Ghouls of the Miskatonic (The Dark Waters Trilogy) (40 page)

Amanda slept fitfully, her hunger and thirst now too great to ignore or keep at bay with willpower. The brief surge of hope she’d felt at Rita’s escape had lasted as long as it took for the cultist she’d taken the keys from to rise and beat her unconscious. She’d tried to remember his name, and where she’d seen him before, but it wouldn’t come. Exhaustion, fear, and malnutrition were eroding her ability to think clearly.

She’d woken with blood in her eyes and a thudding pain between her temples. All trace of the struggle had vanished, though freshly chewed bones littered the far side of the pool. She’d thought she heard distant chanting, mixed with angry shouts from above, but it was hard to be sure of anything.

Rita had gotten free, and Amanda’s only hope now was that her friend had managed to find help and was bringing the cavalry to her rescue. It wasn’t much of a hope. Even if Rita had made it back to civilization, how would she know where to return? She glanced toward the grate Rita had snuck through. Would her rescuers come back in that way?

She drifted in and out of consciousness, letting her mind wander the forgotten pathways of her memory and taking refuge in memories of childhood. She remembered swimming through the crystal cold waters of Lake Champlain, racing her brother to the yellow buoys that marked the edge of the safe swimming area.

Amanda would always swim a few strokes beyond the buoys, and tease her brother mercilessly for being chicken. Then he’d swim out to her and they’d laugh and dunk each other...until that one time a fish or some submerged piece of driftwood brushed against her leg. She’d screamed and thrashed like a maniac, thinking that Champ, the lake’s legendary monster was attacking her. She’d immediately pictured slimy tentacles pulling her down, like a rubbery octopus wrapping its oozing bulk around her and dragging her toward its beak-like mouth.

After that summer, she never swam out beyond the buoys.

The memory of the lake faded, and Amanda saw herself as a young girl, poring over her father’s atlas, memorizing the different names of all the countries. Capital cities, rivers, mountains, and forests—she memorized them all. That faded too, and she was in the automobile factory where her father worked, watching the assembly lines from the gantry above as line after line of men riveted, bolted, hammered, and welded the cars together. It never ceased to amaze her how all these pieces of metal, shaped, pressed, and molded together, could form such an incredible machine.

Amanda had spent every moment she could at her father’s side, learning all about the science behind these automobiles and the machines the men used to build them.
 

She wondered why her escape into memory had brought her to these moments.

Then she remembered. They were an escape from pain.

 
When had that pain happened?

The memory of that pain surged, though it was without a point of reference or anchor in her mind. It might have been days ago, weeks ago, minutes ago. She could no longer tell.

A voice had whispered to her, beguiling and soft, though she couldn’t hear the words. They were calming, and though she knew how this scene would play out, she wasn’t afraid. The voice came again, and this time it felt like it was asking her something.

“Tell me, Amanda,” said the voice, “what did you dream?”

“What?” she replied foggily.

“The dreams of the sunken city. The ones you told to Oliver Grayson. Tell me what you saw and I can return you to your pleasing fictions of memory.”

“I don’t remember them,” she said as a warning voice deep in the farthest reaches of her mind screamed at her not to relive this horrible memory.

“I think you do,” said the voice. Amanda opened her eyes to see the red robed priest kneeling before her. A glittering fog filled the space between them, like they were inside a snow globe filled with flecks of silver and gold. She screamed and shrank back from him, feeling his hatred of her as a palpable force. It washed off him like sweat, a powerful disgust at her very existence. No, not just
her
existence, but her existence as part of the human race.

His hood was right in front of her, but she still couldn’t see his face. Unnatural darkness clung to his face like a mask, and all the pain and hunger vanished as the force of her terror blotted out all other thoughts.

“No,” she said emphatically. “I won’t tell you. I can’t. I promised.”

“You do remember, and you’re going to tell me. Time has run out for you, Amanda. I tried to do this without you suffering unduly, but my patience is at an end. With Rita rotting in the tunnels beneath Arkham, I no longer care whether I kill you, so this is your last chance. Tell me what I want to know or you will die screaming in pain.”

