Oliver

  Life is a hideous thing,

  and from the background

  behind what we know of it

  peer daemoniacal hints of truth

  which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous.

  Oliver stood outside the massive front door, holding it open just a crack so he could peek back through and spy on that wretched librarian with Amrita. There was absolutely no way his father had called for him. Dad communicated via sticky notes left on the kitchen table or bathroom mirror, not the telephone. He couldn’t even remember the last time his father had called him somewhere.

  Gilman was leading Amrita by the hand back into the shadowed recesses beneath the carved-stone balcony that ringed the second floor. He waited until they were out of sight and slipped back in. None of the other patrons even looked up at him.

  He edged from one tall bookshelf to the next, peeking around corners before each move to make sure the old bat didn’t see him. He nearly missed them – he reached the last bookshelf by the stone wall near the back just as Amrita’s leg passed through and the old door clunked shut. What’s she doing letting that woman get her behind closed doors? That seems like a bad idea. Amrita was entirely too confident for her own good, and Oliver wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

  The door had no handle, and it didn’t budge when he pushed on it. He put his eye to the keyhole and saw nothing but black. I’m being silly. There’s nothing to worry about. She’s tough – she can handle herself with an old lady. I told her to meet me at my house. I should just go wait there until she comes. Somebody’s gonna catch me sneaking around and I’m gonna get in trouble.

  They were all sensible thoughts, and he didn’t believe a single one of them. The moment he’d seen Amrita leave with the librarian he’d gotten a funny, panicked pressure in his guts, and his head was pounding. Sure enough, there was the black nosebleed again. His tissue was overloaded already, so the sleeve got it. What do I do? I can’t leave. I’ve got to get down there.

  The whirring cylinders of his brain clicked into place, and he swung his backpack around to his front. This lock was about as old and simple as they got – maybe his lockpicks weren’t a wasted purchase after all. With a glance around to make sure nobody had taken a sudden interest in the Teen Romance shelves, he inserted the straight pick at the top of the lock hole and slid the bent one in below it. The tumblers inside were big enough to feel when he moved the toothy tool back and forth. Click went one and click went another, and then the door swung inward. It was so easy it almost felt like cheating. I guess locks weren’t exactly state-of-the-art in Zebediah Whateley’s day.

  He edged down the stair and let the door swing shut behind him, being careful not to let the lock re-engage – there was no handle on this side either, just a worn leather pull-tab. The darkness was suffocating, but he didn’t dare get out his Maglite for fear he’d give himself away. Even if Oliver’s gut was wrong and all Ms. Gilman was doing was showing Amrita the library’s private collection of rare books, she wouldn’t appreciate him intruding, and he didn’t want to get his library card revoked. Regardless, the stabbing pain behind his eyebrows and the churning in his guts said this was no innocent interest on the old woman’s part, so he stumbled down the stairs in the dark as quickly and quietly as he could. A stale, fishy smell wafted up on a cold draft, mixing with the tang of rot flowing from his nose. He wiped his face on his sleeve again. He'd have to do his laundry soon; this was his only good jacket.

  The staircase turned a corner, and a faint green light shone up from below. The steps kept going at least another hundred feet – this is one heck of a bomb basement – and the walls were carved in friezes and reliefs. Rather than the gargoyles and devils of the outer building, though, these depictions were of fanciful creatures with too many legs, too many heads, and tentacles on all sides. The light was too dim to make out specifics, but they hovered over the heads of cowering humans, all of whom crowded near the floor above the steps, arms raised to protect themselves, or possibly in worship. Angular rays formed the background between the figures, meeting at odd, eye-bending angles that put him in mind of the shattered tomb beneath the Ambrose house. All this he noticed with one eye while he kept the other trained on the green light below, being careful not to trip or scuff his feet. He could hear voices, and one of them was unmistakably Ms. Gilman.

  “…reaches back many thousands of years, far longer than most traditional sources have records of. It’s the deepest kind of silliness how everyone these days thinks we have our whole history nailed down just because we grubbed up a few bones from the dirt.”

  Amrita sounded both bored and dubious. “I mean… it’s a lot of bones. From kinda all over.”

  Oliver relaxed just a hair at the sound of her voice. He crept to the bottom of the stairs, hugging the wall. A columned archway framed the green light in the chamber beyond, and it gave him a handy spot to hide and peek through. The room was big and round, and the dim light was coming up from what looked like a deep well cut into the middle of the stone floor. It was a good twenty feet across, and the illumination wavered as if reflecting off of rippling water somewhere under the earth. The walls had more of the same carved friezes he’d seen on the stairs interrupted at regular intervals by fluted columns. Amrita and the librarian stood off to one side near the edge of the pit. It was good to see his friend standing there unharmed, but this place and the whole situation were both so deeply weird that he didn’t dare leave. The two women were looking at a decrepit wooden bookstand that belonged in some abbot’s study from the 14th century. An oversized leather-bound tome tottered on the stand’s reading surface, and Ms. Gilman was shining a penlight on its pages. She had on white gloves as if she feared to damage the thing, as well she might – the book looked even older than the stand, its pages yellowed and stiff.

