The Symbiot

by Michel Weatherall

  He probed the North American continent... the East Coast... Massachusetts... Arkham... the Miskatonic University... the Audio-Engineering Building... four humans crowded around the empty shell of the fifth... Howard, Tim, Michael, Veronica, and the deceased Juan Emilio.

  Lorne concentrated on this one point of the immense universe; focusing and forcing his consciousness to it...

  * * *

  There suddenly appeared a strange thin mist throughout the room. All four of them noticed it. It very quickly congealed into a thick fog and collapsed into a humanoid silhouette. The next moment there stood a thin, vile looking Filipino man.

  All three said these things at the same time:

  "Holy shit!" shouted Tim, "That's Mr. Samuel!"

  Veronica muttered, "Mon dieu! That's the impostor!"

  And Neilson said: "Good Lord! That's the Filipino who crashed into my rental at the Montreal Airport!"

  The Filipino, Mr. Samuel, stood holding Tim Paupst's ghetto blaster in one hand. Lorne immediately exercised telepathy. He reached out to Michael Richardson. Lorne knew that Richardson had possession of a revolver, a loaded revolver! The message Lorne sent was short, concise, and to the point: Lorne S. Gibbons – Friend!

  Richardson received and understood. He had been thinking of the revolver and of shooting, but no longer.

  Neilson, being a minor telepath himself, also received the message. "Lorne?" he asked, bristling with excitement.

  "There's no time!" Lorne snapped. "The Lurker at the Threshold awaits! Nyarlathotep knows where it'll break through!"

  "What?" Veronica was utterly confused, "Lorne...?"

  Lorne turned his attention to his mother-in-law. "Yes, but we've no time to lose. We must open the Gateway and destroy Nyarlathotep!"

  "WHAT?!" exploded Richardson. "Are you out of your mind? We barely put Nadia down! You want us to tackle Otto? If everything you've told us -" he stopped, looking down at the body of Juan Emilio on the floor, "- if everything he told us was true, how the Hell can we kill Otto -"

  Lorne cut Michael off cold: "- I DON'T KNOW!" he exploded. "I have no clue! But we have no fucken' choice! Haven't you heard anything? Nyarlathotep will release them, all of them! Now! Within minutes!"

  Richardson understood. The colour ran out of his face. It didn't matter if they died trying to stop the Otto-Symbiot or died after the Great Old Ones were released. At least this way there was a chance - regardless of how minute.

  "But..." began Veronica, "... how can we open the Gateway? There's no ways left - "

  Lorne cut her off while removing the rewound tape cassette. " - there's still one. The copy of my tape you had intended for Neilson, remember? The Filipino impostor? Me...?" He let his sentence trail off unfinished as he held the final tape of Lorne S. Gibbons for all to see.

  "If you're the real Lorne S. Gibbons," began Tim, "then why don't you just play the musical piece? You did record that tape in your hands, didn't you?"

  Lorne gave Paupst a hard look. He sighed and held up his hands. "These aren't mine..." he trailed off again in thought. "To perform music – through a musical instrument – requires coordination... manual dexterity. This body doesn't have it. Not enough of it anyhow..."

  Tim seemed to accept the explanation. "How can we play the," he paused and corrected himself, "your tape? The studio's equipment's all been smashed by Nadia."

  Lorne smiled through the Filipino's rotten yellow teeth. "Your ghetto blaster." He returned the cassette to the tape deck and pressed the "PLAY" button.

  "... Mom, I'm doing this for both of us. I know you don't believe..." the recording began. It sounded small and metallic in comparison to the studio's hi-tech equipment. The five of them stood silently waiting.

  "...made a mistake somewhere. I think I can repeat what she played..." Lorne's voice – his original voice – on the recording stopped its monologue. The strange alien music began.

  Richardson reloaded his pistol, switched its safety to the off position.

  A secondary source of the music began. Its volume grew. Louder and louder! Deafening! A black sphere appeared. The walls of the 'pocket universe'! It silently and as quick as lightning expanded past them all like the backdraft of a passing truck.

  The Gateway opened, bathing the entire room in its eerie violet light. As expected, a purple tainted mist appeared, danced around the room, condensed into a spiralling, churning fog. It moved with a sentience of its own as it congealed into a man-form... the Otto-Symbiot!

  Otto's powerful muscles flexed and twisted beneath his gray flesh as he turned to see who had dared summon him yet again! His emerald eyes caught and burned into Lorne! His toothless cavern of a mouth stretched wide and inarticulate sounds burst forth in his anguish.

  Richardson reacted! He had squeezed the pistol trigger three times before Otto/Nyarlathotep clamped its vice-like grip upon Michael's mind, implanting a mental barrier. Richardson no longer could remember how the gun worked. Or for that matter what a gun even was. The information was locked away within his mind.

  The three bullets that he managed to fire raced towards their target, but each was met with a whip-like telekinetic tentacle and blown to pieces!

