Sins of the Father Page 15

  Not to mention the accolades to accompany it. Henry Gilman, the man who saved Innsmouth. My face in the newspapers. People would be lining up to offer me jobs.

  Thank you, Father. Finally, your evil and arrogance have benefited me.

  I increased my pace, my renewed vigor fueled by the desire to reap deserved rewards after so many years of toiling in despair.

  “Any of this familiar?” Flannery whispered, mistaking my energy for recognition.

  “No.” I shook my head. I’d been unconscious during my trips in and out of the demon’s lair. It was possible I’d been carried through this very tunnel and I’d never know it.

  Tension and darkness combined to disrupt any ability to determine the passage of time. We could have been in the tunnel for a quarter hour or twice that. I tried to think of how far it was from the hospital to Water Street. Two miles? Surely no more than three. The cavern couldn’t lie any farther than that or it would be in the ocean.

  Assuming we walked a straight line.

  Sounds reflected off the curved stone walls and the surface of the water in weird fashion, adding to our disorientation. It became difficult to judge how near or far were the whispers of the men or the occasional splash as unseen rats and other vermin dropped into the water.

  The miasma of rot and human waste served as a foul backdrop to our trek. Every so often an extra-fetid bubble would rise up from the unclean fluids and strike one unawares. My stomach alternately growled and threatened to erupt as hunger and dyspepsia warred within me.

  Hushed voices reached us and a pair of officers emerged from the gloom ahead, their faces ruddy.

  “We’ve reached the river, sir,” one of them informed Flannery. “And there’s something else.”

  “Spit it out, then,” the inspector ordered.

  “Tracks, sir. Lots of ’em. Footprints, and….” The man’s voice trailed off. His partner swallowed and fidgeted with his jacket, but remained silent.

  “Let me guess,” I interjected, before Flannery lost his temper. “Larger than a man’s foot, but oddly shaped. Like a frog of tremendous size.”

  “Aye.” The man bobbed his head up and down, his relief at not being called out as crazy evident on his face.

  “It’s him,” I said, looking directly at Flannery. “We’re getting close.”

  “All right.” Flannery pursed his lips before giving his next orders. “We go forward together. Keep watch front and back, in case this madman has guards posted.”

  “And to the sides,” I warned, a subtle reminder to Flannery about the beast lurking in the river.

  “Right. Let’s get this done.”

  We resumed our sodden march. My entire body quivered with dreadful anticipation, much as a person feels when awaiting dire news, only a thousandfold worse. It crossed my mind that perhaps my sinful father might have felt this same trepidation while he stood in that courtroom, hanging on the judge’s words. Once again I cursed his loathsome decision, the effects of which still haunted me and the town so many years later.

  If only he’d died in the explosion or subsequent fall.

  Lost in my bitter ruminations, I didn’t notice we’d exited the tunnel until I bumped into the man in front of me. He turned with a start, his pistol rising.

  “Bloody arsehole, watch where you’re going or you might eat a bullet next time,” the officer spat, his eyes narrowed.

  I nodded and stepped away, well aware of my good luck that he hadn’t pulled the trigger. With my brain engaged again, I saw how the water we’d been slogging through flowed down a gentle slope and over the edge of a lip into what I presumed was the river below. The foul stream cut a swath through the wide, slightly damp soil of the riverbank I remembered all too well from my time in my father’s cavern.

  Treading carefully, I made my way to where Flannery stood by the edge, a good twenty feet above the deceptively calm water. He shone his torch down, as did several other men. In the yellowish light, the surface appeared as smooth as ice, nary a ripple to indicate it wasn’t solid. Waves of chilly air, several degrees colder than the dank atmosphere of the tunnel, rose up from it.

  “The tracks lead to the right,” Flannery said, his eyes never leaving the water. I wondered if, like me, he was imagining the behemoth lurking somewhere in those stygian depths.

