The Children of Cambridge,
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Al allowed the patrol car to drift slowly through the ravaging storm, peering through the water-glazed window at the abandoned streets for any sign of life. Here and there he thought he could just make out a light in a window, but nothing definite. It just wasn't right—it was ten in the morning, the town should be buzzing with life. Instead the streets were dead as a graveyard. No one was willing to brave the storms, though from fear of the storm itself or what it portrayed Al had no idea.
Al wasn't stupid. The truth of the matter be told, Al owned a level of intelligence that was baffling, if not a little bit slow. Though he'd never seen the look he'd on the sheriff's face before when Ron returned from Lexington, Al knew its meaning well enough. Somehow that professor knew who was grabbing all the kids, but with everything happening the way they were, Al wasn't sure that was a good thing.
Pulling to a stop at the intersection of Main and Cramden, Al let out a low whistle. The traffic light tugged at its tether like a mad dancer in the howling wind, the red light glinting off his windshield like a brilliant star through the rain. The skies beyond were black as coal, and the storm didn't seem they'd be letting up any time soon.
That was another thing. Where the hell were all these storms coming from? You get kind of used to this sort of weather living in Kentucky, but storms this bad usually hit western half of the state, not the foothills of the Appalachians. Even stranger was the direction from where they came. Storms usually rolled in from the west, but the storms of the last few days all slammed down on Cambridge from the east, as if they erupted from the bowels of Carlton Mountain. This wasn't right, not in any shape or form.
The light turned green and Al coasted forward, not that he couldn't have done it while the light was still red. There wasn't another soul in sight—Al the only one brave, or fool, enough to face the winds.
A quick movement in the darkness to the left caught his eye. He brought the squad car to a quick halt and squinted through rain soaked window. Nothing. Still, he knew he'd seen something, like the glint of a light off metal. He sat perfectly still, patient as a cat, waiting. Sure enough, the flash appeared again a few seconds later, on the the sidewalk across the road. This time there were two flashes, reflections off metal that pierced the black day like a beacon.
Al rolled down his window and was immediately drenched, the rain coming sideways into the car like a river. He watched and waited, an odd feeling building in his head. So what if someone else was out in the rain? This is a free country; people can do what they want.
But Al wasn't so sure what he saw was as right as he wanted to believe. The glint of metal in the pitch dark spooked him, reminded him of something. He tried to think what it was, but his mind was as dark as the skies above. The odd feeling was spreading like wildfire through his body, his stomach rolling with nervous butterflies while he stared into the storm.
The glint appeared again, though this time Al could make out two figures, murky to the point of being nothing more than moving shadows, but there all the same. One figure, a tall man in billowing clothes, led another, smaller figure down the sidewalk. The taller of the two held the glinting object in his hand haphazardly.
A burst of lightning illuminated the street for a split second, but the image it portrayed burned itself into Al's memory for the rest of his natural life. The taller figure was a man, blacker than the darkest night, so black that his skin seemed to devour the momentary flash of light like a sponge to water. The man's clothing reminded Al of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, straight from the story books and just as colorful. Held tight in a death grip behind him was a child, a little girl he seemed to drag more than lead down the street. The girl was familiar, but Al couldn't quite place her. He knew the man, though. It was Billy.
A split second later the darkness returned, swallowing up the pair in its depths. Al leapt from the squad car into the screaming storm, leaving the engine running and the door wide open behind him. He'd found the kidnapper and he wasn't going to let him get away. Like a bolt he was after Billy, not really knowing where the dark man had gone, but knowing in his gut he would find him before the maniac could harm the girl.
Somewhere in the back of Al's mind a small part tried to reason why Billy's clothes were billowing in such a storm when, by all rights, they should have been drenched and clinging to his body. Another part wondered why the fool would walk a child directly in front of the squad car, knowing he'd be sure to get caught. A more primal part of his brain scream in fear at the way Billy's skin swallowed the blazing momentary light in a way not humanly possible. Unfortunately, Al wasn't listening. He'd stop the disappearances here and now if he could catch the guy, nothing else mattered.
Dashing across the street he drew his pistol, a 9mm Beretta like the Army used. The weight of the pistol in his hand reassured him that he was doing the right thing instead of getting help. He moved in the direction he'd seen the pair disappear to, slow and deliberate, cursing the darkness as he sloshed through the ankle deep water on the sidewalk.
