Mists of the Miskatonic (Mist of the Miskatonic Book 1) (25 page)

“You’re crazy,” I whispered.

“I told you I’d see you around,” she said. “Get him up and cut his feet loose so he can walk.”

Two more robed figures appeared, and pulled me onto my feet. My head swirled in pain at the sudden movement. I struggled, to no avail. Sheila hoisted an electric lamp and I was carried through a decrepit hallway. She led the way, and shadows danced evilly in the debris-filled corridor.

We descended a rough shaft carved in the rock. Shoddy wood stairs creaked below my feet as we circled, and then the shaft opened into an odd, worked stone chamber.

The hollow was damp and dank. The smell overwhelmed me: the stench of rotten flesh churned my stomach. The architecture of the room was strange. Peculiar columns held the ceiling at odd angles. Bas reliefs of unidentifiable creatures, maybe prehistoric adorned the walls. Stone sconces of creatures like octopi held lamps that sputtered.

In the center of the room was a circular dais. The greenish stone blocks were cut at odd angles that disturbed me. On the stone floor around the structure was stacked bones and skulls, excarnated of flesh. This was the moment I realized I was going to die in this god-forsaken dungeon, like dozens of people before me who now lay silent, stripped of flesh.

I struggled, but my captors dragged me forward and pushed me down onto the dais. Sheila held the lamp above her head. In the light I could see that the dais was a circle, with a large hole in the middle like a well. The shaft was black and stunk, and no bottom was visible in the darkness. My stomach churned, and a smell like electricity mixed with death billowed from the bowels of the earth.

One of the men picked up two thighbones and began to drum on the slick, green stone. The bone clattered sharply against the rock, and the sound echoed in the tiny chamber.

“From the depths we call you,” Sheila announced over the unholy rhythm. “You waited in the dark, when the ancestors of man crawled from the primordial seas. You waited for us. For the offer of sentient flesh to satisfy your eternal hunger.”

“You’re crazy,” I shouted. “I’ll kill you! Let me go, and I will kill you all!”

Sheila ignored my threats. “Come to us, master. Come and eat your fill. Once again we fulfill our role in this cycle of death.”

A groan echoed somewhere deep, and then the sound of a low gurgle became the background for the insane drum beats. The staccato of the raps became more frenzied as slurps and slops became louder as
something
rose up the well.

The shaft erupted. A dark, oily mass of ooze vomited forth like an oil derrick in hell. The slime congealed vertically and towered over the stone dais. It continued to flow as it defied all the laws of nature I knew. Sheila squealed as in orgasm and her eyes rolled back to just show the whites. She turned to me and stared at me with her white eyes.

“It’s your time, George!” she shrieked. “God has to be fed!”

The vile mass swelled, vibrated, and then unfolded like the hood of a cobra. I screamed in horror as the mass wriggled. A hundred inhuman eyes blinked as they stared at me. My grip on consciousness started to fade. I had never considered I would be so weak, face to face with a demon.

The eyes on the wall of oil shifted. Some merged with others, some popped in splatters of pus. In the middle of the swirl of orbs a toothy maw opened: a circular mouth like a lamprey. The maw pursed and puckered like it wanted a satanic kiss. I was going to be eaten by the monster.

I screamed again as the mouth of the beast quivered in anticipation. The curtain of black flesh leaned closer, and I could feel and smell the breath. The odor was pungent, rotten, death. It was coming for me.

A sound like thunder echoed in the chamber. My already foggy head took another blow from the boom.

The drummer with his necrotic sticks jerked, and blood splattered from his chest. He dropped the bones and fell forward onto the green stone. Greasy black tendrils lashed out and wrapped around the drummer. He was pulled into the lamprey-mouth. The maw quivered in anticipation, and the man was messily dismembered.

Every contraction of the maw shredded flesh and shattered bone. The demonic mass seemed to derive pleasure from the act, the myriad of eyes slowly blinked as it savored every grinding bite.

Sheila turned and pointed, and the second robed man moved through the cavity. He pulled a wicked looking blade from the folds of his robe. I followed her gaze. Michael, the tow truck driver was in the stairwell with a large revolver raised. The gun boomed again, the pressure unbearable on my head from the sound.

Michael’s shot found its mark: the man with the knife tumbled and fell. The blade clattered across the floor.

