Jigsaw World

by JD Lovil

  “I have been seeing some weird stuff, strange creatures and such, which seem to be behind a lot of the things that most people see as normal events.” George said. “I am looking for why I see these things, why the average person does not, and what we can do about it all.”

  “Join the party. That is pretty much why we are traveling as well.” Tom said. “Between intelligent storms, unseen clawed creatures in the night, spontaneous combustions, transformative diseases and Lycanthromorphs, my days have gotten way too exciting to suit me. Well, if you want to travel with us for a bit, I guess Bailey has already placed his vote.” Bailey thumped his tail twice against the floorboard in agreement.

  “Thanks. I would be happy to travel with you.” George said. “When are you planning to get going again?”

  “I think that we may stay here tonight, and get started early in the morning. I love rain, and I don’t want to waste it on driving.” Tom said. “Why don’t you go on back there and find yourself a bunk for the night?”

  “Sounds good to me.” George sighed. “I am getting a bit sleepy now.” George got up and headed back into the bed area of the RV.

  Tom continued to sit and enjoy the rain for the next hour and a half, when it finally cut to a drizzle, and soon after, it stopped. By this time Tom had a pleasant buzz going, and so he sat and watched as the skies cleared up. It was well into the evening by that time, and the stars were bright and numerous.

  As he watched, several of the point source lights that he had assumed to be stars began to move around in the heavens, some moving slow, some moving fast, moving in circles and moving in grid patterns, moving straight up, moving as things alive. After a while, one of the lights descended, until it was hovering just a few tens of feet above the rest stop, before finally zipping off at extreme speed to the west.

  After a while, the lights in the sky found somewhere else to be. Tom went back to the little bedroom he had picked out to call his, and Bailey did his best imitation of a dog rug at the foot of the bed. Tom mused about the events and changes brought about by the day, and soon he was sleeping.

  Tom is sitting in shadow, and a Shadow speaks to him. “You will find some Truths with your company, and after, you will find other truths in other company. This is not the time to try to steer your destiny.”

  Tom sees light and darkness, flame and ice, he hears silence and thunder, he feels pain and pleasure. All of these things, and others that he cannot define he experiences in the shadow of the speaking Shadow.

  “The gates shall threaten to swing wide soon. For the first time, you will determine the fate of this world. If the gate opens, the final death will enter this world.”

  Tom awoke, and rubbed his eyes as he thought about the dream. He took a glance at the clock, to discover that it was now 4:00 AM, the early hours of the dark of the morning. Five minutes later, he also discovered that George had awakened at that same time, and that George had nearly the same dream during the night that Tom had.

  Tom brewed a pot of coffee, yet another perk of driving an RV. George and he sat down, and discussed the ramifications of recent events, interesting comparisons and sundry theories. Tom theorized that George was a ‘Watcher’ like himself, based on the similarities in their lives. Both of them had no memories of their lives more than twenty years ago, and they were basically Loners, not avoiding company, but always seeming to wind up alone.

  Another similarity that they had with each other was that they gained important and useful information from their dream lives. They also trusted their intuitions regarding situations and danger to an almost ridiculous degree. They had also developed identical conclusions regarding some sort of strange immunity they had either developed or inherited to the spectral phenomena that happened around them.

  George and Tom had each been traveling around for the last few years, instinctively seeking out answers to questions that they had not ever consciously asked. The events had begun to speed up (relative to a number of events to time plot) in recent times. Tom and George mutually agreed that this was a real acceleration, not any apparent change due to increased scrutiny or enhanced detective powers.

  They continued to discuss related matters for about two hours, until finally Bailey padded into the room and stared at them reproachfully. The pot of coffee was all but dead about then anyway, and the two of them began to prep the RV for a day’s travel.

  The first rays of the morning sun began to peek through the leaves of the Oak tree which bordered and shaded the space where the RV was currently parked. There was something brighter, more yellow, about the light Tom saw out of the side of his eyes. He looked directly out of the windshield of the RV at the curb wall in front of the RV, where a fat gray squirrel was chittered and waddled along the top bricks of the wall.

