The Madness of Cthulhu Anthology (Volume One): 1

  “Ugh! The walls. It isn’t just goop, I don’t think, Finn. It seems to … move.”

  “Don’t touch the wall, then,” Finn said.

  He came to the bottom of the stairs. Suddenly—blindingly—lights shone into face and he heard the sound of delighted laughter and applause.

  He lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the lights that blazed at him. There, sitting a chair before him, looking all the world like a wannabe Cecil B. DeMille, was Matt Barringer. At his side was a man with a microphone on a pole and on his other side was a fellow working a camera.

  “All right, Mr. McCormick!” Barringer said. “Congratulations! You found us—you led the way. You’ve won a seven-day cruise for two with all expenses paid on the Sun-Moon experience of your choice and a five-thousand-dollar prize! You found us—science does win out!”

  Behind him, Devon let out some kind of a sigh and nearly crashed into his back in a dead faint.

  He turned to catch her; Brigitte was tumbling, too. He was a strong man, but catching the cascade of women behind him was no easy task—it rendered him silent for several minutes.

  There was still sound.

  Michael Corona was berating Matt Barringer. “If you’re playing games, you asshole, they weren’t fair games. You came and got us while they were still down there. To say that Finn McCormick figured it out and won is a ridiculous and unjust way of playing your game.”

  Finn settled Suzie and Brigitte and went for Devon. Hampton had been struggling to keep her up. Finn swept her over his shoulder. Something damp clung to his shirt, but she’d been touching the wall and he knew it. He carried Devon down and set her in Barringer’s lap.

  “Fuck you, Mr. Barringer, and your reality show, or whatever the hell it is you’re doing here. I’m going to pray you have a real medic on board. You could have hurt or killed someone.”

  “Hey, come on, now! If you read your contract, you signed on for filming!” Barringer said.

  Devon was coming to, but Finn seemed to be seeing red now. Not goop, but he was so angry that a red haze seemed to hang over everything.

  “Hey,” Granger said suddenly, blinking and looked around the officer’s lounge. “Where’s Anita? Anita isn’t here.”

  Barringer stood up and turned around, looking at the group around him. Finn looked, too. He saw Granger, Michael Corona, and Marnie. Suzie, Hampton, and Devon had been with him.

  It was true; Anita wasn’t there.

  “Where the hell is Anita?” Granger demanded, his tone growing thin.

  “She’s somewhere close, don’t worry,” Matt Barringer said. He looked at his cameraman and grinned. “We had her, didn’t we? Maybe she’s trying to change the game and make it be on us?”

  “It’s just another fucking trick he’s playing on us,” Finn said angrily. And yet, something in the back of his mind told him that what was fueling his anger was more than just annoyance with a man who was a true ass.

  Some of the goop had been tar. Some of it hadn’t been. What the hell was it?

  Some other substance Barringer had created? Well, fuck his contract, too.

  “Sue me,” he said, looking at Barringer. “Keep playing his game if you want,” he told the others. “I’m through.”

  Finn retraced his steps, returned to the promenade deck, and went to the hallway that led aft toward his cabin. He walked in, slammed the door, and lay back on his bunk. He felt as if he was seething inside like the black goop. He lay there for several minutes, trying to get his temper to cool.

  When it did, he discovered that he was still disturbed.

  Some of the black goop had been tar. Some of it hadn’t.

  He stood up and ripped off his shirt, looking at the shoulder where whatever Suzie had gotten on her from the wall was now on his shirt. It wasn’t really black goop; it was of a more watery substance on his shirt. He smelled it—the stuff had a foul odor, and it was something that he should have recognized, he thought. Whatever it was, whatever it reminded him of, remained at the back of his mind and he couldn’t quite pull it forward.

  Oh, for a lab! he thought.

  Finn walked to the little desk in the cabin where he had his computer set up. He thought about going on to one of his various social network groups and raging against the near-criminal practices of the ship’s company. But instead, he found himself keying in the words, “How to kill a shoggoth.”