A path suddenly appeared in the hedges to his right, disappearing into a tall barrier of trees just beyond. Cybell Woods. The small woods encircled the town K-Mart and were a frequent hangout for neighborhood teenagers throughout most the year. A good place to hide things if you didn’t want to get caught, at lease not so quickly. Without reason he knew Billy had gone down the path. Looking up and down the street one last time to make sure he wasn’t wrong, Al turned and followed.
The trail was thick with mud, sucking at his feet and slowing his progress to a crawl. The trees were alive in the howling wind, the branches like bony fingers that pulled and tugged his clothing as he passed. If it were possible the darkness intensified, sending the first pangs of fear through in Al's gut. This was stupid! This creep could be anywhere, waiting for him to walk by before hitting him or stabbing him in the back. The deputy stopped and listened, contemplating whether or not to go ahead or to go get help.
His question was suddenly answered when somewhere ahead the cry of a little girl whispered just above the raging storm. Like a bull Al pushed forward, blind bravery surging through his veins to conquer every ounce of common sense left in his head. He pushed forward recklessly through the trees, the cries intensifying until they wer solid and full of pain.
The trees on either side of the deputy disappeared as Al rushed into an opening. Across from him not fifteen feet away was his quarry, Billy. He began to raise his pistol and shout when the fury of beating wings slammed down on the deputy with the intensity of hell's wrath. The attack took him completely by surprise, driving him to his knees in the mud. He fired his pistol blindly as he threw his hands up over his head to protect himself, emptying the magazine into absolutely nothing The wings beat at him with the sound of slapping leather, stinging and hammering until his head felt it would burst. Lower and lower they pushed him to the ground until his face buried itself in the mud.
The attack stopped just as suddenly as it began, leaving Al kneeling in the mud, his head cradled in his hands as sobs of unbearable pain wracked his head and shoulders. Mud and rain mixed freely with the hot rivers of blood that seeped from his scalp. Remembering who was there with him, he forced himself to reload his pistol with a new magazine.
"You needn't worry about that, deputy," a voice sounded from somewhere just ahead. As the voice spoke, the storm ceased its fury, the wind dying and the rain stopping almost altogether. The voice was of rusted iron, deep and grating and powerful beyond all reckoning of the word. Al wanted to look at Billy, but suddenly feared that if he did, he'd die.
"The creatures are gone," the voice continued, "they'll pain you no more. I used them to slow you down before you hurt yourself." At this the voice laughed, as if through dry, rotting leather, a wheeze that carried the hint of hell upon it.
"You're Billy," Al said, gathering his courage and looking up. On a rock not ten feet away was the dark man, just as so many of the lost children had described him. An Arabian prince wearing clothes made of billowing silks of red and gold. The man's face was perfect, the face of a god, chiseled from the purest of black alabaster. As he looked, Al realized he was wrong about how dark Billy's skin was. Darkness was not a word to describe it. Billy's skin made darkness blaze in blinding light. And if his skin was dark, Billy's eyes were the pits of hell itself.
"That is a name I go by, when the mood is upon me," Billy answered slowly. He sat relaxed with his arms across his chest, regarding Al with a cocked eye. A movement to Billy's left caught Al's eye. It was the girl, wearing a rain-soaked dress made of gray sackcloth. The deputy could barely make out her features in the dark, but again he had the distinct feeling he knew who she was. Billy's hand reached out and grabbed the girl by the neck, yanking her close roughly.
Al leveled the gun at Billy and cocked the hammer.
"Let her go," he ordered, aiming the pistol at the point between Billy's eyes. The dark man laughed.
"How delightful you mortals are. That's why I love coming here, I never know what to expect from your kind. Still, if you insist…" Billy's hand slowly relaxed, letting the girl go. "Oh and by the way, it may help if you load the rounds first." Al stared blankly at Billy, and quickly chambered a round as Billy had reminded him.
"Come over here, darlin'," Al called to the child, waving her forward with one hand as he held the pistol leveled at Billy with the other. The girl looked at him soulfully but didn't move.
"I don't think she wants to play, Al." The tone of sarcasm was rich in the dark man's voice.