  Something strange was happening out there. The light just touched the squirrel, and the squirrel began to emit a loud squeaking screech of distress. One moment he waddled the length of the wall, and the next moment, it looked as if the wall melted a little, and the squirrel sank into the brick to about shoulder depth. There, the brick must have hardened, because the squirrel struggled desperately to no avail. The rodent was part of the rock, and could not escape.

  Tom brought the current situation to George’s attention, and together they watched the activity around them. Neither of them was sure if they would be less endangered by leaving the rest area now, or more endangered. They decided to wait a few moments to see if the phenomena subsided. If it did not, they would make a break for it in a few moments.

  As they watched, the couple in the RV next to theirs eased out of their vehicle and was looking about curiously. George speculated that they probably did not see the true action around them, but were reacting to the distress of the various victims of the event.

  The man made the mistake of leaning against their RV, and he fell backwards into the siding on the vehicle. He sat back up so that his face had emerged from the metal, and there he was stuck, screaming. The woman was screaming also, first in response to the sound, and whatever she saw of her husband’s plight, and then because the pavement below her opened up and swallowed her in a quicksand like descent.

  Tom looked sidewise toward George. “You really can cook an ovary on the pavement in Texas.” George gave a truncated snort in response.

  “All in all, I think we have learned everything here that we are going to.” George stated. “This is just another one of those weird events that have no logical basis. Hopefully we are immune to this, but I don’t know. Let’s get out of here, and not find out.”

  Tom agreed with the sentiment of George’s statement, and they prepared to move out. Just as Tom was about to start the RV’s motor, someone or something began banging violently on the door of the RV. Someone outside began yelling, “Let me in!” The Shouter banged even harder on the door.

  Tom checked the pocket where he had taken to putting the nice 32 semiautomatic pistol he had obtained from the werewolf dude. It was there. He reached over and turned the ignition, starting the engine of the RV. A loud bang at the door was the instant result, the noise a good five times as loud as the previous ones.

  Tom rolled down his driver’s side window, and looked down the camper to where four juvenile boys where whacking away at the door with tire irons and a two by four piece of lumber. Tom leaned out of the window, and carefully sighted down the RV at the four with the pistol. He squeezed the trigger twice and watched in satisfaction as one of the boys dropped to the ground. The other boys seemed to be only peripherally aware of the death of their friend, or perhaps they were unconcerned. Tom emptied the rest of the clip into their midst, bringing down two more of the boys, and motivating the final boy to leave.

  Tom put the RV into gear and gunned the engine. As the boy ran past the front of the RV, Tom popped the clutch, causing the big vehicle to surge forward and over the final boy. Feeling the satisfying bump of the boy’s body under the vehicle, Tom grinned and drove the vehicle to the exit roa
d of the rest stop and out.

  George seemed a little disturbed by recent actions, though not nearly as much so as Tom feared. Whatever mental trouble George had with it, he shook it off rapidly, and the RV made its way back onto the interstate and aimed itself at the big unknown town of Elkskull.

  ******

  6 Summoning the Great Old One

  Tom eased the RV into a parking space beside the Walmart. George, Bailey and Tom tumbled out of the vehicle, and stretched their legs in the short walk to the entrance. At the door, Tom was dismayed to see a closed sign, and a couple of employees talking to each other behind the locked door while ignoring the trio.

  “Welcome to the beautiful Texas city of Elkskull!” George proclaimed. “Where even 24 hour Walmart Superstores close at sundown.” The three of them turned around and started back to the RV.

  They got back to the vehicle, and resumed their seats. “Let’s go down the road a ways, and find someplace to camp out for the night.” Tom said. With all in general agreement, in five minutes they were bumping down a side road the promised to lead them to a secluded spot. Bailey began to stare out of the window with excited anticipation.

