Clickers III (17 page)

Josel felt that time was slipping away fast. Another scream came from the north shore, where his people had congregated at the beach for as long as he could remember. More screams followed, accompanied by frenzied clicks. Directly outside and heading toward the house came the sound of running footsteps, along with voices of panic.

That decided it for him. Josel stepped toward Keoni and motioned down the tunnel. “Yes, the Dark Ones have the capability of entering our tunnels. But I know of a safe spot. Come.”

“Before we leave,” Keoni asked, “do you have anything we can use as weapons? Anything to defend ourselves?”

“No. Now follow me.”

Keoni stepped back and headed down into the blackness as Josel descended into the depths of the tunnels. As he reached out to close the trapdoor behind him, his last thoughts were,
I will never see my home again
.
But I will redeem myself.

And then the door was closed and he was in the vast blackness of the tunnel. Keoni had his flashlight on. Josel saw the other two mainlanders who were with him. A man and a woman, both of them in middle age. They were standing at the bottom of the ladder that reached up to the trapdoor that had lain in the center of Josel’s bedroom. Keoni’s features were eager. “Where do we go
?
”

“Back down this passage, then take the far right passage,” Josel answered, climbing down to the tunnel floor to join them.

The long haired man was peppering Keoni with questions. “Who is this man?”

“He’s Naranu’s holy man,” Keoni explained. “He’ll know what to do.”

Josel’s mind was racing. Perhaps he still had time left on this earth to lead a good life, away from the superstitions of his people and the peril of Dagon. “I must warn you all,” he said, shouldering his way past the mainlanders. “The path I am about to take you down will skirt a much older section of this island.”

“Are you going to take us toward the center of Mount Rigiri?” the middle aged woman asked.

Josel turned to her. “You call it Mount Rigiri, but my people and the Dark Ones have a much older name for it.”

“What is that?”

“R’lyeh.”

The word seemed to resonate with the mainlanders in a way he never expected. They seemed taken aback; fearful. Surely they’d never heard the word before…

The young woman confirmed this. “I’ve never heard that word before today but something about it…The sound of that word strikes a sort of primal fear in me.”

The long haired man standing next to her seemed about to speak, but then he stopped. The other newcomers nodded in unison. It was true then. These people weren’t as stupid as he thought they’d be. Josel nodded at them, grateful that he could perhaps get them to listen to him when the time came. “Believe me when I tell you this: a god sleeps beneath Mount Rigiri, in a sunken city called R’lyeh. This god is Dagon but you may know him by other names: Cthulhu, Kraken, Leviathan.”

The middle-aged man gasped at those words. Recognition flittered across some of their faces. The long haired man frowned.

“The Dark Ones are in the process of waking Dagon up,” Josel explained. “Your arrival here spoiled plans for their great awakening ritual that was to culminate tonight. They consider your presence here to be sacrilege. This is why we have treated you so harshly. Our treatment of you wasn’t out of some cultural difference…it was an effort to drive you away, to spare your lives.”

“So
that’s
why you kept chasing my ancestors off this island,” Keoni exclaimed.

Josel nodded at Keoni. “That is why. It was done to save you all. Because our mission has always been to keep mankind away from this island.”

“We just thought you had weird superstitions,” the long haired man said. “Keoni told us some of your beliefs earlier, but—”

“No buts.” Josel held up his hand. “We must leave now if we wish to make it to the eastern quadrant of the tunnels.” He pushed through them and beckoned them to follow. “Come! This way!”