  Michael stood in a daze, staring at the strange alien tool in his hand, for he no longer recognized the pistol.

  Lorne entered Michael's mind, saw the barrier and immediately withdrew. He reached for Neilson's mind telepathically: Neilson, get the pistol!

  Lorne knew that Otto would turn on Howard next. He had to distract him. He summoned up his own telekinetic arm and struck at the Otto-Symbiot. It had very little effect, but it did break Otto's concentration on Neilson. It allowed Howard to get the pistol from Richardson and fire its remaining bullets freely.

  The bullets made a high-pitched springing noise as they ricocheted off several pieces of animated metal equipment! Large pieces of smashed and torn electronic recording equipment began to, at first levitate, then slowly orbit the Otto-Symbiot. Yet another larger piece dragged itself across the floor before joining its partners in their accelerating orbits.

  They had made a critical error. The plan was a simple one; to distract Otto and then shoot. But what they had overlooked was the fact that Jim McShaw had been absorbed into the Nyarlathotep consciousness by the Nadia-Symbiot! That Otto knew what they had intended. He knew their very plans!

  Lorne's thoughts were broken as a piece of equipment whizzed past his head and crashed into the wall. Without thought, his alien-facet reacted. Several pieces of twisted equipment took on a life of their own and took orbit around him, forming a protective shield of sorts. Although the Otto-Symbiot was no longer paying attention to either Lorne or Howard, he was still launching torn and twisted metal at him. Every time one came his way it would collide with an orbiting piece of shattered electronic equipment.

  But Otto was staring at a fixed point in space intently. Only Lorne noticed the thundering music had an ever so slight difference to it. Subtle, elusive, difficult to put his finger on, but present nevertheless.

  Another launched projectile rang out as it collided with Lorne's protective orbit of debris. This time it was closer. Lorne had to concentrate this time to protect himself.

  He followed Otto's green eyes to where they were focused on a point of frothing bubbles exuding themselves out of thin air – like the mouth of a giant rabid invisible animal. The alien-facet within immediately recognized it as another gateway, but this one was different; drastically different.

  What was once a metal table, now insanely twisted into a parody of a pretzel, tore through Lorne's defending orbits. He had to jump to allow it to jumble past him spitting sparks off the floor!

  Yog-Sothoth - the lurker at the threshold. Although Lorne didn't know exactly what it meant, somehow he instinctively recognized it – or at least his alien-facet did. The other-worldly aperture was seething disorderly iridescent bubbles and somehow he knew these madly silent chromatic bubbles hid what was the horror of Yog-Sothoth. The apertur
e expanded suddenly with a ripping sound as more of the iridescent bubble poured in.

  Yet another piece of smashed equipment collided with Lorne's protective 'shell' of spinning debris and the tangled pair whirled towards him!

  They struck, propelled by Nyarlathotep's telekinesis, delivering Lorne a crippling blow. Lorne's legs and ribs snapped and cracked with the impact! He fell to the floor in an agonizing heap.

  Now that the second gateway was expanding slowly but consistently Otto broke his attention from it. His green eyes fell upon the ghetto blaster and last copy of the tape! The only remaining chance of ever opening the Gateway back to this Prison-Universe again! Otto-Nyarlathotep's telekinetic fingers hurtled themselves at the tape!

  Lorne knew he was finished. He was no match for Nyarlathotep. He had thought of a last ditch attempt of stopping the Symbiot. It was terribly dangerous. He shouted out to the other four but between his crushed and smashed ribs and the deafening volume of the other worldly music they could not hear him. The alien music thundered!

  He screamed one final command out to their minds:

  RUN!!!

  Nyarlathotep found the tape... and crushed it!

  Lorne's maimed and crippled body levitated off the floor. The orbiting pieces of electronic equipment wreckage stopped their orbiting and began to move towards him. He reached out, expanded his mind, instead of pushing anything and everything away, he began to pull and draw everything towards himself. He began to transmute physical matter into psychic energy; began to feed and fuel his multimind. The wrecked equipment burst into a golden light and poured into his body. The floor beneath him disintegrated into energy, leaving a hollow twenty foot scoop. Otto launched all the remained circling steel debris at him only to have it consumed into the dynamo of energy Lorne had become. The twisted and smashed electronic equipment burst into energy and was sucked into the Filipino's body.

  Neilson grabbed Veronica by the arm and ran! Tim had long since fled. Michael Richardson, however, while beginning to run, had his foot snag onto a piece of crumpled and twisted recording equipment and tripped. As he attempted to regain his footing he was caught in the disintegrating field. His body falling into molecules and speeding towards Lorne! Michael's very soul being consumed into the golden glowing levitated body of Lorne!