"How do you know my name?"
Billy smiled again, and even from ten feet Al could smell his fetid breath blow across the clearing. "I know more about you than you think."
The little girl whimpered slightly. Al stared at her—he'd seen the face before, and not so very long ago, either. But where, damn it, where? The dark man noticed Al watching the girl and laughed absently.
"Perplexed, deputy? Maybe a hint, then." Billy thought for a moment. "This is a game, nothing more and nothing less, but a game at which I am the master."
"What the hell are you—"
The dark man stood up and stretched like a cat, cutting Al's question in mid-sentence. His clothes billowed and rustled in the wind, crackling like the bones of the damned. His hand once again slipped down to the girl, resting lightly on her shoulder. Al raised the pistol in reply, but Billy didn't seem to notice.
"I've been to this fair town of yours before, not too long ago. Sort of a reconnaissance mission if you will. I tested the waters, to see what kind of reception I would receive when I came back to do what must be done."
"You were here before?"
"Surely you remember, deputy. You were still in school, I'll wager. But the stories, the incident was one not to be forgotten."
Al looked at the dark man and then to the girl. Slowly, recognition dawned over Al's eyes. It couldn't be.
"I needed to strike at the heart of your town, to see what they would put against me. I had to select a target that would provide maximum heat."
The girl's face, in a picture frame, on a desk…
"I struck in the heart of the darkest night, plucking the tiny flower and crushing it in my hand with no more thought than you would give when killing an ant beneath your toe. The following days revealed all I needed to know about your town and its people."
"It was you." The words hissed out of Al's mouth like hot gas escaping a vent. The little girl looked up at him, tears rolling over her sallow cheeks, washing streaks of dirt across her face.
"You do remember, then…"
"You son of a bitch. You killed her." The rage rushed over him in waves, blood red waves that poured through his body like poison. It was her, it was Myerson's daughter. But it couldn't be, she'd been missing for over ten years.
Billy's hand split apart, the fleshing ripping like canvas as a tentacle sprouted from the stump and reached out to Al. Before the deputy could move the tentacle snatched his wrists like rough leather, the bones in his wrists snapping like twigs. The pistol fell to the ground as a scream of pain poured from his lungs.
Billy laughed like hollow iron as he twisted Al's arms, the broken bones grinding against each other, bringing bolts of molten pain through his body. Al looked up at the dark man through tear shrouded eyes. Billy's face was as if it never existed, darkness so deep it swallowed the light around it.
"What the fuck are you?" Al screamed through the pain. The answer was quick and devastating, driving Al insane in his last few moments of life. Billy's face popped and split apart, the inky darkness erupting into a giant tentacle with a gaping maw at its base. The tentacle slithered high into the air above the deputy.
"I am Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, he who is the messenger of the Ultimate Chaos, Azathoth. I am the keeper of the darkness, the bringer of evil, the father of hate. I am the Beast. I have poisoned your race with all its evil, yet evil is nothing compared to that which lingers within me. Nephren-Ka was my student, and we are the same. I am your doom and savior, the executioner and giver of life."
The words split Al's skull open with rockets of white savage power. The tentacle writhed and pulled, the skin of his wrists split apart exposing jagged bones and shredded muscle. The beat of leathery wings pulsed the air, and Al could just make out the descending shadows through the red shroud of pain and terror.
"Your friends await me, deputy, and I do not wish to keep them. You have played your game and lost." The tentacle that was Billy's head poised itself above Al's form like a spear. "In a way, deputy, I have saved you. You shall not need to know the kiss of the spawn. Thank me, deputy, for you will die easily."
"Fuck you," Al spat back in a barely audible voice that dribbled from his lips with blood stained saliva. The wings beat about his head again, ripping the flesh from his skull in tattered threads. Al never saw his death coming, never glanced to see the tentacle snap at him like the tail of a scorpion. The end was quick and filled with pain as the tip split into Al's skull.
The gray void went on forever, the falling sensation overcame the sickening vertigo that Ron first encountered. He could feel nothing, could smell nothing, it was if his mind was there but the rest of him was somewhere else. It was almost like a dream.
