out in stark contrast to the blackened surroundings.

  As they reached the spot where it lay, they were totally unprepared for what they found.

  It was the nude body of a young woman sprawled face down over a large rock. Her entire back was covered in oozing sores and liberally coated with a yellowish slime. On closer inspection, they found that the tortured flesh was the result of many small nips and bite marks, as if the beasts had been playful in their attentions.

  “My God,” Williams exclaimed, edging around the boulder to get a better look at her face. It was also covered in slime, one sightless eye gazing up through a tangle of long, black hair. Grunting as if he’d been punched, he sank to his knees, head bowed as if in silent prayer. After a moment, he pointed to something near the girl’s head.

  “Get a look at this,” he said.

  Swallowing her revulsion, Terry moved around the boulder, peering down at the spot he was indicating.

  In the flashlight’s beam, she could see that the girl’s left hand was clutching something. It appeared to be a gold chain. Williams reached down to pry it from her fist, but flinched back as a low, gurgling moan suddenly burst from her battered throat.

  Shocked that she was still alive, they bent forward to help, brushing the hair back from the terrible carnage of her swollen features. But they were too late. As they gazed on in helpless solicitude, her eyes clouded over and she wheezed out her final breath.

  It was a surprise that she’d even lasted this long; her jaw was broken, hanging down at an unnatural angle, and more of the foul slime drooled continually from her shattered mouth. Williams turned his head away, swallowing hard to keep from retching.

  With a heavy numbness inside, Terry let the hair fall back, covering the ruined face and hiding the sight of the sickening puddle spreading out across the stone. It took her a moment to regain her composure; it was the most grotesque thing she’d ever witnessed.

  Sinking to the ground, she hugged herself while rocking back and forth. She now realized why the creatures had been so eager to get at the center of their gathering; they’d been rutting, pushed into a frenzy over this poor, hapless child. Like a piece of meat, they’d used her, feeding off her vitality as they brutalized her over and over. Terry knew how she must have felt, remembering the traumatic events of her adolescent years. Although she hadn’t been treated in anywhere near as violent a fashion, she could well understand the pain and helplessness that the girl must have experienced.

  Terry had been ten years old when her mother had remarried, and her stepfather and uncle had been insufferable. They’d abused her, off-and-on, until she was fourteen. That’s when her mother had finally caught on and put an end to their ‘little game’. It’s what they’d called it, and, to a confused young girl who’d always trusted her elders, that’s all it had been. At first.

  But by the time her mother had stopped the abuse, the damage had already been done. She’d never told anyone else about it, instead suffering from a deep, burning shame, and an ongoing belief that she’d somehow been sullied by all the things that they’d done to her. It was only after a long period of time that she’d come to grips with it, and even now it still affected her deeply.

  Inside her, a raw-edged anger was building. The senseless mistreatment of this young woman had burst apart the walls she’d built within herself to hold back the unbearable memories. Now, all the intense shame and humiliation, all the impotent rage that she’d spent so much time walling away, boiled to the surface. She suddenly longed for justice, thirsted for it, not only for this unknown young woman, but for herself as well.

  She was going to destroy the creatures who’d done this, and kill anything else that got in her way!

  Panting like she’d just ran a marathon, she lurched to her feet. Williams was still kneeling, cradling something in his open palm. Glancing at her through tear-blurred eyes, he held it up for her to see.

  It was a golden locket. From inside, a picture of a man smiled out at her, his deep brown eyes staring up at her from a handsomely bearded face. Her boyfriend, perhaps.

  “She... she was clutching that in her hand,” he choked out, climbing to his feet. Then, with a look of utter hatred, he snarled, “We’ve got to burn this entire place down and rip it from the face of the earth! These brutal deaths, this sickening debauchery, we have to put an end to it. We can’t allow it to continue!”

  Snatching up the shotgun, he hefted it, the muscles of his neck and arms knotting up while the veins in his forehead throbbed visibly. “We may not make it out of this alive,” he growled, “but we have to at least try and stop this madness. I know I’ve sometimes been afraid, that I may even be a coward at heart, but I swear to God that I’m going to wipe these bastards out, even if it kills me!”

  Staring at him, gazing into those determined, red-rimmed eyes, she could see the blistering anguish, feel the terrible, white-hot fury that so closely mirrored her own. This was a different side to the man she thought she knew. Where she’d been so sure he’d lose control, he’d become more determined than ever. But this night wasn’t over yet – they still had to stop the ritual, no matter what the cost.

  Drawing courage from their mutual outrage, they turned toward the gigantic stone doors that barred their way forward. Just as they were studying the carved designs and the arcane sigils engraved along its marble facings, a low, throaty rumble burst over them. The diabolical chant had begun anew, its booming cadence rolling over them like the waves of the sea. This time, however, the effect was muted by their burning need for justice.

  Power.

  Deep, colossal, all-encompassing power. It coursed through Ezra like a thunderous wave, pouring through him as he recited the archaic words of the ancient chant. The passages of the ritual rebounded off the walls and ceiling of the chamber, echoing in and out of space and time with the forcefulness of a hurricane. He was mad with it, drunk with it, and so focused on finishing the complex spell that only his lips moved as he peered across the insubstantial barriers now breached by the astral gate.

  The ritual was coming to an end, and Nathrotep was descending.

  Now within reach of his triumphant success, he was completely unaware that the energy would consume him if he wavered for even a fraction of a second. Behind him, his oath-bound minions barked out a guttural cadence in time with his own thunderous voice, lending him the strength of their life force. But that extra power was no longer needed; he could finish the working all on his own, for he was that powerful and knew it. The Hunting Horrors went unnoticed as they swarmed through the air, and the Children covering the floor behind him had also faded from his conscious thoughts. The entire chamber had so receded from his current level of perception that even the young woman chained to the altar stone before him was, for the time being, not one of his immediate concerns. The power was his, the spell all but finished; all else was beneath him.

  It was thus that he failed to notice a portion of the wall sliding inward, exposing a dark niche just to the left of the altar. Deep within it, a shrouded presence lingered. It neither moved nor tried to interfere; it simply watched, cloaked from head to toe i
n the dark colors of the grave.

  20

  The chant vibrated outward from beyond the door, the unclean phrases washing over them with rhythmic force as Williams glared at the huge portal with barely suppressed rage. He felt like he’d been pushed around his whole life, living in constant fear of failure while trying to carve out a place for himself where he could make a difference. That was one of the reasons that he’d taken a job in this small, out-of-the-way town; no one there had known him and he’d been able to make a fresh start of it.

  But now the things he’d seen and the decisions he’d made had landed him in the toughest situation that he’d ever been in. Inside, the anger reached a point where it turned so hard and cold that his mind became detached, processing his environment like a person watching a movie from the back row of seats. The death of the young girl had done this to him, had shown him a part of himself he wasn’t sure he liked. It was vulgar, the way she’d been used, and it had made him want to kill everything that lived within these loathsome tunnels. Looking back at Terry, he could tell that she felt the same, could see it in her eyes – they spoke volumes from where they glowered from beneath the dirty, makeshift bandage. Even with all her wounds, and her hair tangled in hopeless knots, she was still strikingly beautiful. If nothing else, he would die protecting her, and that, in and of itself, was enough for him to continue.

  She was worth the sacrifice.

  Moving the light across the monolithic door from top to bottom, she frowned. “Well, Doc, got any bright ideas about how were going to get through this hulking chunk of rock?”