“You fool!” Sheila screamed. The violence agitated the curtain of dark flesh that undulated behind her. “You can’t stop us!”

I rolled away from the dais towards Michael. He produced his own blade and cut my bonds. My wrist burned where the ties had dug into my skin, and he helped me stand. My body shook at the scene before me.

Sheila’s arms were outstretched in front of the curtain of dark flesh. The corpulent shadow wriggled. Hundreds of eyeballs swirled in the protoplasmic mass, and the giant sucker mouth puckered and drew at the air in hope of more sentient flesh. It was a hellish variation of a baby as it struggled for its mother’s nipple: the black lips and jagged teeth dripped blood, and pursed for another body to slake its hunger.

“I can stop you,” Michael said. The revolver boomed and her chest erupted. She spun and sprawled on the bones.

The monster moaned, a deep howl of resignation, and began to collapse into the well. The thing folded into itself, and with a slimy slop and slurp noise it pulled itself down the shaft. I stumbled forward and inspected the wound in Sheila’s chest. She cried quietly from the pain as the hole bubbled when she breathed.

“It wasn’t personal,” she coughed. Blood dripped from her teeth stained crimson.

I grabbed her by the throat and lifted her to the edge of the pit. Oily flesh undulated in the hole a few feet below us, and dozens of eyes focused on us as I held her. The circular mouth reappeared and pursed for its unholy carnivorous kiss.

“Ladies get swallowed,” I whispered and dropped her over the edge. “Not spit out.”

She fell and the mouth caught her. Sheila clawed at the edge of the well, but the mouth bit her in half. There was a brief inhuman shriek as it halved her messily, then the black mass enveloped her and slid down the shaft out of sight.

I stumbled backwards and Michael caught me and kept me from a tumble on the floor. He steadied me while I caught my breath.

“The girl who disappeared was my sister,” he said. “These murderers had it coming. I’ve waited a long time for this day. Their insane cult has taken many innocent lives.”

“So you used me as bait?” I said. “I could have been killed.”

“Yup,” he whispered before we left the chamber and Priest River behind forever.

“Some of ‘em have queer narrow heads with flat noses and bulgy, stary eyes that never seem to shut…” H.P. Lovecraft,
The Shadow Over Innsmouth

“Mists of the Miskatonic”

Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s
The Shadow Over Innsmouth

In a small, windowless interrogation room under a non-descript building in downtown Seattle, Jaelle Mircea sat at a stainless steel table. Her day had been interrupted by men with badges and big guns. They had hauled her somewhere underground for reasons she did not understand.

Jaelle was in preparations for a three o’clock reading when men in dark suits entered her shop. It was the first time she could ever remember anyone with a badge at her home storefront in rural Woodinville, Washington. The lead officer flashed some type of credentials, and claimed he was Homeland Security. Why in the world Homeland Security would want anything to do with her was incomprehensible.

They handcuffed her like a common criminal without any explanation, and then put her in the back of a black SUV. Through tinted windows she watched them haul box after box from her house. They even cleaned out the fridge. After an hour, she doubted anything was left.

Then, the convoy of black SUVs snaked their way south on the 405, then west on the 520 to where they turned south on the 5. Jaelle watched cars pass the convoy. Nameless, faceless people who probably wondered what dangerous criminal was concealed behind dark glass.

The tiny woman questioned repeatedly why she was under arrest, and insisted on a call to an attorney. The men were stoic. They never talked directly to her, and every time she would ask a question the two in the front of the vehicle would just look straight ahead. The lack of information terrified her.

It took a few more turns to an entrance to an underground parking lot. In all of her years of living in the Puget Sound, she could never recall seeing the building. Through an armed checkpoint they drove, and then into a non-descript elevator with horrible music they marched her.

The elevator indicated they were three levels below the garage, but she found that hard to believe. Did buildings in Seattle go that far underground?

The implacable men escorted her through sterile corridors and through steel doors to a small room. Now she sat at a cold table. The room was painted in some institutional cream color, like vanilla ice cream mixed with a hint of dog poop. The only sound was the low hum of a circulation fan that originated from the vent above the table. The air was turgid, old, like it had been recycled too many times through dusty vents. A small camera was in the upper corner of the room. A single crimson light flashed repeatedly on the case of the device. A large mirror was inset to her left: she could not guess if it was north, south, east or west since she had lost her bearings.