  “As we guessed.” In that direction lay the mouths of the Manuxet and the Ipswich, where the waters flowed into the bay. Like its cousins, this one, too, would have an opening there.

  Flannery drew his pistol and motioned for the men to move out. None of them spoke and more than a few crossed themselves. Guilt added to the sour acids churning in my stomach. In twos and threes, the officers headed toward certain death, believing they were prepared for whatever lay ahead. Only Flannery and I knew the truth: many of those foolish, brave men wouldn’t be returning. Even with all our weapons, we’d be hard put to take down my father’s undead army, which these poor souls had heard described but only a few had actually encountered.

  On top of that, we’d have my father and the abomination in the river to contend with as well. I’d seen with my own eyes that it responded to his voice. Our only hope was that the injuries my father spoke of would slow it enough so we could set it ablaze and bring the roof down upon it before it killed us all.

  The cavern brightened as several men lit oil lamps. The glow did little to dispel the perpetual night of the place and I worried we’d only make a target of ourselves to anyone awaiting our approach, but I understood the need for them now. A single misstep and a person could tumble over the cliff and be lost forever.

  I found myself casting frequent glances toward the river, expecting at any moment to encounter that enormous eye staring back at me or have gigantic tentacles fall upon us like toppling trees. With each passing minute, my nerves, already taut as piano wire, tightened even further. My skin grew clammy and waves of hot and cold rushed through me, as if I suffered from an onset of ague. My hands trembled so badly I feared I might accidentally discharge my pistol.

  Shadows cavorted around us, cast by the torches of the men. Their movement became a distraction, pulling my eyes from one direction to another. I was never sure if what I saw was merely a harmless flicker or something sinister sneaking up. The enormous expanse of the cavern amplified the slightest sounds, so that the harsh breathing of the men, the muffled grinding of soil beneath boot, and the stirrings of hidden creatures all took on menacing overtones.

  Something splashed gently down in the river, a tiny sound that in other circumstances might have gone unnoticed. A fish breaking the surface, perhaps, or some blind, pale cave frog. Behind us, one of the men grunted. Another wet musical note, the tone of a rock dropped into a lake. Up ahead, several lights darted back and forth. Urgent whispers echoed back.

  “What in blazes now?” Flannery muttered. He tapped the man in front of us. “William, go see what—”

  The bearded officer disappeared before our eyes.

  I turned toward the river, my heart already speeding up as my brain struggled to catch up to what I’d seen.

  An impression of movement, a ghostly shape low to the ground, thick as a man’s leg and moving like a snake.

  Someone screamed and all hell broke loose.

  Chapter Twenty

  Massive appendages rose over the edge of the embankment and whipped across the ground. Men cried out as the leviathan’s tentacles wrapped around them and plucked them away faster than lightning.

  “Shoot it!” Flannery shouted. Ignoring the danger, he ran to the cliff’s edge and fired downward. Others followed suit. The explosions of pistols and rifles were deafening. A great thrashing erupted in the water, the surface churning as the behemoth writhed.

  “Use the kerosene!” I called out. When nothing happened, I ran back to the men carrying the canisters. Two of them were gone, their wide-mouthed flasks on th
e path. A third fellow lay on the ground, clutching a bloody stump where his leg should have been. The other three stood frozen, mouths hanging open at the scene before them. I grabbed the containers from the path, pulled the stoppers, and threw them as far as I could, aiming for the center of the turbulence. Then I went to the paralyzed men and slapped the nearest one until life returned to his eyes.

  “Burn it, you fool! Burn it to hell.”

  He stared at me and shook his head. Cursing, I pulled out my own matches and took the oversized flask from his hand. A massive appendage knocked one of the officers into the roiling water. Gnashing, circular mouths as large as dinner plates snapped at me as the alien member went by.

  Praying that none of the deadly limbs found me, I heaved the open jug into the darkness. Wet liquid sprayed me and the pungent tang of kerosene assaulted my nose and burned my throat. I fumbled for my matches. The first two fell from my fingers when I tried to strike them. The thunder of gunfire and the wailing of injured men hammered my skull and made it hard to think. I shook out another match. This time it lit.