What seemed an eternity past by, tiny whisps of light streaking here and there, the only thing breaking up the monotony of the void. With the abruptness of an explosion Ron slammed into solid ground, driving the air out of his lungs in a great whoosh. The air rushed back an instant later, carrying upon it a smell so stale he gagged. Ron got to his knees and looked around.
"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," he whispered to himself. He'd heard that line a million times, both in the Wizard of Oz and on a multitude of movies and TV shows, but never had the meaning been any truer than it was right now.
He could smell ocean air, salty and wet, but carried upon the breeze was something else, totally alien and totally bad. It stank, but not in a way a rotten egg or rotting corpse would. The smell was just not right, stale and fetid and overwhelming. A yellow sun burned hatefully in the light blue sky, larger than his own, hotter and unforgiving.
The plant-life was alien as well, huge ferns of a putrid yellow-green that swayed in the breeze, wet with dew and mist. Whisps of gray fog danced across the brown-gray earth, hiding things that slithered unseen around Ron's feet. He was in a mountainous area, great peaks that disappeared into the sky running a single ridge to his left and right. The mountains were so huge that he could not fathom their size and therefore could not even begin to guess how far from them he stood.
Of all the things he saw, though, the most spectacular and terrifying was the citadel that stood at the base of the mountains. Dwarfed by the size of the ridges behind it, the citadel was still monstrous in its sheer size. The building stood black as the darkest night against the mountains, swallowing the light of the sun instead of reflecting it off its polished surface. In the midst of the citadel he could see five towers, each jutting defiantly into the sky, each windowless and darker, if it were possible, than the walls of the citadel.
"I think we're in grave danger," a voice startled Ron from behind. He turned quickly to face the professor and Charlamagne. Each looked haggard and worn, making Ron wonder how he might look in the mirror.
"What do you mean?" Ron asked, turning back to the citadel. It terrified him, made him want to run and hide. There was something there, something beyond his ability to comprehend and understand. It watched the plains with a hateful eye, waiting patiently. Yet try as he might, he could not turn from it, its lure too strong.
"I've never heard of this before," Charlamagne whispered, more to himself at first than to his companions. "We's heard of people dreaming such sights, their souls drifting through the past to witness but nothing more. But us, we're here in the flesh. This ain't no good." If it were possible, a slight tingle of fear mixed in Charlamagne's voice as he spoke.
"Just where is here?" Ron asked.
"I don't know," answered Mendelson, "but I think I have an idea. And I agree most heartily with my companion, though. This isn't right at all. We're in serious danger, never has any vision I've studied included the physical being coming along for the ride. Some may have sensed their bodies with them, but it was later proved wrong."
"What do we do?" Ron wondered aloud. This didn't make any sense.
"Whatever we do, we do it together," Charlamagne answered. Ron noticed the illiterate tone Charlamagne cloaked his words in was beginning to disappear. Looking at the black man now, Ron saw intelligence and wisdom he'd never seen in any man alive before. Well hidden, Ron had to admit, but it was there if you looked hard enough.
"Billy wants us to see something," Charlamagne continued, "he said so himself. Guess he figures to scare us or worse, maybe even get us killed so he can be about his business back in Cambridge. Though I don't know if that would be wise, us getting killed here. If this is the past, as Billy said, we could screw things up royally." Charlamagne chuckled at the thought.
"Not as badly as one would like to believe," Mendelson countered. "We've no idea if we're written into history already. The Yithians traveled forward and back in time, knew their destiny before it occurred, knew who and what and where. As much as I hate to admit it, things are pretty well predestined in our lives, too, a lot more than we'd like to believe."
Ron listened to the two debate the meaning of life and time and shook his head. Damned if he could get past the idea that they were in some place back in time, a place, by the looks of it, before the dawn of man. And the citadel—
"Look," he whispered hoarsely. The citadel had changed! A darkness was falling over it, a darkness the sun couldn't penetrate.
"What do you think the spires are made of?" Mendelson mused. Charlamagne squinted his eyes and shook his head.
"Some kind of shiny black rock," observed Ron.
"Basalt." Charlamagne's voice was filled with a dread finality.
"Damn it," Mendelson whispered. "Damn my fool hide. You know what this means?"
"What?" Ron asked. He felt left out of the conversation. These two men knew a lot of what was around them, while he had no idea whatsoever.
