The Dark Rites of Cthulhu (5 page)

“I can do many things. And this . . . this is important. Do me proud, Laura. Say the words every morning after you get up and every night before you sleep. Teach those who are willing. You are the chosen one. If you cannot destroy Masters, no one can.”

He reached out and she thought he was going to caress her cheek, but instead he claimed a can of food, which he stowed in his pouch. She sat, silently amazed, as he walked into the darkness. After several minutes of listening to his footsteps recede, she closed the door.

Laura’s mind whirled for the rest of the night, thinking about what Dornier had said. It kept echoing through her head; that she was the one person who could eliminate the Masters, possibly even sink the Corpse City back into the ocean.

She did not forget herself so much that she didn’t keep an ear out. She woke from sleep to hear a pack of dogs on the ground below, but they passed by without stopping.

In the
Before time, dogs had been pets, and people slept safe at night. In the Before time, Mom and Dad had watched over her. Before Mom had been torn apart and eaten. Dad had lasted three more years, until an infected bite had gotten him. She remembered staring in terror at his still form, unable to believe that he would never move again. She stood vigil for two days, not eating, not drinking, waiting for him to get back up. Watching his skin sink and turn grey. She tried to keep the insects away, but there had been too many. Dogs had ended her vigil, chasing her away and reducing her father’s carrion to scraps and bone. Laura hadn’t remembered that for a long time. 

So many people lost, until now she was alone. She remembered friendly people, and smiling faces. She couldn’t bring them back. The world hadn’t always been this way. Dornier had given her the means to make it better, to make it free from danger. As she thought about it, there was nothing she wouldn’t do to get that sense of safety back. 

Her fire had faded to embers, and she shivered in the chill darkness. She whispered the words to herself, and felt the hot spark fly out of her. This was how she would to set things right.

At first, Laura skulked around the fringes of the Dominion of Manhattan. She didn’t even try to talk to the men. They were all crazy because their women were locked up in the tower.  They feared the Lord of Manhattan more than death. Boys were interested enough to talk with her, and she could outfight or outrun them easily.

None of them remembered the time
Before, but she found that if she made promises about the destruction of the Masters, they cooperated. She taught them the spell, and told them when it was for, and they promised to repeat it when they were alone. She seldom saw any of them again. She wondered how many of them would practice like she told them, before going to sleep at night and first thing on waking. 

Winter was difficult, as it always was. Laura knew how not to leave tracks for a hunting party to stumble across. If someone armed with a gun found her, that would be the end, chosen one or not. She watched the night sky for any hint of green, but the remote stars were all that stood in the unending black. She wished Dornier would meet her again. She had so many questions. 

When summer came, with the hot, humid weather the fish-men didn’t like, she decided to take a greater risk than just talking to boys. All the women in Manhattan were kept in an old tower made of ornate stone, about five miles from the Lord of Manhattan’s court. It was old, but solid. A fence surrounded it, and above the second floor, the windows were covered with chain-link fencing. Inside this perimeter, fish-men patrolled, rifles in their large, web-fingered hands, their unblinking eyes ever watchful. 

Laura found another building like it, several abandoned blocks away, and learned how to climb the outside. At first, her efforts were clumsy and loud, dislodging fragments of stone, dropping them noisily into the street below. Every time she slipped, or raked her fingers bloody on the unforgiving walls, she reminded herself that she was the chosen one. She could do it. At night, when her fingers wouldn’t stop throbbing and her muscles ached, the knowledge gave her comfort. After some weeks, she learned to wedge herself quietly into windows, and grip the cracks between stones. She would teach the women in the tower the spell. No one would want to destroy the Masters more. 

After a month, she began to climb in the dark. She learned a slow, stealthy pace that didn’t disturb the roosting pigeons until she reached up and grabbed them. She ate well. All that was left was to wait for a sweltering day followed
by a hot, airless night. 

The cruel Manhattan weather did not make her wait long. The Sun dragged across a sky of molten metal, and the air was heavy with the reek of asphalt. Laura spent the day in the shade, her breathing shallow, mind racing at the prospect of the hot night ahead. She was slick with perspiration, and the death of the Sun brought no relief. It was time. 

She threaded her way through the piles of discarded and rusting cars, keeping eyes and ears open for fish-men. She hid behind a burned-out hulk of a car, watching the fenced perimeter that surrounded the tower. Enormous hybrids in ill-fitting clothes patrolled the inside of the fence with listless motion, rifles slung across their backs. Laura nearly gave up and sneaked off at the sight of their glassy and unblinking eyes, but she thought of Dornier, and being able to make everything right. When a patrolling sea-devil had shuffled into the omnipresent dark, she ran to the fence, vaulted up with a clatter of metal on metal, sprinted to the building and started to climb.

She was nearly at the second floor before the fish-man came back to the fence, rifle at the ready. Laura froze, barely daring to breathe, and tried to press herself closer to the building’s hot stones. How good was their hearing? She was sweating freely, would they be able to smell her with their flat nostrils like cut holes in their faces? Her heart hammered, and she felt her grip slipping, and perspiration seeped into her eyes, stinging like ants. Below her, the fish-man grunted, and was joined by a second one. Their movements were sluggish in the simmering heat.  Laura’s arms burned as she clung to the side of the building, still as a stone. How good was their hearing? Would they hear if she shifted her hand? They would see her if only they looked up. They were so close. She could have landed on them, but she would never be able to overpower their hideous strength.

Eventually, they moved on, croaking guttural imprecations. Laura didn’t know if sweat or tears ran down her face. Her arms were cramped from being locked in one position, but she forced them to work, feeling for grip points and toeholds, hauling herself up.   