  “This is our true history, my dear,” the old librarian crooned, green light glinting off her glasses, her hands hovering over the book in air caresses. “Knowledge beyond words and worlds beyond space. Weak minds cannot grasp it; they break under the strain. But you… you’re built of sterner stuff. How often have I seen you walking to school or waiting for the bus and wished to reach out, shake you awake! I’m glad I didn’t rush things. The great ones know when they’re ready.”

  Amrita shuffled back a step, an uneasy frown creasing her beautiful face. “That’s really not something you tell a person right after you meet them.”

  “Oh, pish, young lady, as if I’d do you harm. Your grandmother spoke of you with such pride. It’s an awful shame she’s not around to see this. She’d do a far better job of explaining than I.”

  “You talk about her like you were church buddies, but…” Amrita gestured at the book and the glowing well, “none of this looks even a little Christian to me.”

  “You’ve never been to our church, though, have you?”

  “Both my parents work weekends, I told you.”

  “I’m not criticizing, dear. My point is that our little group has evolved far past what you’d find in most church buildings. Didn’t Jesus say he was only a stepping stone on the way to God?”

  “I don’t know, you tell me.”

  “We start with the gentle teachings of peace and harmony and grow from there. Milk before meat, as Paul said. But the teachings of Jesus are like a tadpole swimming in a primordial ocean, and in comparison, our worship – our understanding – has evolved. Grown legs. Taken to the skies.”

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  Amrita tugged her braid, looking deeply unconvinced. “Uh huh.”

  Oliver massaged his head as he crouched behind the pillared doorway. His headache was getting fierce. It felt like he had a nail driven into the center of his forehead. I’m too stressed out. She’s fine; she’s right there. Chill out. Let her talk to the weird old lady. If she tries anything creepy, I’ll just grab her. He hunched forward, shaking his head. Blackness dripped from his nose to the stone between his feet. He stopped trying to wipe it away; it just kept coming.

  “Don’t play dumb, child. Just because a thing is unfamiliar does not make it untrue. You know that. You must; you willingly followed me down into the dark at the mere chance that I had something useful to tell you. I could see the hunger in your eyes. There’s more to your life, Amrita Rajani, and you’ve felt it for a long time. Haven’t you?”

  Amrita shoved her hands in the pockets of her hoodie and shrugged. “Doesn’t everybody? We all want to be superheroes and rock gods, but then you grow up.”

  Gilman put her hands on her hips and peered over the tops of her glasses, looking like the most forbidding kindergarten teacher imaginable. “Just because every little girl dreams of being a being a princess, does that mean no one lives in a castle? You are the daughter of a line of priestesses that stretches back to the dawn of humanity, six hundred generations and more, keepers of the great buried truths. Your grandmother thought perhaps the day might be hers, but none can rush the Old Ones. The task will be yours, or your daughter’s, or her daughter’s.” She leaned in close, a conspiratorial smile on her face. “But I think it will be yours. The deeps are rumbling.”

  “What task? What are you even talking about?”

  “The true God of this world waits, child. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

  The pain in Olly’s head spiked, and he jammed his fist into his mouth to stifle a gasp. His nose flowed freely over his hand and onto the floor. He could barely see straight.

  “I… I’ve heard that before,” Amrita said. She sounded shaken. “Where did I hear that? Why do I know that?”

  “In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming,” Ms. Gilman said, sounding triumphant. “It is your birthright, Amrita. He will not sleep much longer, and I think you will wake him.”

  “This is bullshit,” Amrita said. Her words lacked the rough and ready confidence Oliver was used to. He wanted to look at her, make sure she was okay, but his eyes were screwed shut, and his hands clutched the sides of his head to keep his skull from flying apart. Maybe I do have cancer. What’s happening to me?

  “If it’s bullshit, young woman, then step to the edge and repeat my words, and nothing will happen. You can go home and tell your dear, deluded father that you met a crazy old woman who said impossible things and you’ll all have a nice laugh.”

  “You are crazy.”

  “I’m not, and I think you know it. I think you’ll speak the holy tongue and the servant of the Old Ones that lies below will hear you. He will begin to rise, and then his Master will rise, and we who know His name will be given power, and glory, and a life unending. You’ll bring us Heaven, Amrita, and it won’t be some silly cloud with robes and harps and wings; it’ll be a new world without want, illness, or death.”