"Polyps." If Charlamagne's last words were filled with dread, the whisper of this word was filled with terror.
"Polyps? What the hell are polyps?"
"Dread creatures long extinct that once populated earth a half a million years in our past. Blind and fluid, they hunted and tortured their prey before devouring it alive." Mendelson spoke as if he were instructing a history class at the university.
"And you think—"
"I know, sheriff," Mendelson cut him off. "You think I'm crazy. The spires amidst the citadel is their mark. Creatures from across the universe came to earth long before man, and almost all had to war with the polyps. The Yithians, the Spawn, they all dealt with these abominations at one time or another. They were driven beneath the earth and sealed shut behind guarded doors, by the Yithians, I believe."
"You two guys are nuts," Ron chuckled, though his laugh was filled with anything but mirth. "We get whizzed away by some maniac to what you think is the distant past. You see a couple of towers and begin to act as if we're already dead. For all I know I'm still back in the holding cell, and this Billy has me on some sort of trip using a gas or something."
Neither of the other two spoke, each lost in his own thoughts as they stared listlessly at the citadel. The sun was setting behind them, casting an odd, golden hue on the building. The parapets glistened in the fading light, though the spires still refused to give purchase, swallowing the light instead of reflecting it. A cool wind began to blow from the mountains, carrying an odd, vile stench upon it.
"We need to get going," Charlamagne said to no one in particular.
"To where?" asked Ron.
"To the citadel," the old man smiled, his white teeth like pearls in the last rays of the sun. "Where else? The way I figure, we ain't going nowhere else until we get this over, and we ain't getting matters along by standing here feeling sorry for ourselves. Let's go see what ol' Billyboy wants us to know, and maybe, just maybe, we can learn a few things he don't want us to figure out to boot."
Without another word the trio set out, only to find the journey they expected to last the entire night would last less than a few minutes. Suddenly they were at the base of the citadel walls, staring up at the towering stone fortress as it disappeared from view in the darkness. There was a heaviness in the air, an oppressiveness that layed like a wet blanket upon them, smothering their breath and their will. Ron reached out to touch the stone wall but stopped short. The closer his hand came to the rock, the heavier the feeling became. Icy tendrils of fear ran up his fingertips, sendind a shiver of stark terror down his spine. He pulled his hand back quickly and turned to the others.
"Well," he managed to say in nothing more than a hoarse whisper, "we're here. Now what?"
Charlamagne stepped up to the wall and laid his hand upon its icy, rough texture. His fingertips traced invisible patterns that were embedded in the face of the stone. After a moment, he looked to his left and right down the length of the wall.
"Doesn't something seem odd here?" he asked, stepping back away.
Mendelson cocked his head for a moment.
"Yes it does. Except for the whisper of the wind, there is no sound. No insect, no bird, no night creature…nothing."
"Did you expect to hear anything?" Ron asked. "If this is in the past, why would we expect to hear anything at all?"
"Nathaniel Peaslee's accounts of his…trip are well documented, sheriff, though up until now I more believed them to be a study into the delusion mind of an amnesia victim. He stated plainly that the past was crawling with strange and abhorrent creatures that slithered continuously across the ground and flew on noisy wings throught he air."
Ron and Charlamagne stared at each other and then back to the professor.
"I ain't got no idea what you're talking about, professor," Charlamagne said, "but you're right. This place should be overrun with every little creature God saw fit to create, even back this far in the past." He touched the stone again. "They ain't nothing here."
As if in answer to his statement, the ground lurched as a tremendous explosion rocked the citadel from within. The report was defeaning and the blast, even on the other side of the immense wall, sent enough of a shock to send all three men sprawling to the ground. The black sky suddenly glared with yellow light that half blinded the men.
Yet another blast echoed from the citadel, and then another, each as loud as the first and just as powerful. Finally the explosions ended, replaced by the sounds of stone breaking and an ungodly scream of dying creatures. After only a second of listening to the wales, all three prayed for another explosion to deafen them. The cries were hideous, ethereal and maddening. Whatever it was, they hoped to never lay eyes on it.
Another sound filled the air, the sound of the wings of giant insects buzzing hatefully as they approached the citadel from the mountains. The sound reminded Ron of the sounds he heard near a pond on a hot summer day, when the dragonflies were out in force, along with every fly within a hundred miles.
