Cthulhu Attacks!: Book 1: The Fear (17 page)

“No offense, okay? Anthropologists are taught to observe and not to judge. But a medical doctor and researcher coming to adopt the animist beliefs of a primitive culture, even to become its
leader?
That’s incredible!” Kristen was speaking blasphemy against her training, but this was real and right in front of her face. She could be academically and politically correct later, when she wrote up this fascinating case and got onto a tenure track at last. But this was incredible, literally, and
that
was what would arrest the attentions of hiring committees. However, for now, she said to Howard, “Did you fall in love with a girl in the tribe? Or just go completely insane?”

Howard reared back and laughed at this, not mockingly, but warmly. “The
Tulu
tribe had its own ‘medicinal’ plants to share with their miraculously arrived healer who came just in time to save their beloved Sinamoi.”

“Ah. Hallucinogens.”

“I suppose, but of a variety that I had never encountered in my travels and, unlike
A.
albiflora
, was unknown to botany, pharmacology, or anywhere in the wider world. In a very solemn ritual, they made tea using this plant and bade me to drink it.”

“So you fell for a bunch of hallucinations and joined a cult?”

For the first time Howard spoke to her sharply: “Shut your mouth and open your mind if you want to survive the rising of
Tulu
. If you won’t, you can get the fuck out of our area and die somewhere else.”

Kristen blinked back sudden tears and could see her entire future career go up in smoke. “I … I’m very sorry, Howard,” she said as clearly as she could with her jaw tightening with shame and panic. “Please forgive me. Please … I would ask you to continue.”

The smile returned to Howard’s face as he examined Kristen’s and apparently saw something there that he liked. He said, warmly now, “Excuse my flash of anger, Kristen. You have to come to us for a reason, and you will be as a daughter to me. I do not want to see my daughter torn apart as
Tulu
begins his journey. You do not understand the opportunity you could lose here … not only to live, but, more importantly, to tell the world of our risen God.”

No pressure or anything
, Kristen thought. “Thank you, Howard,” she said with care. “What happened after you drank the tea?”

Howard looked into the distance, like the memories filled his vision entirely. “I drank the tea and went into a …
spell
, I guess you would call it. Like lucid dreaming, only I was fully awake. I could control my thoughts and my movements, but as the tribe members spoke to me first in our pidgin and then in their R’lyehian language, I came to understand the meaning of their words and become open to visions of Great
Tulu
Himself.”

“Did he look like the picture on TV?”

Howard smiled but remained serious. “Yes and no. What is in the ocean right now is not fully
Tulu
, but only his essence—he is as mist in the physical sense until the Way is open. This is His “herald form,” not his corporeal form. It clears the way for the actual body and mind of the Old One, and for his companions and slaves as well. When the interdimensional opening was first made for the Way, a paraphysical shock overcame the Earth, too powerful for human brains. But that was just the start. When His herald form moves, as it will very shortly, an undulating wave of psionic energy will emanate as long as that remains in this dimension.”

Kristen nodded, not comprehending much of what Howard was saying, but filing it away for future reference for when she wrote the paper, maybe the
book
, that would bring her into the major leagues of academia. “So you drank the tea and went into a spell …”

“Yes! It was only then that the tribe told me that a ritual had to be performed in order for me to
understand
the Old One, for me to be protected by Him as well as
from
Him.”

“A
sacrifice
, like you told me?”

“Exactly like that, yes. Such a small thing, but my mind opened and I became attuned not only to the tribe’s language, but the meaning of their worship and the metaphysical reality behind what that idol represents.”

Kristen swallowed at these words, excited and terrified at the same time.
Understanding
another culture from the inside. Their rituals—their
language!
“The tea, then? It wasn’t hazardous to your health? You suffered no ill effects?” She knew that many plants in the bayou were poisonous, to say the least. They caused hallucinations, too, while the body was wracked with agony and the consumer ultimately died.

“Very safe, indeed.” Howard closed his eyes, as if searching his memory, then opened them and fixed Kristen with a serious look as one of the child members handed him a metal cup. “It is time for you to drink the tea, my friend. My daughter.”

Was this ethical? Was this stupid?
Kristen’s mind raced. She didn’t want to end up a laughingstock like Wade Davis with his “researches” into Haiti’s
zombi
culture, breaking every rule in the book so that his findings were tainted at best and utterly rejected at worst. But she was here, this was the time to show Howard and the rest that they could trust her, and drinking a cup of bayou hallucinogen tea was hardly the biggest “sacrifice” she’d ever made for her career.

She took the cup from Howard—it was warm, but not scalding hot through the metal—and poured it all down her throat in one bitter-tasting gulp. The taste disappeared almost as quickly as she swallowed, however, and she gave the cup back to him with a smile. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“No, sweetheart,” Howard said with a smile bigger than hers, “it’s the opposite. It’s good beyond measure. Do you see Him?”

“Him?”

“
Tulu
.”

“Ah … nothing yet. I do feel a little …” she said, and trailed off. She knew it was just the way that some native hallucinogens worked, but after just two minutes of drinking the tea she was presented with the illusion of the tree branches and vines dripping and curling all around them. It made her laugh. “Okay, not
nothing
. This is some strong shit.”

Howard laughed, and the tribe laughed too. They had gathered around them in concentric circles, exactly as she had first seen them at worship of the idol.

