In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 2nd, 2060
2340 hours, operational area local time
None of us were sailors. The research vessel RV Sally Ride was under her own power and Taz had engaged the engine to pull us away from the island that rising from the deep, directly beneath us. Our rigger, Zero, was manning the mini-sub we had arrived in and was talking Taz through the process of moving the vessel.
Unfortunately, Zero forgot about the anchor.
The Sally Ride's anchor caught on one of the spires of stone I saw rising up from the deep. The ship lurched hard to starboard as the anchor chain held. Her engines pushed on, causing the ship to list perilously. On the bridge Taz reacted by turning to the starboard, wrapping the anchor chain a third of the way around the rising spire and snaring the ship to the island.
"STOP! STOP!" Zero yelled over the comm, but it was too late. Taz disengaged the ship's engine and she drifted slowly starboard, the deck righting as anchor chain lost tension.
"What the fraggin' hell?!?" I said. "Taz, Zero report! What the hell just happened?" It was a long minute before I received a reply.
"Damnit! Anchor was down. I hand't thought to have Taz check for that. Looks like your snagged on the island." Zero was frustrated and I was worried.
"Is there a way to release the anchor, to let the ocean have it?" I dashed over to the starboard side of the ship and saw the chain stretching down toward the rising island. The anchor had caught on one of stone spires and was wrapped almost halfway around it.
"You'll need a torch and it'll take time. I recommend putting the bow toward whatever you're snagged on and reversing the ship's engine at low power to pull away as the island rises. You'll likely end up beached but that beats ending up high and dry in the middle of the island." Zero's plan made sense but wasn't appealing.
"I've got this," Jazz replied.
Jazz secured a safety line to the railing and lowered himself down to the anchor chain. I watched as he rolled out a grey paste onto one of the links. Three minutes later he was back on the deck. "Control, I'm blowing the chain. Fire in the hole!" Jazz called out as he thumbed the detonator. There was a loud "BANG" sound from over the rail. I gazed through the smoke and saw the anchor chain falling away below us.
"Det cord. Never leave the office without it." Jazz said. I saw the ghost of a smile cross his features.
"I'll remember that." I replied. I keyed my comm and gave the order. "Taz, Jazz saved our hoops. Get us the hell out of here."
"Initiating the 'get the hell out of here' maneuver!" Taz called back. I heard the engines engage and felt the ship start forward. "Jazz, get the men together mid-ship. Eyes open and weapon's up. We're not out of here yet."
Jazz was crisply professional. The weapon specialists snapped to it and took up positions mid-ship. The RV Sally Ride began to slowly pick up speed. I could hear Creep vomiting over the rail not ten meters from me. Below the ship, the fish and jellyfish had vanished. Foul smelling bubbles were rising from the depths. I could make out strange shapes moving about the surface of the land below. They were dark, indistinct, and moved erratically around the ring of spires. I could just make out a strange stone in the middle of the spires. It was oblong and had to be four meters long or more.
October 3rd, 2060
0118 hours, operational area local time
The rock spires broke the surface, rising nearly twenty centimeters each minute. The ocean water had warmed another three degrees locally, and green patches were appearing as algae bloomed in the energetic waters. The RV Sally Ride drifted five hundred meters from the position where we had found her. Our mini-sub, dubbed "Peanut", held station twenty meters from the research vessel.
"Machine, what am I looking at?" Jazz asked suddenly.
I followed his pointing finger to the six rocky spires that were erupting skyward. "Rock formations. They're about fifty meters long and run to the center point of the island that is coming up." I had seen them from directly above. They were long and strangely narrow and were now the first part of the new island to see the night sky.
"No. On the spires. Do you see those shapes? Looks like they've been carved." Jazz looked at me, a strange expression on his face. Jazz's cybereyes looked natural but I knew they had state of the art vision enhancements built in. Jazz turned back toward the spires and added, "I've got a bad feeling."
With the algae blooming I had forced my astral sight closed against the living glare. Now as I stared across the sea I felt as if Jazz's foreboding was contagious. "Right. I'm going to go take a look. Get Creep off his ass and cover me."
I whispered into the astral and the air elemental responded. A moment later I was flying over the ocean toward the rock spires that continued to rise up from the bubbling sea. "Zero can you get a bumblebee out here too, please." Extra eyes couldn't hurt.
"Will do. Two minutes." Zero replied.