And with that, Josel led Keoni Mumea and the four scientists back through the tunnels, hoping that at this stage in the game all of the Dark Ones were above ground. Because where he was taking them was very close to R’lyeh. It wasn’t all the way into the forbidden, sunken cyclopean city. No. White people had never seen it and never would. Not if Josel could help it. But it was close enough that Dark Ones, or even creatures worse than the Dark Ones could be lurking about. He had no other choice. To take them up into any of the other paths the tunnels led out to—the living rooms of the nine tribal chiefs—would simply place them back into the battlefield again. They couldn’t escape by boat, they couldn’t escape by plane— Naranu had no official airport, per se—and they couldn’t simply hide in the jungle. They had to travel underground,

skirt around the outskirts of R’lyeh, and make it to the east side of the island where they would be spilled out onto a remote beach. On this beach was a private landing strip where, occasionally, black planes from the United States touched down. Josel had always been fearful of the men who emerged from these planes. In many ways, they were as sinister and dangerous as the Dark Ones themselves. Yet unlike the scientists and researchers, they never meddled. They simply observed quietly, then left like spirits. They had arranged with Josel to have the landing strip maintained with modern equipment, manned by a select handful of his people. Josel had done so, selecting four of his best acolytes to maintain vigilance on this section of land twenty-four hours a day.

Somebody would be there now. Even if the Dark Ones had managed to reach that part of the island and destroy the lone building that stood there, they would have taken refuge in the secret room that had been built. This secret room was only accessible through the building itself and the tunnels.

Josel paused for a moment. He turned to the white people and Keoni. “Keoni Mumea?”

“Yes, Josel.”

“You are a good man. You have done well by these people and your forefathers.”

“Thank you, Josel.”

“You might see horrible things,” Josel continued, choosing his words carefully. “Things man was never meant to see. Things that are only whispered about… things only rumored about. If you see them, you are to turn your heads and look the other way as we pass by. Agreed?”

“Yes.” Keoni’s answer was swift.

Josel regarded the four white people. “And you?”

The young woman nodded. “Yes, of course.” The middle-aged man and woman nodded too. The long haired man was the last to agree. Josel watched him. He would have to be monitored closely. Especially when they reached the outskirts of R’lyeh.

“How far are we going?” the middle aged man asked.

“About two miles, to the east,” Josel answered. He motioned for Keoni to join him at the head of the group. “Keoni, your flashlight!”

Keoni joined Josel at the head of the group and together, they led the four scientists down the tunnel. And as they left his cottage farther behind, Josel hoped that they reached the landing strip in time. Because he was fairly certain the mainlanders who visited this island in their black planes and helicopters would be arriving very shortly.

Jennifer’s mind had been racing with dreadful anticipation since descending into the tunnels. She was frightened, most certainly. After all she’d been through in the past few years, she’d thought the nightmare was finally over. Now, here she was again, on the run from the Clickers and their reptilian masters. She had no idea if she’d make it off this island. This uncertainty made her think of her parents, of her cat back at home, of having second thoughts as to her career choice. If she hadn’t been so driven to succeed in her career, had settled for a more sedate life of teaching marine biology at the university level, she wouldn’t be half-way around the world being chased by giant lizard-men and mutant crustaceans that could melt you with one sting and suck you up like a spilled milk-shake.

But now was not the time to beat herself up over choices made. She had to be at the top of her game. Had to be quick thinking.

And right now her quick thinking was telling her to listen to this island holy man.

Susan was peppering the old man with questions. Despite the fatigue that was evident in her face, her voice never wavered. “You mentioned the name Dagon. I’m an anthropologist who specializes in ancient history. There was a Babylonian god called Dagon.”

Wade interrupted her. “That theory has been disputed.”

Susan turned to him. They were walking rapidly down the tunnels, following Josel and Keoni. “The name originates from Judah. It’s mentioned in the Old Testament.”

“I know,” Wade said. “But even that’s been disputed. The name is said to originate from the early fifteenth century and is most likely a Canaanite deity—”

“If you ask me, it sounds like something out of Lovecraft,” Ed said.

“Who?” Susan looked at him.

“H.P. Lovecraft,” Ed answered. “He wrote a series of stories about a being named Cthulhu and a cult that worships a range of deities that

live in a sunken city.” He addressed Josel. “What did you call this place in Mount Rigiri?”

“R’lyeh.”