  Oliver forced his eyes open and saw Amrita step to the edge of the pit, waves of green light bathing her face. He wanted to call out to her, to tell her to stop or maybe to cry help me, but his jaw felt cemented in place. The pressure in his head was unbelievable, and he felt it shift and move through his sinuses. It was like a bad dream, but he couldn’t wake up.

  Ms. Gilman knelt and prostrated herself at Amrita’s side, bowing to the pit. “Take your place, great priestess of Dagon. Speak to our Lord and let him hear us.”

  Amrita hesitated. “He’s down there?”

  “No, my dear, but one of his servants is. This is only the beginning. Say the words.”

  “I don’t know them.”

  “You do. Open your mouth and it will be filled.”

  Amrita was trembling, and Olly ached to reach out to her, but he was heaving and shaking, catching only glimpses of her as his head quaked up and down near the floor.

  “Ph’nglui…” she said, her voice surprisingly strong. A sudden trembling shook the floor, and she paused.

  “Keep going!” Gilman cried. “He hears!”

  “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.” She sounded strong, confident, righteous. Like these were the words she’d always been trying to say.

  The floor heaved and bucked, and dust rained down on all sides. The pain moved from Olly’s sinuses to his nose, descending. He clutched at his face and felt a ball of something distending the flesh of his left nostril. He froze, panicked. This isn’t happening. I’m dreaming. This is the dream I had last night. Destruction. Terror. The worst thing ever. What’s happening?

  The pain crested and he could see the unnatural swell of his nose from the corner of his vision. He crouched on all fours and screamed, the sound lost in the rumble of the earth. A black, wet thing the size of a golf ball splashed into the black fluid on the floor, and he fell back gasping, feeling a shaky relief like he’d just survived the world’s worst constipation.

  He looked back into the room and froze once more. A green-black tentacle as big around as a tree trunk had risen out of the pit and wavered in the air in front of Amrita. A huge red eye with a black, vertical slit of a pupil opened at its tip, and it looked right at her. Gilman had her arms to the sky and was babbling.

  “Shoggoth c’ ah’kn’a hai, bug llll k’yarnak ya uh’eog cthulhu r’luh ot c’ ron uaaah!” She bowed her head to the stone again, ecstatic with joy.

  “What,” Olly whispered. “What. No.”

  The black, oblong mass he’d birthed from his nose twitched in its puddle of nosebleed, and when he looked down, he saw sinuous tendrils unfolding from it. It was the deepest black of anything he’d ever seen, and tiny flecks of light glimmered under its wet skin as if a galaxy lived inside. A cluster of squid feelers writhed at one end of the miniature football shape, and toward the opposite side two small, bat-like, clawed wings scrabbled at the floor. He jerked away, and the thing skittered forward on its folded wing-arms into the green-lit room, moving its trailing tentacles in chaotic ellipses to push its bulk along. The earth was still shaking. Whatever monster was looking at Amrita, it was coming up from below.

  The sight of his nosebleed growing limbs and running off was so unbelievably weird that it shook him free of his fear paralysis. “Amrita!” he screamed. “Get back!”

  She didn’t hear him. She reached out to the monstrous eye tentacle, face blank, entranced. Ms. Gilman, however, jerked up from her bowed position, face full of horror and hate.

  “No!” she screeched. “Not you! Get out, GET OUT!”

  Amid the pandemonium, Olly’s nosebleed child charged toward the green pit and threw itself off the edge, disappearing from view.

  A bare moment later, the great, tree-like tentacle twisted and thrashed, crashing to the floor on one side and then the other, and an ear-shattering bellow filled the space, sounding like a hundred elephants and just as many lions all screaming at once. The floor jumped, and cracks raced through the stone. Loose rocks came clattering down the stairs, and Oliver stumbled into the room just before the stairwell collapsed, filling the air with dust and dirt.

  “No!” Gilman screamed, dancing helplessly at the edge of the pit. “What did you do?”

  The flailing tree-trunk tentacle smashed into her, crushing the old woman to the floor. It lifted again, and her suddenly-misshapen body slipped from the edge of the well down into the pit, leaving a long smear of blood behind.

  Olly grabbed Amrita’s arm. “We have to go!”

  Her eyes were open, but she was loose and empty in his grasp as he pulled her back to the wall, and her eyes were blank. He shook her harder. “Amrita, please! Wake up! We’re gonna die here if we don’t go.”

  Her eyes snapped back into focus, and she looked around. The tentacle was pounding the ground with incredible force at random intervals, and it was getting longer. “What is that?” she screamed.

  Oliver spied a tunnel branching off from the room he hadn’t seen from his earlier hiding place. “Whatever it is, it’s coming up. Let’s get out of here.”

  The stones around the lip of the well were cracking and crumbling, and another tentacle wormed its way free. This one had lots of eyes, and they were all looking at Oliver.

  They ran like hell.