Below me I saw the sea floor rising. The spires erupted from a high point in the terrain and were now a full three meters above the water, with perhaps as much as another twenty meters remaining below the surface. They were raising rapidly now as the island clawed its way toward the surface. I was ten meters away when I saw what Jazz had noticed from half a kilometer out: the surface of the spires were carved and shaped like the tentacles of an octopus. Suckers lined the interior facing of each spire. It was a sea monster of stone, reaching for the night sky.
"Control," I heard myself whisper. "are you seeing this?"
"Machine, is that stone or some form of paracritter?" Samantha's voice lacked its usual detachment and carried with it a sense of awe and dread.
I flew over to the nearest spire and ran my hand over the cold, hard stone. I shivered uncontrollably as my skin made contact. It was slimy from algae and millennium under the ocean. "Feels like stone to me." I reported.
I heard Taz whisper over the comm. "Crazy."
Below me the sea continue to bubble with foul smelling gases. I was close enough that I could see the rising island below. I watched as man-like shapes shrouded in flowing dark fabrics danced along the sea floor. A cold chill sunk into my soul.
"Control we have people on the island. I repeat: we have people on the island." They moved through the water below, dancing through the currents and spinning about the ring of spires. The island was still clawing its way skyward and the sea floor they danced over rolled and shifted as silt and sand were sliding away.
"Machine, please confirm: you say you have people on the island?" Samantha asked.
"They're dancing around the tentacles, under the sea. Just below me, and ..." I trailed off as I turned to follow the movement of the strange dancing people under the sea. I saw the dark oblong shape approaching the surface. The tentacle spires were rising far faster now and were more than ten meters high above the surface. The oblong shape was of the same stone the tentacles had been carved from and was shaped like the beak of giant octopus. The drowned corpses of the crewmen of the RV Sally Ride had been stuffed into the maw. "Merciful heaven." I whispered. I looked about the rising tentacles of stone and opened my astral sight.
I flew away as fast as the air elemental could take me. "Zero, keep the drone on station! Control we need a fire mission on this location, what can you give me?!"
Samantha Goode reacted with surprise, "What? Machine this is a recon mission not a combat op. Explain."
"God's name, Samantha, the tentacles have an astral presence. Its alive Samantha! The missing crewmen were stuffed in its beak. The dancers in the water, I think it’s a ritual of some kind. They're trying to summon it or wake it up!" I alighted onto the deck of the Sally Ride. "Jazz do we have anything on hand we can kill those fraggers with?"
Jazz looked around the fire team, then back to me. "Well, yeah Machine. We've got about ten things we can use to kill them. Eleven if you count Creep."
"I may just start to like you, Jazz. Don't get me killed." I keyed my comm. "Control, are we getting fire support?"
"Assets aren't in place Machine. I'm working on it. For now, assume you're on your own." Samantha was back to the same calm professionalism I had heard in her voice so often before. "You're call, Machine. Go or no go?"
I looked at Jazz then back to the bubbling sea where eight tentacle spires were rising toward the night sky. The astral echoes of fear and the screams of dying men were all about me. There was magic in the air and in the bubbling depths beneath the sea. The thing being brought into our world had no place here and it had already taken the lives of the RV Sally Ride.
"Control we are go. Keep us apprised of the availability of fire mission. Simon stay on comms and monitor bio-monitors for the team. Zero standby to extract as need be and get as many bumblebees over that place as you can. Creep and I will provide air cover and magical support, rest of the team dives and eliminates the people dancing around that thing." I lifted off the deck of the ship. Behind me nine men and women pulled their scuba gear back on and headed aft. "Creep, come on and get your game face on."
Creep was pale and looked very sick, but he waved that weird wand of his and floated off the deck. I unsealed the watertight pouch I carried and pulled out my menpo-style ballistic mask. I pulled the mask on and reached out telepathically to Rose and Lily. Beside me Creep was suddenly accompanied by six demonic looking women. Their batlike wings beat the air while smoke smoldered from their noses and flames licked at their cloven hooves. As always, they were nude, their burnt red skin, and horns adding to their demonic appearance.
"Divers in the water." Jazz reported.
"I'm sending a water elemental to get you their undetected. One tick." I whispered out the commands to one of the water elementals I had bound and watched as it sped toward the team. "You'll be out of sight momentarily. Begin approach and stay together until you reach the target area."
"Copy that and thanks." Jazz replied.
"What do we do if it wakes up?" Creep asked.
"We kill it or die trying." I replied. Creep didn't have a reply for that. We flew out over the bubbling sea while the stars began to disappear as clouds rolled in. I saw flashes of lightning on the horizon and heard the distant report of thunder.