After what seemed like hours, Jaelle heard something in the door click. The handle rattled and two men in dark suits entered. Both were over six feet, slim and muscular. The one man had short black hair parted on the right side, the other was shaved bald. The black haired man had pleasant green eyes and a confident aspect. The bald one had an odd look about him, and his eyes pierced her.

The dark haired man pulled a wallet from his jacket pocket and unfolded it. He held it in front of her face. “Namir Walden, Federal Bureau of Investigation. My associate is Agent Eugene Marsh, Homeland Security.”

Jaelle tensed as she started to feel the walls close in. “Why have I been arrested? I don’t understand what I am doing here? None of your agents were willing to answer any of my questions. None spoke with me other than to ask me if I had something sharp in my pockets, when they frisked me. What is this about?”

“Miss Mircea, you are not under arrest,” Marsh said. His voice grated like it was dry. “If you were under arrest you would have been read your rights. We just wanted to ask a few questions about your business, and your writing. If you are honest, this will go easier on you. And us.”

“If I’m not under arrest, why did they put me in cuffs and loot my house? My business is legit, I pay my taxes, and my city business license is current. What is this about?” she said angrily.

Walden shot a glance at Marsh who continued to stare at her. “Most fortune tellers are phonies, Miss Mircea. Here, behind closed doors, why don’t you admit to us you just bilk the naïve from their welfare checks?” the FBI agent growled.

“Homeland Security and the FBI are arresting people they think are phony palm readers? This ranks right up there with government money to study shrimp on treadmills and bridges to nowhere. I can’t believe you are serious,” Jaelle said angrily. “I want out of here.”

She stood, straightened her blouse and stepped towards the door. Namir was on his feet and grabbed her arm.

“Sit down, Miss Mircea. Let’s not make this unpleasant for all of us,” the agent directed.

“You’re hurting my arm,” she cried.

“The more hostile and uncooperative you become, the longer this will take,” Walden said calmly. “Just sit. Don’t make us cuff you again.”

She jerked away from the FBI agent and sat.

“Fine. I would like a glass of water and will need a bathroom break in a little while,” she demanded.

“We can do that,” The FBI agent agreed. “See? We can make this work. You cooperate: this will be quick and painless. You hungry?”

“God, no!” she shrieked. “I’ve been on the verge of puking this whole time. I haven’t even gotten a traffic ticket for years. I’ve never been arrested in my whole life!”

“So you admit you are a phony, then?” Marsh asked. “We don’t care that you are. It’s a simple question. Your secret is safe with us. Not even a Freedom of Information request would find the file we create today.”

She stared at Marsh as he stared back. “No. I have the gift. My mother had it, and her mother, and so on back to the old country.”

“The old country. Romania, according to our records. Your Grandmother came from Europe right before World War II started. A gypsy,” he said. “Mircea is a Romanian name.”

“Grandfather died and was burnt in the ovens at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was not a good time for gypsies.”

“A gypsy fortune-teller. That’s almost a stereotype,” Walden said.

The door clicked again and a smartly-dressed woman in a black skirt and jacket entered the room. She set a cold bottle of water on the table and a stack of folders and files between the agents. Walden glanced up at her and smiled almost imperceptibly, but Marsh stared straight ahead. The woman left the room and Marsh picked up the top folder from the pile.

“Please, drink,” the FBI agent said. “So you’re saying you can actually read people’s futures? That you have psychic powers?”

Jaelle drank the water. It was cool and wet her dry mouth. “That sounds so phony. Psychic powers. Yes, I have the gift. I already told you that. That’s what we call it.”

“You want us to believe you can really read palms? Tea leaves? Animal entrails?” Walden snickered. “Like Professor Xavier?”

“Palmistry, tasseomancy, extispicy are the technical terms. I do some palmistry, but mostly I do cold readings, clairvoyance, and crystallomancy. I am very good at what I do, Agent Walden. Many satisfied customers, and they refer many of their friends. There are many phonies in this business: not me,” Jaelle said firmly. “Now tell me what you want.”

“If you are really psychic, you could probably tell us,” Marsh said quietly. He pulled another folder from the stack and set it on the table. “Do you know who this person is?”

Jaelle looked at the black and white picture of a man with dark hair. “No.”