  And so did the sleeve of my coat.

  Yellow-orange flames enveloped my arm. I cried out and struggled to free myself from the burning jacket. Pain raced across my hand and then I was free, holding the blazing cloth at arm’s length while oily smoke brought tears to my eyes. Without thinking, I tossed the coat over the edge.

  A tremendous roar filled the air, the stentorian bellow of a prehistoric beast. The ground trembled and a bright glow lit the cavern. A rain of sparks fell on us.

  “More kerosene!” Flannery was suddenly next to me, pulling me along. He grabbed another jug of fuel and pushed it into my hands. Took two for himself. He ran to the embankment, me stumbling in his wake, dragged along as much by his sheer force of will as any desire to play hero.

  We reached the edge and I saw what my actions had wrought. The space-demon thrashed about, its tentacles aflame. Islands of fire floated in the river, whirling around in the maelstrom created by the creature’s frantic movements.

  With total disregard for his own safety, Flannery strode to the very lip of the embankment, his eyes ablaze – reflection or his own internal hell, at that moment I couldn’t say. He poured the contents of a container onto the flailing limbs of the beast. The flames expanded, heat and oily smoke rising to where we stood. He dumped the next container as well, and then took the one from my hands and did the same.

  The struggling demon loosed another of its primordial cries and the deafening bellow shook me from my stupor. I turned and ran back to the officers who’d carried the kerosene and took the last two vessels from them. I handed one to Flannery and together we returned to the cliff. Fire covered a large swath of the river but still the monster raged, flame and bullets unequal to the task of driving it away.

  “Goddamn you to hell!” Flannery shouted, his voice lost amid the thunder of gunfire and waters crashing against the canyon walls.

  “Aim for the center,” I said, putting action to words. Rather than pouring the contents over the edge, I unstoppered my container and hurled it right into the eye of the unnatural storm. Flannery did the same. The beast continued its frenzy and Flannery swore.

  “Nothing! Damn your hide, we wasted the last two—”

  A pillar of fire exploded up, sending us stumbling back from the precipice. Another unearthly howl rent the air, even louder than before, shaking the very ground beneath our feet. A plume of water came down on us and terror gripped my heart with razor-sharp talons as I imagined the creature rising to its full height, that evil eye towering overhead, massive jaws opening….

  “It worked!” A heavy blow landed between my shoulders. I reached for my gun, belatedly realizing it was Flannery’s hand that had struck me. He pointed at the river. I moved closer and saw that the beast had submerged, leaving behind agitated waters and long streams of flaming oil.

  It worked. I wanted to shout for joy but instead I lapsed into a coughing fit as my lungs finally succumbed to the abuse of soot and smoke. The need for air left me light-headed and wheezing, my chest heaving as I struggled to draw in a breath. Even the foul, tainted air of the cavern was a relief after the acrid scorch of the smoke. The more I drew in, the stronger the pong of fish guts and tainted water grew.

  Rotten fish. Recognition exploded in my addled brain. It wasn’t just the cavern. It was—

  Someone screamed and gunfire broke out again, this time to our rear.

  “They’re here,” I gasped, clutching at Flannery’s sleeve. “My father…his men….”

  “Damnation.” Flannery pulled free and raced off, shouting at his men. More gunfire sounded.

  I forced my feet to move. The world tilted and then righted itself. I focused on the pattern of lights ahead. They doubled and trebled before returning to their true form. As my vision cleared, I made out dozens of dead men and women approaching us from the way we’d come, their countenances ghostly in the dim light.

  Flannery gave the order to move deeper into the cavern and the men wasted no time complying. I followed, pausing now and then to loose a shot into the advancing horde. Others did the same. Gunfire took down one ghoul after another. But for every one that fell, another took its place.

  The path widened and I recognized the location as the same one where I’d walked with my father and listened to his mad tales.