  Naturally, the replies that popped up were from Lovecraft enthusiasts or horror fiction writers.

  He didn’t have access to any nuclear weapons, nor was there the possibility of shooting a shoggoth into a black hole.

  He spun away from the computer. He hadn’t found shoggoths anyway; they were massive—not goop on the walls. Not to mention—they weren’t real!

  But what if …?

  What if Lovecraft had changed the details and written up a story a drunk had told him in a bar?

  Lovecraft was a teetotaler—the poor man would probably cry if he knew about the number of drinks and bars that had been named in his honor.

  Okay, so he didn’t drink. But he still might have talked to friends or strangers while sipping water or coffee or tea at a bar.

  Or wherever.

  Ridiculous! What is the matter with me?

  Where could black goop creatures have come from? They would have heard or felt something if a large thing had come aboard. Of course, it didn’t have to be large. And it didn’t have to be an it. There could be many things …

  Or, perhaps, the shoggoths were real; they could take on any form if they felt they were outnumbered, pretend to be part of the ship. They could have lain in wait … and when the ship had moved out to open sea now …

  So they’d been on the ship all those years? Wouldn’t they have starved?

  Perhaps they had a period of lying dormant—like locusts. Only with shoggoths, they could remain for decades in a state of hibernation rather than seven years. Or, perhaps, all that time they’d been dining on sea creatures.

  Ridiculous. All they had seen was black goop—not massive bloblike forms terrorizing the ship. The only terror on board was Matt Barringer.

  As Finn sat there pondering, there was a fierce pounding on his cabin door. “Let me in, oh, God, let me in, please!”

  It was Devon’s voice. He leapt up, his heart pounding, and threw open the door.

  Devon threw herself into his arms.

  “I ran here. I ran here with my eyes closed. I’m terrified, Finn. We started to break up; Michael was furious—you cheated, they cheated, he didn’t get a chance to win—and Granger was crazy that Anita had disappeared. Suzie was trying to calm him down. Hampton was all weird—he walked back up the stairs and Brigitte went after him. I kind of realized where I was with all that going on and—Finn! How could you! You probably saved me from an awful fall, but you put me in that awful man’s lap—I just up and ran, but that didn’t matter. Barringer was angry, saying he was going to have to get the crew back up to man the ship. I ran as fast as I could and I figured you’d come here because you were afraid you’d beat someone up or … Finn, I’m terrified!”

  “It was a hoax,” he said. But even as he spoke, he turned back to his computer. He was worried.

  A hoax gone awry? A reality show that was becoming real?

  Or was this all just making him crazy, too?

  “The black goop, this ship,” Devon murmured. “It’s all a Lovecraft novel, isn’t it?”

  “Story,” he murmured, and then felt like an ass. “It’s not a Lovecraft novel, Devon. There wasn’t goop in his story; there were shoggoths and Elder Things and something else in the mountains but not—goop.”

  She still stood there, just shaking. She had come to him and thrown herself into his arms. He should have been on top of the world.

  “Cthulhu,” she murmured.

  “No Cthulhu,” Finn reminded her. “Cthulhu is massive, with teensy-tiny wings, arms and legs, and a head with squid- or octopus-like tentacles,” he said, tr
ying to grin.

  “Finn, yes, Matt Barringer is an ass, he was trying to do some kind of a sensationalist thing—we were idiots for wanting a TV show so badly—but, beyond all that, something is wrong,” she said determinedly. She looked a little stronger.

  He stood and put his hands on her shoulders. He smiled and couldn’t help but touch her beautiful face. “We’re going to be all right,” he assured her.

  Just as he did so, there was another pounding at his door; this time, he didn’t have to open it. Granger burst in. “We’ve got to get together; we’ve got to meet back down in the lounge. This is for real—the crew is gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone? Ask Barringer where they are—tell him to quit playing his stupid game and get the crew back,” Finn said.

  “Look, I hate the ridiculous bastard as much as you do,” Granger said. “But I honestly think this is serious—real—Finn. Barringer is in the lounge breaking out bottles of alcohol—in tears. Please, come … please!”