“His name is Vincent Ramirez. Are you sure you don’t know who he is?”

“I don’t have the foggiest idea,” the fortuneteller said.

“His sister is Ileana Ramirez, her maiden name. Her married name is Ileana Roberts.” The FBI agent opened a new folder and laid out a picture of Ileana.

Jaelle bristled. “Of course I know Ileana. She is a regular customer of mine.”

“Vincent not only owns several guns, he is a lifetime member of the NRA. Subscribes to
Guns and Ammo
. None of this bothers you?”

“Why should it?” she spat. “Unless he wants a reading, I don’t care what he does as long as he doesn’t hurt anybody.”

Marsh stared at her and laid down another folder. “Does this person look familiar to you?”

“Yes. That is Beth Holland. I have done some crystallomancy for her. Is she an NRA member also?” Jaelle said sarcastically.

“Worse. Tea Party member,” he said. “Listens to Glenn Beck.”

Jaelle eye’s widened. “That is so horrible,” she whispered. “Beck is so fat. Do you have any more of my clients in that stack? Do they listen to fat guys on the radio, also?”

“You don’t seem to be taking this very serious. You are surrounded by people who could be extremists in troubled times,” Marsh retorted. “We have not even begun to talk about you.”

“If you know what magazines people subscribe to, then you should know I have no interest in politics. On any side. Last president I voted for was Clinton.” She took a drink and put the picture back in the folder. “Unless Hillary runs, I doubt I will ever vote again.”

“So you have all these psychic powers. Why don’t you use them to win the lottery? Bet on horse races?” the FBI agent asked.

“That is not how it works,” she stated.

“Let us cut to it then,” Marsh said angrily and pulled a spiral-bound notebook out of the stack. “You are wasting time. You know what this is?”

“Yes.”

“You a fiction writer, maybe?” he said. “Aspire to be the next King? Barker? This is an odd story.”

“I am not so pathetic as to be a writer. I work for a living. If you say it is an odd story, it is whatever you say it is,” she said, emotionlessly.

“Is it fiction?” he asked.

She stared at the mirror. “It’s not fiction.”

Marsh cleared his throat, opened the notebook and read the title. “
Aegyptus
. Did you write this?”

“Yes, I did. Is that illegal?” she asked.

Eugene Marsh slowly stared at the words in the notebook, and then closed it. “It all sounds pretty fantastic to me. Works of fiction like this can cause a lot of trouble for the United States, internationally. It takes years for us to strategically and diplomatically recover from things that stir passions in foreign countries. You remember a book called
The Satanic Verses
? That stirred things up in the Middle East for years. Rushdie is still in hiding.”

              Jaelle bristled. “These things are not written for publication. They are not fiction. I have dreams. Vivid dreams. I am there, record it…”

              “A long-lost band of extinct crocodile men, that live under the sands in Egypt is not only preposterous, it has never been proven scientifically,” Marsh interrupted. “The Muslim Brotherhood talked about dynamiting the pyramids. This type of story could inflame them again if they were ever to come back to power. Do you remember when the Taliban blew up the statues of Buddha at Bamiyan? Back in 2001, they brought a lorry load of dynamite from Kabul, drilled holes in the statues and destroyed them. Those statues had stood for 1700 years. Gone overnight, because of inflamed religious fanaticism. Your stories are dangerous. Worse than dangerous.”

              “They are not stories. They happened,” she growled. “I was there.”

              “So you claim your writings are actually a different time and place? That you are chronicling the events?” Marsh said sarcastically.  “How come they are in different tenses?  Sometimes first person, sometimes third?”

              “I see other realities, other threads of time, and write them how I seen them.  Sometimes it is in different perspectives.   Time does not move in a linear fashion, Agent Marsh. It is much like a stream, with eddies and currents. The hydraulics, if you will, of reality push and pull at these events, and I see them very clearly. They are not just dreams, but visions, prophecies of potential realities. Like a puzzle with a million pieces, and the picture changes,” she said. “Dark things lurk at the edges of reality, Agent Marsh. Things beyond imagination. The Elder Gods look at this tiny island of sanity with avarice. They so want to pull it into their sea of chaos. When you look at the night sky, it seems so peaceful, all those stars. If we only knew what skulks in the vacuum of space.”