  The RV turned a corner while topping a small hill and the vista before the travelers was that of an ocean tossing seaweeds and hapless shell fish upon the shore of its cold body of water. Several sea gulls wheeled and screeched in the background. The air was filled with the smell of cold salt water, a scent like rotting fruit and the unmistakable smell of fish.

  “Someone misplaced the Atlantic ocean. It should be almost two thousand miles to the east of us, and from the feel of things, maybe 1500 miles north of that.” Tom said. “Any ideas?”

  “Just another mutation of the real world by these ‘events’.” George said. “This sure looks like the Northern Atlantic shore. So it is three thousand miles or so out of pocket. It is just par for the course on a trip where the roads are three times too long.”

  Bailey had taken the opportunity to investigate the terminal beaching of several aquatic life forms, including one crab that was far too diffident about making its way back into the surf after being beached by the tide. A chorus of happy barks and wagging tail signaled that the dog was content with the current location.

  Looking about, the rocky beach and the moonlit scene of the out of place ocean promised to be a comfortable camping location. The RV would be the backdrop and resource center for the campers, and a small manipulation of rock positions was sufficient to create a fire circle, and with a moment’s work, they had a campfire setting the ambiance.

  Bailey started to bring Tom and George things; He brought shells, and he brought sticks, he brought rocks, and one time, he brought a finger. Tom was hard-put to solve the mystery of that last item. He finally decided that people lost all kinds of things on a beach. If you could lose your lighter, your phone or your book at the beach, why not a finger?

  While Bailey chewed on his finger beside the fire, Tom brought out a package of franks and some buns, and using a couple of green branches, he began the process of cooking hot dogs over the fire. George had fished up a case of beer from somewhere, and they settled down to a night on the beach eating hot dogs and drinking beer. This seemed a decent recipe for a good night to the two of them. Only the addition of females could have improved the situation, and to do that, they would have had to take the finger away from Bailey.

  George had gone down to the beach a few moments ago, and he now returned, carrying a plastic bag and a cooking pot. He proudly poured the contents of the bag into the pot, and the contents stood revealed as a dozen or so shellfish, a mixture of mussels, oysters and clams, and with one oversized snail that Tom wasn’t really sure what to do with.

  George took all of the guesswork out of the cuisine for Tom by producing butter and a gallon of water, which he proceeded to pour into the pot until the shellfish was half submerged in it. He then took the pot and placed it in the middle of the campfire. A few minutes later, he produced a set of tongs, with which he first removed the pot from the fire, and then removed each of the shellfish from the water, placing them on a plate. He then divvied up the shellfish into three different plates, and offered Tom a plate and the butter.

  Tom accepted the plate, and placed the two hot dogs that he had just cooked on the plate. He buttered the seafood on his plate lavishly, and put the extra plate down for Bailey to eat. Bailey decided to temporarily abandon his finger in favor of a more substantial meal. Tom tried the first tidbit, that being a mussel.

  “This ocean may be in the wrong place, and maybe delusional.” Tom said. “Even so, it provides some very tasty illusions.”

  Bailey finished off his plate of seafood, waited for and received a cooked wiener from Tom, and walked back over to where his gnaw finger was waiting patiently. He started to toy with it, mouthing it and throwing it into the air, and catching it in his mouth on its descent. Suddenly, he stopped and allowed it to fall to the sand, and went down on his stomach in a way that suggested that he was minimizing his profile. He began to whine softly.

  As Bailey did this, a series of shadows which were not associated with any moving objects that could be seen flitted across the face of the nearby trees, rocks and embankments. This was accompanied with a noticeable drop in temperature of the air. Then the earth shook, gently at first, and then with rising intensity, cycling through a quaking interval on a roughly five second cycle.

  Tom and George retained their seats while the earth was quaking. After something between one and two minutes, the quaking stopped. The air retained its chilly character, and the gulls, which had been disturbed at the same time as Bailey, had taken advantage of their ability to fly to flit off over the horizon, and were no longer to be seen.