The third-floor windows were covered with chain-link fence. Laura thanked the Masters for their consideration. With very little room, she gripped the window ledge with her toes, and clung to the fence. She couldn’t reach the window, and just as she was wondering how to contact anyone inside, a gaunt face appeared in the window.

They stared at each other. Laura hadn’t expected the women in the tower to be pretty, but she hadn’t anticipated anyone this haggard. The face that looked at her was so worn that Laura couldn’t begin to guess her age. She was frail, with colorless hair surrounding her head like a gossamer halo. Tattered rags barely covered her swollen belly. Seeing Laura, she, pressing one fist to her mouth, reached out with the other. The window opened only a little, just enough for the stranger to get her hand under the sash and toward the wire fence. Her fist smothered a sob when Laura touched her stick-like fingers. At first, she didn’t know what to say, clinging to the side of the building, staring at the weary, desperate woman who clutched at her fingers. 

“What’s your name?” She whispered it for want of any other question. 

She moved her fist and said, “Monica,” her voice was tentative and achingly fragile, just within hearing. “You have to get us out of here.”

“I don’t know how.” 

Tears glistened in Monica’s eyes. Laura looked beyond her, and saw lumped forms lying on the floor, sleeping or shifting uneasily. Cats lived better than this. 

“I have something that can destroy the Masters. Get rid of them all.”

Hope flared in Monica’s eyes, and the realization of how young she was hammered into Laura’s gut.    

“Can you do it right now?”

“No. I have to teach you. And then we have to wait for the right time.” 

Monica gestured to her distended belly, tears of frustration streaming down her cheeks.

“I can’t wait. I can already feel its claws.”

Laura avoided the desperate eyes. What could she tell Monica? She was doomed. The pregnancies of the fish-men ended with screaming and blood. She didn’t know when Dornier would turn the sky green. Would it be days? Weeks? Years? 

“But you can teach it to the others.” 

Laura watched as Monica’s newfound hope was snuffed out. Her worn, despairing face looked away and then back, seeking any sort of solace. They gripped each other’s fingers, as tears ran down the pregnant woman’s face. 

“We can stop this from happening again,” Laura whispered. “If we can kill them, they won’t do this to anyone else, ever.”   

Monica opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Laura could do nothing but hold her fingers as she silently wept.
After some time, Laura couldn’t tell how long, Monica straightened up and wiped at her tears. 

“Teach me.”

              Laura whispered the spell, her mouth filling with the taste of hot tin. It took a long time for Monica to get it right, with Laura whispering encouragement from the other side of the fence, correcting her pronunciation as best she could. Her arms and legs were shaking with fatigue, but she hung on, desperate for Monica to get it right. Then Monica’s frail hands flew to her mouth.  Laura had her repeat it twice more, to get her used to the taste, and the exact words.

“Teach the others, but don’t let the fish-men know. Whisper it to yourself before you go to sleep, and when you get up in the morning. When the sky turns green, it will be time.”

“Make it soon.” The pleading in Monica’s eyes and voice was almost more than Laura could bear. She gripped Monica’s fingers, hoping the frail, imprisoned woman could take strength, or hope, or anything from the contact. Only when her trembling limbs threatened to fail did she let go. She stretched as best she could, and prepared her aching muscles for the descent.  Her final glimpse of Monica was of the skinny, pale face nearly lost in shadows. Then Laura was on the ground, over the fence, and running into the darkness before the fish-men could respond.  

She spent the next day collecting food, and set off North, across the river, and away from the Dominion of Manhattan. 

At first, the country looked much the same, with ruined concrete, steel, and stone towers, but they got shorter as she walked away from Manhattan. After days of walking, the buildings became houses, and twisted, malevolent-looking trees crowded in on her. She touched one and found it wept a goo which burned like a knife cut. Other bloated and quaking plants squished underfoot. 

Laura had never been outside the Dominion of Manhattan. Her hunting and escaping skills served her well in this savage green place. Often, she killed only to discover her prey had some sort of rot or grotesque growing out of it. These she abandoned. Only once was she desperate enough to eat a healthy-looking part of a deer whose putrid, blackened skin was peeling away from its ribs. The days of vomiting and chills in the middle of summer were enough to teach her that it was better to go hungry.

In the wilderness, she found small enclaves of humanity that resisted the Masters’ grip.  Or at least, were too small to be noticed. Most drove her off with gunfire, but a few welcomed her. To these, she taught the spell, always pointing to the sky, waiting for it to turn green. She would stay for a few days, and always leave alone. 

Seasons passed. She grew lean and hard, her skin darkened with sun and travel.

After three summers, at the hottest peak of the year, Laura saw a Master. A bloated, flabby, man-like body with a cancerous, tentacled head waded through the trees like a man in a pond. She was paralyzed with horror by the impossible size, and cringed on the ground, driving her teeth into the stubs of her missing fingers to keep from screaming. The ground shook as the colossal aberration shattered trees with its passing, and Laura wept with sick fear hours after it was gone. How could she ever stand against something so mighty? When Dornier spoke of dealing with the Masters, it had seemed like a pretty dream. Confronted with their enormous reality, despair clawed at her. She repeated the spell over and over, letting each hot spark fly up to the sky, each one a wish that the Masters would be destroyed.

The next morning, weak after a night without sleep, she decided to return to Dominion of Manhattan. She wanted to see if the children remembered, and teach them again, if necessary.  How large had Dornier’s rebellion grown? How many people whispered the spell to themselves at night and the first thing in the morning? She didn’t know how many times she had repeated it.  The hot spark of success no longer surprised her, and she could taste nothing but hot tin. 

The return to Manhattan was long, and every night, Laura looked to the sky, hoping for some hint of green. Monica would be dead, she knew. Even now, the thought saddened her.  There would be fewer women left, but she would have to visit the tower again.