Now Howard said, slowly and deeply in order to catch her attention among the mind-based pyrotechnics going on, “I drank the tea, I was offered the sacrifice. At first I refused it, but then I saw
Tulu
, saw that He was due my supplication to live under Him when He rose, and I gladly performed what was required of me.”

Kristen had to close her eyes in order to speak. It was just as Howard had described—she could control her actions but it was very much like she was in a dream, with chimera and inexplicably meaningful visions dancing before her eyes and mind. “Wha … what was your sacrifice? I thought the tea
was
the sacrifice …”

“No, dear one. I was given a blade and sacrificed Sinamoi, the “keeper of secrets” whose life I had saved, and for that act been accepted into the tribe. I stabbed him in the heart as he smiled at me with love. The blood was terrible, but the joy was profound, in myself and in the tribe of
Tulu
. In Sinamoi as he died.”

Kristen’s eyes shot open again at Howard’s words—he murdered a
child?
As a sacrifice to their god? She noticed that the rings around her and Howard were closed, each worshiper holding hands to make the way impassable for anyone in the middle. The rings of people undulated in Kristen’s field of vision, and the dream became a nightmare from which she could not wake.

“I can’t do that!
Murder
someone? I’m a
scientist
, Howard—but I won’t tell anyone—I just have to—”

“He is moving. Kristen, you must do it now or be driven mad!”

Gaining in amplitude, the psionic wave reached the bayou at its crest.

“What? Howard, I—EEEEEEEEE!” Kristen wailed as the power of the wave ripped through her mind. “No. No, no, no, no,
NO! GET AWAY! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—
” She tried to run but immediately was held with the circle by the elders’ solidly interlocked arms. No one else seemed to be affected by this sudden horror and need to flee, to GET AWAY.

Howard was in her face. “Do you see Him? Do you see
Tulu?
”

“
No!
All I feel is—it’s gripping my heart! I can’t breathe!
MOVE, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!
” She dug her heels in trying to push her way through the circle—she didn’t consciously know it, but she was trying to push to the north, away from the psionic assault—but the cultists were too strong and she couldn’t get enough breath with the cold dread filling every inch of her to even make a real attempt. Icy fishhooks pulled at her heart, flooding her with electric fear and sudden nausea. She needed to get
out
, and get out in
this
direction, where the circle was tightest. “Let me go! Let me
go!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
”

Howard’s face was even closer now, and she could smell his rotten breath. It wasn’t like unbrushed teeth or even tooth decay—it stank of the sea. “This is what
every
nonbeliever will experience—panic unto death! Kristen, you must look at
Tulu!
Look at Him!
”

The dread and panic had her almost too squeezed to pay attention to Howard’s words, but as he spoke this last, she could
see
his terrible breath spreading over her and around her, a green fog that soon blocked everything else out and dimmed her panic to a dull ache that seemed far away. She saw black spots in the fog, two sharklike circles like disembodied eyes. And now she could see one suspended above the others, three black circles making a triangle.

She was looking into the face of
Tulu
.

Tentacles undulated in slow waves before her. The face didn’t seem godlike, didn’t seem either benevolent or malevolent. It just looked
alien
. But it cooled the panic in her heart and filled her with … if not happiness or joy, then at least with …

Calm
. This
Tulu
would bring her calm while the world under her feet was torn asunder and minds were ripped from so many other human brains.

But the face was so awful and terrible—made her so full of awe and sublime terror—that she let loose again: “
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE …!”
but it was more of a moan than a scream that broke as release and understanding filled her: “AHHHHHHHHHHHH …”

Again: “EEEEEEEEE … AHHHHHHHHH.”

The face of
Tulu
was still in her eyes and mind, but she could hear His tribe now around her moaning the sound with her: “EEEEE … AHHHH.”

EEE-AHH … EE-AH …

Ïa.

“
Ïa! Ïa!
” Kristen chanted at last, everything coming together as her sisters and brothers came together in their joyful cries: “Ïa! Ïa!” She laughed out loud, tears streaming from her eyes in connection and understanding. “
Ïa! Ïa!
”

A cold blade was placed in her hand and the face of her new god faded from sight, replaced by Howard, her father in the Faith, on his knees before her, laughing and crying himself as he chanted what Kristen chanted and leaned his head back to expose his chest. It was a face in a dream

“No, Howard! I need you to tell me what to do!”

“Make the sacrifice,” he said as he beamed at her. “We shall be connected through
Tulu
and everything we know shall be shared. Make the sacrifice and join the Old One!”

In her lucid dream of reality, Kristen watched as her hand rose and then struck, plunging the knife into Howard’s bare chest and he fell, an ecstatic smile upon his face. Blood seeped from his grinning mouth. “You missed my heart,” he said. But she had obviously hit something important, because his speech sent forth a spray of arterial red.

Kristen’s hands flew to her mouth and she fell to her knees beside him. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—I’ve never done this before—”

That made the dying man laugh even harder. “You did fine, my girl. I go to the great Dagon now, to live forever in His kingdom under the sea. You know what Dagon is, don’t you?”

An image faded into her mind, and she saw an enormous Sea King, fishlike but not a fish, humanlike but definitely not a human. In the dark of the sea, the luminescence of his living city shone on him from below and revealed his vastness and benevolence. “He is …
beautiful
.”

Howard was fading but still smiling. He said slowly, “Dagon is the God of Gods.”

“But then … what is
Tulu?
I thought he was your God?
Our
God?”