Blazing fires raged from within the walls, lighting the sky and illuminating that which made the buzzing noise. Ron would never forget the sight. Giant creatures flew in droves from the distance, creatures which almost resembled crayfish except with wings like dragonflies. Their pink skin glowed hideously in the light of the fire. Nothing more could Ron make out, yet it was enough. These were things out of nightmares that no man was ever meant to see.
"What the fuck are they?" Ron screamed out, his voice drowned by the insistent buzzing that grew louder as the army of flying monsters advanced.
"Mi-Go," Mendelson whispered. "Oh God in heaven help us, they're Mi-Go."
"We're too exposed," observed Charlamagne, trying to get back up to his knees as the last effects of the blast wore off. "Those things may not worry about us now, seems they've got bigger fish to fry. But they'll be back." Charlamagne stood up and gestured the others to follow. Another explosion rocked the ground, this time answered by the howl of the wind. The howling grew louder, hurtling its force toward the advancing Mi-Go, the invisible wind buffeting the creatures into a haphazard dance of death. Mi-Go slammed against Mi-Go, their bodies crushing each other as they plummeted helplessly to the ground.
The wind carried upon it half seen creatures, thick and plastic and giant in size. The Mi-Go swarmed around these dark patches of half-nothingness, firing unknown weapons at the beasts as they dove and attacked. The howling that erupted from behind the walls now screamed above them, driving the men to the ground. The battle waged above them, creatures of hell falling from the sky like leaves as death and ichor rained from the heavens.
Suddenly the battle vanished as the men found themselves within the citadel at the base of one of the spires. A huge door gaped before them and the breath of hell itself poured from the darkness beyond. The Mi-Go buzzed and clicked around it, firing their weapons of destruction into the portal, the blasts answered by screams of fury and pain. With a mighty crash the creatures slammed the door shut, locking the shadow monsters behind it. A moment passed and then two, and then all was quiet as the Mi-Go disappeared into nothingness.
The three men stood and stared at each other, unable to speak or even move. The terror of the battle brewed fresh in their veins, each feared the least movement would awake the creatures and bring them back to devour them all. After an eternity, Mendelson relaxed and looked at the door.
"Never have I heard of such a thing," he croaked. Ron looked at the man and wondered how he could still stand. The old professor looked pale and thin as a skeleton. It said much of the man that he was still alive and able to talk after what they just experienced.
"What do you mean?" asked Charlamagne.
"Visions occur in the abstract, and none portray such personal violence," he whispered more to himself.
"But it's not over," Ron observed.
"Pardon me," Mendelson asked, turning to face him.
Ron stepped toward the door, his eyes fixed on a single object that stood planted square in the middle. As he approached, his eyes began to focus on the thing, and as they did, he felt the bottom of his heart fall to the ground. He stood quietly at first, a mumble of a scream beginning to well within his soul, steadily rising from his lungs in a hoarse cry of desperation.
Charlamagne and Mendelson stepped to the door and stopped abruptly when they eyed what it was that so unnerved Ron. They, too, felt like screaming, for in this world of creatures and darkness, the scream of the human soul was the only thing that kept them focused on reality.
In the middle of the black basalt door was a small statue, set as a seal of power used to lock away that which was better left trapped inside for all eternity. The statue was made of green soapstone, of alien design depicting a creature only whispered about in the depths of such tomes as the Necronomicion and The Book of Eibon. Ron had never seen it before, but knew it all the same. Mendelson had seen it before, the exact same statue, back in the vaults of the library at Miskatonic University. The shock of seeing it here and now drove him to his knees. His heart erupted in his chest, driving pains like white hot spikes through his arms and legs. Charlamagne steadied the old professor and helped him back to his feet, but felt the fear well up inside his soul as well.
The soapstone statue was set as a lock against the dark shadow beasts, the creatures Mendelson had called Polyps. Ron's mind raged and went suddenly blank as the realization of what was going on in Cambridge blazed into his brain, for this was the same soapstone statue that Carlton Coal had dug up at the turn of the century. The citadel, the spires, the mountains—it all become brilliantly clear. Billy knew the statue was missing, had known for the longest time and was making his bid to release these polyps. Ron knew where he was. He was in Cambridge.