Creep and I took up position over the tentacle spires. The beak had broken the surface and the silt and muck from the bottom of the sea had been worn away by the waves. The tentacles all sprouted from a single piece of stone, the center of which being the beak. Waves continued to wear away the silt, revealing larger sections of a monster carved from living stone. The figures dancing around the spires continued splashing along, arms flailing and long dark fabric trailing around them. I saw the team slip from the water, grab a dancer and drag him back down beneath the waves. The remaining dances stopped and turned toward the area their missing comrade had occupied.
Rose arrived in astral space beside me. "Creep, I think your ladies need to introduce themselves." Tentacles formed from the turbulent sea rose and lashed out and Creep and I. Creeps demons dove toward the figures only to be met by explosions of sea water.
"Lily is changing Violet. She will be here once she is done." Rose's thought voice carried to my mind.
"Excellent. Thanks for coming baby-girl." I replied.
"The ones below are enemies?" Rose asked.
"Yes, indeed." I replied.
Creep's demons fell from the sky. Tattered and torn by water, they were snuffed out of existence. Creep raised his hand in a warding gesture as the tentacles of sea water reached for us.
"I will do violence." Rose took on her angelic appearance and left the astral plane, materializing beside me. She raised her arms toward the watery tentacles crashing toward us and spoke. "Aquam Perdo Si Ick Suon!"
Water exploded in a cloud of steam and stinking slime. Creep got splattered in stinking algae. In my mind I heard Lily, "I have disposed of the stinky diaper and am on my way." I laughed. I couldn't help it. I held my left hand extended in a warding gesture and felt mana energies slam into my defenses. Beside me Creep cursed vehemently.
"Earth and stone, hear me." I said aloud as I called out to the astral for the earth elemental I held bound. With my right hand I pointed to one of the strange figures below, "Kill." At the feet of my target the silt erupted and engulfed him. More watery tentacles rose from the ocean depths.
Spells beat at my defenses, forcing my focus to defense. Rose blasted watery tentacles apart with each incantation, and Creep cursed as if having the worse day of his life. His fire spells fizzled and popped against deluges of water and his demonic fire spirits had been washed away. Rain started to fall from black clouds that blotted out the night. Lightning flashed in the distance and the sea bubbled and churned as the nightmarish island rose, reaching toward the inky sky.
From out of the hellish surf nine figures slipped up and seized another of the strange dancers, dragging the bizarre form beneath the waves. Before me a tentacle of water collapsed and rained down on the unholy land below.
Lightning flashed, and my vision went white. I heard stone crack and stared through retinal sparks and a brilliant afterimage. Lightning had struck one of the spires, cracking its surface. Green flesh pulsed behind the cracks, and a pink fluid oozed from the wounded rock. A barbed quill erupted from a stone sucker just centimeters below the lightning strike.
"It is waking up." Rose said ominously.
I weathered a barrage of spells that hammered at my defenses. My nose bled from the strain of holding back violent magic. Creep continued to hurl down fire to no effect. Once again, nine figures slipped out of the sea and seized another enemy. I felt the pressure on my defenses lessen and another watery tentacle vanished.
"Keep it up baby-girl, we can win this!" I tried to sound encouraging but the strain I was under made my words come out in a desperate expulsion of air. Lightning danced on the sea all around us and thunder roared. Below us the remaining figures shouted and flung spells and screams up at us.
Creep was grabbed by watery tentacle, torn from the sky, and disappeared beneath the bubbling sea.
Lily appeared next to me, her angelic form humming with power. My girls tore the sky asunder, hurling down lighting at the figures below. In those flashes of brilliance and death I saw another figure dragged under the waves by Jazz and the team. A glob of putrid green gel flew up and struck Lily's left wing. She screamed in pain and fell from the sky, bouncing off stone to lay face down in the silt. Rose and I dropped toward her.
I landed in knee-deep salt water. The smell of sulfur and brine was sickening. Behind me Rose saw to her sister while before me the son-of-a-slitch that hurt her gave off a gurgling laugh. I threw a bolt of mana energy at him, which he deflected skyward. I heard curses and bits of ritual verse erupt from outside the ring of stone tentacles. The magician before me spat out a word that hurt my ears to hear. Another green glob of gel was flung through the air, this time streaking toward me. It hit my spell defenses and blew through them, splattering across my wet suit. It ate through almost instantly burning through and pitting my dive armor beneath it. I felt burns on my body and screamed in pain, then fell into the stinking muck. I felt the island trembling beneath me.