  Was everyone on the ship in on this? Was he the butt of the joke?

  Or was there something to the black goop?

  “We should stick together, yes, we should all stick together,” Devon said nervously.

  “All right, what the hell, let’s go to the lounge,” Finn said. “But …” He looked at them sternly and pulled out his cell phone, never more grateful that he had sprung for the best international deal and equipment he’d been able to find.

  “Who are you calling?” Granger asked him. “There are no local cops!” he said, his tone somewhat desperate.

  “Emergency,” Finn said.

  But Granger was right. He dialed 911 and the phone rang and rang. He dialed the international operator and she hung up on him. He dialed again.

  “My sister in Daytona,” he said.

  Deirdre came on after the third ring.

  She was his big sister. He tried to explain; she gave him a furious, high-powered lecture. She asked him if he’d been drinking.

  But, in the end, she believed him and promised to find someone who could help them.

  “Isn’t there a radio on the ship?” Devon asked, looking at him hopefully.

  “Yes,” he said, summoning his memory of the ship’s plan again. “But its two decks down and I don’t know how to use it,” he said when he hung up. “Deirdre can be like a bull in a china shop. She’ll get the navy out looking for us, I promise you,” he told her.

  Devon smiled at him. “Oh, thank you! I’m never going to want to be on TV again, I promise you!”

  “Let’s meet the others,” Granger said.

  They left his cabin and walked down the aisles until they reached the lounge.

  Matt Barringer was behind the bar with an open bottle of tequila. He hadn’t bothered with a glass. His cameraman was next to him—swilling from a bottle of whiskey.

  Hampton and Suzie were in chairs across from the bar, staring at the two men with glazed eyes while Michael Corona paced.

  “Where are the others?” Finn demanded. “Okay, so Anita is on her high-horse and off somewhere, but where are Brigitte and Suzie?”

  “We don’t know,” Hampton said dully.

  “You idiots were all pissed off and running around like two-year-olds,” Matt Barringer said. “How the hell would anyone know?”

  “Fine. Where’s the crew?” Finn demanded of Barringer. Barringer slammed the tequila down. “Don’t you get it yet? I don’t know. They’re gone; just gone. Like the damned waiters … maids, stewards, whatever the hell you call them. Don’t you get it? This is real. Do you see my sound guy anywhere? Somehow he’s gone, too. Do you see me filming anything?”

  “Barringer, there could be cameras anywhere,” Finn said.

  “There could be. But if there are, I don’t know a damned thing about it—and I would!” Barringer snapped.

  “We’re being eaten,” Hampton said.

  Finn went and hunkered down before him. “Hampton, come on, now. We have to get it together and find out what is going on.”

  “But he’s right,” Granger said. “I mean, scientifically, that would explain it.”

  Devon let out a strangled little sob.

  “So what’s your plan?” Finn demanded of Barringer. “We’re going to just sit out in the ocean and drift? Have you called for help—do you know how to use the radio?”

  Granger seemed to brighten up. “The radio—I could figure out the radio.”

  “Go do it,” Barringer said. “Go, quickly!”

  “What?” Granger demanded. “Oh, no! I’m not going off anywhere alone.”

  “Fine. Take your muscle-man with you,” Barringer said.

  Barringer meant him, Finn realized.

  He walked to the bar and took the bottle of tequila from Barringer’s hands and stared at the man. “We all go. We all go together. We stay together so that no one pulls out more cameras and no one else disappears.”

  “Hell, no—there’s nothing in here so far,” Barringer said. “And I … I have an international cell phone. I called the head office. They’ve already got someone coming for us.”

  Frankly, Finn had more faith in his sister than in any help Barringer’s “company” might send for them.

  “No. We need help now,” Finn said. “Help from a ship in the area. If Granger can work the radio, we need to get on it. So, move. Or,” he said, glancing at the cameraman, “we all go—and leave you here alone.”

  “Fine!” Barringer snapped.