Amanda fought to hold back her tears, but no dam could restrain the tidal wave of emotion that surged through her. Tears flowed down her face and wracking sobs shook her body as days’ worth of fear surged to the fore. Without Rita beside her, she wasn’t strong. She couldn’t resist the man’s horrible demands.

She nodded, but Rita’s voice sounded in her ear.

Don’t you say nothing, Mandy. Don’t you dare!

Amanda laughed to hear Rita’s voice bullying her from far away, but that laugh only enraged her captor more. She felt herself dragged to her feet as the chains binding her wrists were released. She sagged against the man, her legs unable to support her weight. She tried to struggle, to fight like Rita had fought, but there was no strength left in her. Rita trained every day and she had barely managed to fight her way free.

The priest dragged her across the chamber, her legs splashing through the pool and scraping her knees bloody on the rocky floor. The ghouls barked and growled as he approached, thinking he had brought them a fresh meal.

“Still choosing to be stubborn?” said the man.

She didn’t answer him, and he shrugged. With surprising strength, he locked one hand around her throat and hauled her upright. Her feet dangled as he slammed her back against a barred door to one of the ghoul’s cells. Amanda struggled for breath, his rough hands almost, but not quite, cutting off the air to her lungs.

“Latimer!” called the man. Amanda screamed in fear.

The sound was barely out of her mouth when razors sliced down her back on either side of her spine. Red-hot claws tore her bedraggled dress and cut strips from her back, the skin and flesh curling down like rolled up paper as the ghoul’s paw shredded her flesh. The torn strips of skin were gathered up, like strands of hemp being wound into a length of rope. Warm, sticky wetness poured down her back.

Amanda bucked and thrashed in the man’s grip, but his strength was enormous and he held her pinned. With a grunt and a savage jerk, the ghoul wrenched the strips of torn skin from her back and Amanda wept in pain and horror as she heard its jaws chewing the meat of her body.

“No!” she screamed. “Oh no, please, no! Oh God, please, mister, what do you want to know about my dreams? They don’t mean anything, oh, please don’t hurt me again!”

“Tell me what I want to know,” the man insisted. “Otherwise Latimer will peel the skin from your arms as easily as you’d remove an opera glove.”

Sharpened claws settled on her shoulders, digging deep enough to draw blood.

“I’m sorry Rita, I’m so sorry…,” Amanda wept.

“Speak up, girl!” snapped the priest.

“I’m floating in the ocean,” began Amanda. “I don’t know where, but I’m not afraid…”

“Go on,” said the man.

Amanda told him everything in her dream, every nuance and every subtlety, no matter how inconsequential. He made her tell it three times at least, going over every detail, highlighting different aspects depending on the questions the man would ask to clarify certain points. She sobbed with each retelling, ashamed she had broken her promise to Rita. Her head knew there was no weakness in speaking under such circumstances, but her heart would not be dissuaded that she had committed some hideous betrayal.

“Look up at the stars,” said the man, as she went over her last sight before the waters dragged her beneath the surface. “Tell me what you see. Describe them.”

“There’s one group,” gasped Amanda. “Like a crucifix. It’s the brightest of all.”

“The Southern Cross,” said the man. “As I’d expect, but what of the other stars?”

“I don’t know,” said Amanda, hearing the frustrated, snuffling hunger of the ghoul at her back. At any moment it could tear more of the skin from her body. The thought of that made her tremble in fear.

“I don’t know them!” she yelled. “I don’t know stars. I’m not an astronomer.”

“No, but you are an engineer. Describe them, their shape, their position, their relative brightness. Do it now.”

Amanda cried in abject fear, but she did as he demanded.

* * *

Henry’s steps carried him in a brisk circuit of his cell, his hands knotting together in frantic motion as his ruined mind tried to order itself. Oliver’s visit had thrown him for a loop, and the chaotic nature of Henry’s mind was undoing a measure of its disorder. For the first time in years Henry could think clearly.

He knew it was a fleeting window of clarity, and he fought to hold back the anguish of his lost years and the horror of his current life. Oliver had spoken of terrible things, events he had tried to bury in the darkest vaults of his memory, but that prison was now unlocked and the dreadful events of 1918 returned to haunt him.
 