  There was a whoosh sound as the very air surrounding Lorne turned into a blistering energy and was absorbed! The body of Juan Emilio Sanchez-Vasquez burst into pure psychic energy and fed the Lorne-Symbiot. And lastly, Lorne's actual physical body itself, the Filipino's body of Mr. Samuel, disintegrated and joined the golden orb of energy!

  Lorne's plan was simple. The Gateway of the pocket-universe was shutting and the secondary gateway releasing Yog-Sothoth was opening. He would strike Otto with this massive energy and knock Nyarlathotep clean out of Its host. He would utterly destroy Otto's body, leaving Nyarlathotep disembodied. It would have no choice but to return into the Prison-Universe! It cannot exist within our universe without a physical host. It would be stranded... as would Lorne, for he too would have no more physical form... He knew it was suicidal; that he would never survive the assault... but there was no other way...

  The blistering nuclear fury burst forth! It tore through the very air leaving a vacuuming wake in its path. It struck Otto full force! There was a blinding sundering explosion...

  * * *

  Veronica slowly regained consciousness. She felt a slight cool breeze caress her face. She opened her eyes and saw blue skies. That was odd, she thought. The last she remembered she was indoors. She turned her head to the side and saw Howard laying on the floor unconscious. He seemed alright. She could see his chest slowly rising and falling. He was breathing. She slowly and unsteadily climbed to her feet. The room was severely damaged. The building's south facing wall and full one quarter of the ceiling and roof were gone. What remained of the damaged studio's hi-tech equipment had all been dragged across the floor and pointing to a twenty-foot scoop shaped hole in it. Scattering around it was what appeared to be pieces of meat, guts, and gore. She knew what it was and turned her face away.

  The cool morning breeze made her disheveled hair float about. The light from the blue sky seemed unnatural now. There was no violet light of the Gateway. There was no more Gate-sphere. No Michael Richardson. No Otto. No Juan Emilio. No Mr. Samuel... no Lorne.

  The ghetto blaster was gone. The final copy of Lorne's tape was gone. Any hope of reopening the Gateway was also gone.

  Veronica began to say something, to pose a question, but no sound issued forth. She only moved her lips. Her mouth only framed the word in silence:

  Lorne...?

  ...but there was nobody there.

  Epilogue: Loose Ends

  June 27th, '92

  Stonehenge, Wiltshire,

  England, 2:10 am

  ...Otto had just sprang back onto his feet. Lorne's psychic assault hadn't broken his grip on Marie Gibbons! Otto glared with feral eyes at Lorne from beneath angry gray brows!

  Marie felt the Otto/Nyarlathotep-Symbiot's final telekinetic attack upon her physical body! And then... nothingness. Her body had broken down into atoms and scattered....!

  * * *

  June 27th, '92

  Tokyo, Japan

  Shantigra Takahara lay in her bathtub. The bubbles covered her and she couldn't help but feel like a great bubbly blanket was laid over her. The bubbles seemed to keep the water warmer. The scent of the bubble-bath filled the washroom. She closed her eyes and listened to the radio. The news reporter's words seemed to slur into a strange language. She was falling asleep. She fell into that twilight world of semi-consciousness. It was so comfortable! Little did she know that she would never exit.

  Shantigra had turned in the tub, twisting her hips to get more comfortable when her ankle caught the radio's cord and pulled it into the warm sudsy water.

  The apartment's lights and power flickered for only a moment before the power went out. She was electrocuted. She died instantly.

  Shantigra's brown eyes bulged and stared blankly at the bath's ceramic ceiling, and as she sunk beneath the bubbly waters her eyes didn't close.

  The apartment was silent. Only the light drizzle could be heard on her balcony from outside.

  Then...

  ...Her body convulsed and thrashed beneath the water! Her arms flailed out of the water, one arm smashing into the ceramic wall, cracking tiles with a dull snap sound. Her elbow split! Her head shot out of the bubbles and she coughed and gagged, spitting up warm, soapy water. Her eyes were again filled with life, but of an intelligence not of Shantigra Takahara's!

  Marie Gibbons scanned the room to and fro with terror. Bubbles gently and warmly cascaded from her neck, over her breasts, onto her belly, and down her silky legs.

  The last thing Marie remembered was being at Stonehenge... with her husband, Lorne, and that god-awful gray skinned man! But...

  Her thoughts were broken as she noticed the submerged radio... still plugged in! Quickly, with near inhuman speed, her tanned hand leapt to the wall socket and tugged the plug out. Only afterwards did she realize that the power was out.

  She stood holding the plug. She remembered her husband, Lorne S. Gibbons. Of how he was in a Filipino's body when he rescued her from Nyarlathotep's Prison-Universe. Of how he had switched bodies when he had died. All this knowledge she had received from Lorne when she touched his hand; when she had grasped his hand in the Prison-Universe; all telepathically. She began to understand. She had been reincarnated. That this person, this – she suddenly became aware of her now multimind, and someone else's memories – Shantigra Takahara, had died in the tub. That she had entered her body.