  Devon stayed close to Finn. The others followed. They trekked down toward the elevators again. The shop windows seemed eerier than ever.

  As they reached the elevators, they saw that there was now much more black goop in the floor there. They stood gathered together just staring at the foreign substance as they waited for the elevator.

  Behind him he heard Barringer demand, “What the hell?”

  “Yuck! Shit!” The cameraman said. “What the hell is this crap I’m stepping in?”

  Finn knelt down to study the stuff again. He smelled the unpleasant odor and it struck him—he knew why it was a familiar odor. For a moment, a wall of black seemed to loom before him—hell, he was ready to pass out himself!

  Because that was it—exactly it. The black goop was—shit.

  The crew was gone, the kitchen staff was gone, and the stewards were gone. Anita, Marnie, and Suzie were gone.

  And they might be stepping on any of them.

  “Forget the radio,” Finn said. It was impossible. There was nothing that could be on the ship and eating people and leaving this … shit everywhere.

  It wasn’t possible.

  But neither, really, was the ship’s existence in its almost pristine shape … “We have to get off the ship—now. We have to get to the lifeboats.”

  “What?” Barringer demanded. “Off the ship? We’re in the middle of the North Atlantic!”

  It wasn’t possible—and yet it seemed that it was so. In fact, it never should have taken him so long. He had studied anthropology, humans, sub-humans, and if there was one thing he should know …

  It was shit.

  “All right, Mr. Barringer, you do what you want. I’m getting off the ship. Anyone who wants to join me, I’m heading out to the deck.”

  “We don’t know how to lower the lifeboats,” Granger said.

  “We’re scientists—we’ll figure it out!” Finn said.

  “I’m with you!” Michael Corona told him.

  Granger, Hampton, and Devon nodded enthusiastically.

  “You didn’t tell us what the shit is,” the cameraman said.

  “You don’t want to know,” Finn told him.

  “Fine—I’m with you. Let’s get off this sucker!” the cameraman said.

  Finn turned and started walking; Devon was at his heels. He hurried along the hallway until he reached the doors that led out to the deck. Moving quickly, he opened the door and paused as he felt the sharp cold of the night sear into him.

  Screw the cold.<
br />
  His intellectual mind—the part of him that made it through his doctorate at Yale—screamed that he was foolish. That there was no known creature that could consume living creatures such as human beings and break them down so completely that there was nothing left but black goop shit.

  But another voice inside him was screaming. It came from deep in the pit of his being, deep in his soul. It was primal fear and, perhaps, the human desperation for survival.

  As he reached the door, he heard a strangled scream. A frantic, piercing, desperate scream.

  He turned back. The cameraman had been bringing up the rear as they left the hall that stretched before the row of cabin doors. As Finn looked, he saw the thing rising behind him.

  It was huge and gelatinous. It had eyes that seemed to be haphazardly thrown over the black and green and disgusting mass of the bloblike body.

  Shoggoth. Except that such a thing did not exist.

  As the cameraman screamed, the thing formed over him, consuming him as if it digested him bit by bit, inch by inch, even as it formed over him, as if its digestive fluids were part of the mass, as if …

  They had all frozen, horrified, disbelieving—watching.

  Then Devon gasped and shoved him. “Out! Get us out—get us off of this boat!”

  “Ship!” Granger croaked.

  “Get us the hell off it!” Hampton roared.

  Finn went on out into the cold, no longer aware of it. He raced down the deck to where he found a lifeboat. He stared up at the mechanism keeping it in place. There were ropes and winches and he thanked God that it was an old ship and he could probably move the thing manually. His fingers were frozen as he went to work on the sailor’s knots holding the rope in place. It somehow sunk in that the thing would fall and torpedo in the water if someone didn’t take the other side.

  He looked back. Granger was across from him, working on the other end of the ropes and levers.

  “Get Devon into it!” he cried. “Hampton … get in. Michael, Barringer—”

  But he heard another horrified gasp. He turned back.

  The door was open; Barringer had been caught trying to run out—he’d been the one now bringing up the rear.