  “This is the place!” I shouted at Flannery. He nodded and then swore as the men ahead of us came to an abrupt halt.

  Several dozen of the dead waited for us, their fish-belly pale faces glowing in the light of our lanterns.

  We’d been run into a trap.

  Once again my father had outwitted us. Now we were surrounded, with death waiting on three sides and solid rock on the fourth. Flannery understood the predicament as well and gave the only order he could.

  “Aim for their heads.”

  A volley of shots rang out. The men formed two lines, one facing back and the other forward. I joined them, positioning myself between two burly officers. The sallow faces of my father’s undead army made for easy targets. Still, they continued to advance on us, sheer numbers outweighing any damage we did.

  The abominable stench of rotten flesh grew to gut-twisting levels. I held my breath for as long as I could just to avoid the vile reek of the poisoned atmosphere within the cave. Even the polluted air of the hospital seemed summer-fresh by comparison. And with each monstrosity that went down, flesh ruptured and leaking ghastly fluids, the horrendous odors only grew worse.

  Someone cried out nearby and I turned to find Flannery beating at a corpse-man with the barrel of his pistol. The thing gripped him with both hands while a mass of wormlike feelers swiped at his face and arms. I placed my pistol against the creature’s head and pulled the trigger just as those pale appendages changed direction and tried to steal the gun from my hand. The dead man’s cranium exploded, showering Flannery and me with putrid flesh and juices.

  “Christ Almighty, that was close,” Flannery said, while loading more rounds into his pistol. Circular red marks covered his face and wrists, each one the size of a two-cent coin. I prayed for his sake – and ours – he hadn’t been injected with any soporifics. Or demon seed.

  A figure lurched toward us, a woman with a missing eye and a tattered nightgown that exposed a massive wound in her chest where green tentacles wriggled. I emptied my pistol into the center of the writhing mass and she let out a keening wail. Flannery ended it with a bullet into her gaping eye socket.

  I stepped back to load my gun. Several of our men were down and I saw that despite the guns and truncheons wielded by the officers we barely held our own. The ghoulish army threatened to overwhelm us at any moment, and I feared our chances of survival were diminishing rapidly. Human flesh simply wasn’t up to the demands of fighting supernaturally imbued muscle.

  A flash of movement caught my eye far back
in the murk. A pale figure, head and shoulders taller than the rest of the combatants.

  My father!

  He was controlling them from a distance, using them as a shield to keep himself safe. His shark-lipped mouth opened and closed, no doubt casting some demented spell or exhorting his fiendish army to sacrifice themselves and bring us all down.

  I swore at the gods of fate that had led me to this place. Our only chance of making it out alive would be to kill him, but from this distance that would be next to impossible. And in order to get closer, someone would need to get past the demon spawn. Only there was no space on either side free of fighting. Monsters pressed closer front and back, and we had no way around them. The wall of the cavern blocked us to one side, and on the other the slightest misstep meant a plunge into the river, where the she-beast waited.

  Thinking about encountering that hell-spawn again doused the last of my courage like so much cold water on embers. My legs went weak and I took several steps back from the fray.

  Leave! my brain shouted at me, louder than the angry and injured cries of the men fighting for their lives. If trained officers can’t defeat this army, what difference will your gun make? The idea tempted me greatly. Turn tail and run back the way we’d come, take my chances with the lesser numbers of monsters behind us. If I could get past them, then it’d be a simple matter to return home, pack a few belongings, get Flora, and leave this accursed town as I’d planned. No shame in abandoning a fight that couldn’t be won.

  The animated corpses were bad enough; deadly as they were, bullets or a crushing blow to the head would stop them. But to be torn asunder and devoured by a thing that shouldn’t even exist, a thing invulnerable to bullets, which even fire and rock couldn’t kill….

  Fire. The word resonated in my head, bringing with it a memory of the night my friends and I had been attacked in the morgue. Fire had put an end to the possessed corpses as surely as bullets.