The dead bodies, the gnawed bones, and the fire falling like incandescent waterfalls from the heavens. Flesh liquefying on bone and pouring from bodies like molten rubber. How easy it was for enlightenment to turn to horror! The treasure trove of books he and Alexander had found had turned out to be a poisoned chalice, a tainted well from which they had drunk too deeply.

Henry remembered Jameson babbling in a tongue no one knew, weeping as he put the pistol in his mouth and blew his brains over the castle walls. Mortimer had dashed his skull to destruction on the stone floor of the hidden library, while Warren had turned his madness outward, fighting the Germans like a berserker from the Norse legends, tearing men apart with his bare hands. He’d received a medal for that, yet for Warren it was no passing thing, no act of bravery spurred on by danger, but a near-constant state of being.

He could remember little else of the war, just fleeting images of bloody bodies, fire, and accusing eyes reflected in pools of dark water. The guilt of those days burned brightly in his heart, but he had tried to make amends, tried to put those years behind him. Was everything he had done since the war meaningless?

Henry turned to the window and gripped the bars tightly. He looked up at the moon as it hid its face behind the clouds.

“I’m so sorry, Oliver,” he said. “I tried to stop it, but it had already begun.”

The moon appeared from behind its clouds, bathing him in its stark illumination.

The universe cares not for your regret…

Henry shrieked, hearing the words as though voiced by an invisible speaker at his shoulder. He spun around, seeing his room slashed by black spars of shadow from the barred window. The far wall undulated, as though constructed from billowing sailcloth instead of brick and mortar.

“Oh God! Please not again!” wailed Henry. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

The shadows did not answer him, writhing on the rippling surface of the bare wall, spreading and reaching out to him as the light from the moon diminished. Though the darkness was impenetrable, Henry could hear the sound of guttural chanting, hideous grunts, and the smack of wet lips from beyond. The stink of stagnant water and blood filled his senses.

Henry screamed and ran to the door of his cell.

“Please!” he cried. “Monroe! Anyone! Please, help me! It’s me, Henry Cartwright! I need help. God, please I need help!”

No one answered his cries, and he pressed his back to the iron door as the shadows on the wall oozed onto the floor, flowing like oil pouring from a ruptured drum. The darkness glittered with sparkling iridescence, flecked with gold and silver as
something
pushed its way up through the floor. An outline began to form as the amorphous slick rose higher and higher through the floor: a man’s shape, yet no features were visible, only darkness.

Henry covered his eyes and wailed in terror to see this black form of a man appear before him. It was no man, of that he was certain, rather some dread avatar summoned from the depths of his guilty memories. Fully emerged, the oily liquid drained away, leaving the unblemished form of a man in a Marine Corps service uniform with a badge depicting the winged staff of a corpsman pinned to his lapel.

Henry looked into the man’s eyes, seeing the face he had known he would see, the features he saw in the mirror when he was taken to be washed. His doppelgänger smiled, yet there was no warmth to it, only cold malevolence.

“Say the words, Henry,” said the uniformed figure.

“No, no, no, no…,” cried Henry. “I won’t. Not again.”

“You feel them inside you, I know you do. They are still there, crawling and slithering within. They need to be free. You have to let them out. Go on, say them for me. You learned them once, you can say them now.”

“Please don’t make me.”

“I must.”

“I can’t.”

“I want you to.”

“You’re not me!” shouted Henry. “You can’t be me!”

“I think you know that’s not true,” said his mirror image. “I am the guilt you feel at every moment. I am the fear and horror of what you did. I am the absolution you crave. I am all these things and more, but you have to say the words. Let the fire free, Henry. Let it do what it does naturally. Bring the fireflies out. Do it, do it now.”

“Please don’t make me,” begged Henry.

“You need to do it, Henry,” said the man. “Time is running out and threads must be severed before the design unravels. You understand, don’t you?”

“I don’t,” sobbed Henry. “I never did…”

The doppelgänger waggled an admonishing finger and grinned. “Now, even you know that’s a lie. Say the words with me, Henry,
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthugha
…”