  The campfire was crackling from the disturbance of the quake, with embers rising and floating on the thermals off into the night. Just when the men were about to conclude that the oddities were over for the night, they heard a faint chanting in the distance. Somewhere up the beach, somebody, several somebodies, was chanting strange words in an unknown language.

  Tom looked toward the chanting, and realized that they could crest the next small outcropping, and probably would be able to see the source of the chant. There was a small trail along the beach upon which they could take the RV, if they deemed it necessary. Tom and George discussed the plan for a moment, and Tom felt the pockets of his trench coat for the knife and the pistol. Finding both of them where they were supposed to be, the two men and the dog trudged the thousand feet or so through the sand to the outcropping.

  Finally arriving at the outcropping, they climbed its rocky face, and crouched down at its crest, to avoid being spotted. The chanting has become louder, and the visage which presented itself to the trio was that of a group of better than two dozen robed and hooded figures, black robed figures in a circle around three red robed figures, who in turn encircled the tableau of a Crimson robed figure holding a ceremonial Athame and standing before a totally naked and bound girl laid out upon a stone alter.

  As they watched, the crimson robed man, who must have been the High Priest, was speaking in English as three of the black robed figures came before him.

  “We call upon Black Throned Azathoth, ruler of all time and all space, greatest of the Great Old Ones save he whom we summon. Aid us in opening the gate for he whom we summon. We offer these three as a sacrifice to Thee. Help us to open the gate! Accept our tribute!”

  There was a sound like a distant flute, and the flitting shadows that they had seen earlier returned, possessing a depth that made them seem solid objects themselves. One of the shadows touched one of the three offerings, and she screamed and dissolved into the shadow. Other shadows touched the other two offerings, and by their screams Tom determined that they must be men. From beginning to end, it lasted but a few seconds, but it seemed to last for hours.

  “We thank you, great Azathoth, for your blessing and aid. With the coming of your Consort, He who is the All in All, we
shall bring an end to the blight of Man on earth, and at last the Great Old Ones shall rule this world!”

  During this interlude, the naked girl on the altar was struggling frantically. The High Priest took a second to tighten the bindings on the girl, and then he started the invocation for which all the former chanting was just a prelude.

  “Yog Sothoth, He who is All in All, He who is in all spaces and in all times! We call upon you, who is the key to the gate, and is the gate, and is that which is outside the gate, and that which is inside the gate! We offer you this virgin sacrifice, and we speak the ancient words of unbinding, that you may enter our world through the gate, and rule our world forevermore!”

  The high priest began to massage the girl's breasts and nipples, and made several arcane gestures over the girl. He raised the Athame, and by his body language, it was obvious that he would soon sacrifice the girl. Tom felt a bit regretful about that, but it was unlikely that the two of them could take on the group of Cabalists, and rescue the girl for future activities. The Priest began to speak in an unknown tongue.

  “N'GAI, N'GHA'GHAA, BUGG-SHOGGOG, Y'HAH! YOG-SOTHOTH, YOG-SOTHOTH, IA! Y'HAH, BUGG-SHOGGOG, N'GHA'GHAA, N'GAI! Y'AI 'NG'NGAH, YOG-SOTHOTH H'EE—L'GEB F'AI THRODOG UAAAH!”

  Just as the priest croaked out the final 'UAAAH!’, a shot rang out from some unknown point from what sounded like a 30 caliber or so rifle, possibly set up as a sniping rifle. The priest fell, and dropped the Athame. As he fell, several more shots from the same rifle range out, and the three red robed priests also fell. The black robed priests started to mill around in a panic, and most of them began to run away from the beach area.

  For the next sixty seconds or so, the trio watched from the outcropping as the rifle picked off the rest of the black robes one by one. When at last they were all down, a figure came down from the nearest inland hill, where he had been crouched behind a tree with his sniping rifle. Tom, George and Bailey crested the outcropping, and started down toward the altar where the girl was still struggling. When they got close, the man with the gun challenged them.