Rose abandoned Lily to stand at my side. Another green glob streaked toward me, impacting her spell defenses and sloughing off into the brine. The gurgling laugh continued as Rose fought back another spell, her defenses straining with each impact. I looked up into alien eyes, rows of shark-like teeth and a neck covered in gill-flaps. Rose was hammered to the ground beside me.
"Girls, go home." I looked up at the monster before me and felt certain I was about to die. Rose and Lily vanished with anguished cries. I heard a gurgling sound in that strange creature's throat and looked up, determined to die with some quiet dignity.
I saw Creep's hand over the creature's mouth. A twenty centimeter knife in his other hand was sawing through its neck. "Hey, Machine. Get in the fight omae." The slimy bastard was smiling with barely restrained laughter. "That's it big guy, just let it happen."
I heard burps of gunfire and gurgling screams all around me. I left Creep to his handiwork and joined the others.
October 3rd, 2060
0300 hours, operational area local time
None of the strange dancing magicians survived the assault. They were human-like but with terrifyingly monstrous features. The gills, strange eyes, webbed fingers and other inhuman traits marked them as something strait out of a sailor's nightmare.
The island continued to rise, trembling and shifting as the seafloor lifted. The muck around the stone tentacles and beak washing away in the storm to reveal a monstrous beast carved from a great piece of living stone. Fleshy bits were exposed and pink bloody fluids seeped from cracks and breaks in the rock. We planted charges around tentacles, retrieved the bodies of the RV Sally Ride crewmen from the beak and discovered a dark well beneath their corpses that vanished into inky darkness. Jazz primed and lowered charges down the hole.
I called Rose and Lily back to me. They helped heal the injured, as well as healed the acid burns that had dotted my torso.
We escaped the island and detonated the charged from five hundred meters out. The sea continued to churn in the storm, lighting flashed and the stone tentacles shattered. Pink foam bubbled up on the new beach as the island continued to thrust itself skyward.
The island is more than two kilometers in diameter and roughly oval in shape. The highest point stretches some two hundred meters above the sea and is ringed by eight stumps of stone. A hole, not unlike a lava tube, stretches down into darkness from the center of that ring. We sent in a pair of bumblebee drones but lost signal almost instantly. We never recovered those drones.
The storm broke at dawn. The CFS Coast Guard radioed out for an update on the status of the RV Sally Ride. We left that complication to Control. Simon picked up a radio signal coming from the island which we triangulated the source of and discovered a sealed tube weighted with iron. Inside the tube was a transmitter and battery pack, along with a hand written message sealed in a mylar bag. I opened the bag and read it, then read it a second time in disbelief.
I sealed the bag and added it to a case containing a few items we had discovered which held magical auras. With the CFS Coast Guard still an hour distant, we secured the monstrous bodies of the magicians in body bags, lay them in a pair of inflatable life rafts, and secured them to the mini-sub. Of the crew of the RV Sally Ride, we placed their corpses in body bags, and lay them on the deck under an additional tarp to keep the heat from further damaging their bodies.
The Peanut came to life, her power cells carrying us the five miles north to rendezvous with her parent ship. We loaded the corpses, the relics, and sailed north to Seattle.
October 11th, 2060
1300 hours, Seattle Metroplex local time
Aria took Lily and Rose out to shop for Halloween costumes, leaving me with the twins. Jasmine and Violet giggled as they levitated around the room. Fussed until I they got their bottles. Burped like drunken sailors and despoiled their diapers before drifting off for an afternoon nap. Aria sent pics of the costumes Lily and Rose picked out, as well as a picture of a pair of costumes for the twins. I smiled at the little pea pod outfits the babies would soon be wearing.
I sat in the nursery, my sight open to the astral and listened to my daughters sleep. The house was quiet, still, and full of warm feelings. Below me the mana eruption poured out its trickle of power into my basement, awaiting my hand to shape it to my will. I caught myself nodding off and stood up, steeling myself against the urge to take a lazy nap with the girls.
Aria got home at 1700 hours. Lily and Rose helped unload the car before it shuffled off to its next pick up. I had ordered Tai food and it was waiting on the dinner table when they arrived. The twins were playing, sitting in their walkers, shaking small rattles and giggling at each other. I scooped them up and put them in their high chairs, fitted their little bibs on them, then ate and watched the twins succeed in spreading pureed bananas in their own hair.
We ate, laughed, and had an amazing evening at home. The sound of my daughters laughter chasing away the horror of the previous days. Love is the deepest, and strongest magic.
______________________________________________________________________
Thank you for reading my fan fiction.
I hope you enjoyed this story.
Please do share these tales with others.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comment chummer.