“That sounds about right,” Dr. Steinhardt said. “It’s been years since I’ve read Lovecraft—probably since college—but that name sounds familiar. I was never sure about the pronunciation, though.”

“Isn’t H.P. Lovecraft a horror writer?” Jennifer asked. Just what she needed. To get another fucking horror writer involved. The mere thought of it made her head pound even more. She almost laughed out loud, wondering if Rick Sycheck would have appreciated the irony.

“He
was
a horror writer,” Ed corrected her. “He died in the late nineteen thirties.”

“What’s the significance?” Wade asked.

“Many of his stories are part of a cycle of tales about a myth of alien-entities that came to earth during prehistory hundreds of millions of years ago. They settled here, built cities, and were somehow either banished to the outer cosmos or imprisoned in a watery grave like this mythological city R’lyeh. In the stories, a cult is always trying to summon them. Cthulhu is the main god. You mentioned Cthulhu before, Josel.”

The holy man was five feet ahead of them, but at the mention of the name Cthulhu, he visibly shuddered.

Susan frowned. “So Dagon is another name for Cthulhu?”

“In fiction, no.” Ed said. “But in real life, apparently yes.”

“How is this possible?” Wade asked. “These people could not have possibly read, much less been aware of twentieth century pulp fiction to have come up with such a hackneyed scheme to keep us off their goddamned island.”

“Are the Dark Ones a scheme?” Ed stopped in his tracks. He faced Wade, who stopped in front of him. Susan and Jennifer halted, watching the exchange with bated breath. Ahead of them, Keoni and Josel had paused and looked back expectantly at the scientists.

“Because let me tell you right now,” Ed continued, “I’ve studied those things for the past three years and they are unlike anything we have ever seen. They are unlike anything of
this
world. There is no evidence of them in the fossil record. No record of them at all. Yet, they had to have come from somewhere. And with the evidence we’ve uncovered for the past three years since the attacks on DC and the east coast… how coordinated they were…and in conjunction with other findings we’ve made…and with what we’ve learned in the brief time we’ve been here on Naranu…”

“What discoveries?” Jennifer asked.

“Aside from their brain structures being completely alien to any life form on earth, we’ve uncovered writings,” Ed said. “Off the Ivory Coast of Africa, off the north shore of Norway, the southern tip of South America…all places where Dark Ones have been wiped out in recent years. Ancient writings on the walls of the underwater caves they were tracked to and destroyed in. We’ve employed linguists to try to decipher them and after three years we are no closer to deciphering any of them. They are unlike any form of writing we’ve ever seen. They don’t resemble any kind of primitive language.”

“Why were we not told about this?” Wade asked.

“Because the Livingston Administration wanted it kept quiet at first.”

“At first?”

Ed nodded. “Yeah. And then, when we were ready to announce our findings, we were hushed up.”

“By who?” Jennifer asked. “Livingston?”

“No.” Ed shook his head. “Not by the government. At least, I don’t believe it was the government. In truth, we were never sure exactly who they were. Some of my associates claimed they were from a foreign agency. One poor bastard even insisted that they were from something called Black Lodge—a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream—this paranormal paramilitary agency. But whoever they were, these people made it very clear that the knowledge was not supposed to be shared with the general public. They were very…persuasive.”

“Were you ever able to complete the translations?” Susan asked.

“Not even close. As I said, they don’t resemble anything we’ve ever seen before. Three years of hard work down the drain.”

“If I’m successful in getting you off this island safely, I will be happy to translate for you,” Josel said. “Now we must continue. We cannot afford to stand here and argue. Come!”

He turned and began heading down the corridor again.

Sensing that time was of the essence, Jennifer joined Josel and Keoni. The others followed, but the argument continued.

“How can the writings of a horror fiction author be real?” Wade asked.

“Ever read
Communion
by Whitley Streiber?” Ed answered. “According to him, aliens kidnapping people to stick probes up their asses are very real. It happens to him all the time.”

“So?”

“Strieber was a horror fiction author before he wrote
Communion
.”