(Author’s note: this is an unfinished horror story that I first began writing in 2015. Although I have notes and ideas on how to continue it, I will not be updating this and will release it as is.)
“For what shall it profit a man,
if he shall gain the whole world,
yet lose his own immortal soul?” – Mark 8:36
The rusty hinges of the cell block door squealed as the door opened. They were coming for someone. Maybe it was his turn again. After so many sessions what else could he tell them?
Markus sat on the bare floor with his back against the cool concrete wall and looked across at the bars in his cell door. Maybe it would be best if they ended it this time. How long had he been here? Five or six days? It had been a week or so since the stars had been right and the Old ones had returned. Before the monsters had been turned lose to spread their horror and fear.
The time had returned and as prophesied the Great Old ones once again were free to roam the Earth and set horror loose upon humanity. Madness and terror took over as the nations of the world fell.
Three guards arrived at his cell. The misshapen lumps were barely recognizable as a men under gas masks and rubber suits. Best not to see them as they really appeared under those masks. One unlocked the door and the two others stormed in and grabbed him by the shoulders half dragging, half carrying him out.
They stepped out of the cell block into a cold January morning. They were in a prison camp on Governor’s Island facing Manhattan. Looking across the waters he could see the wreckage wrought when mighty Cthulhu had stormed ashore to wreak havoc and death among humanity, and there still sprawled among the wreckage of the business district was the gigantic bulk of Cthulhu’s rotting corpse.
Markus felt a stab of remorse and pain as he once again looked upon his dead Master’s body. He felt that as a high priest of the Esoteric Order of Dagon that he had failed his high master but he couldn’t understand how.
It had all begun several months back.
By day, Markus Seawright, was a hard working realtor and pastor at a local protestant church. By night he was high priest of the Ancient Esoteric Order of Dagon. He and his fellow worshipers actively worked to bring about the day that the Old Ones would once again roam the Earth and cast down the vile human kingdoms. He and his co-worshipers would of course be saved and even honored for their part in Cthulhu’s ascension.
Markus had grown up in the Order. His family had been worshiping and working hard for generations to bring about this day and finally it appeared that they may have succeeded. A rare copy of the dread Necronomicon had been stolen in a daring midnight raid in Paris. It came into their possession and Connie Winthrop, the group’s linguist and esoteric expert, found the relevant passages that could be recited to release Cthulhu at the right time. Inevitably a group of plucky heroes had appeared to try and thwart them and had nearly succeeded but the cultist had armed themselves well and disposed of the heroes.
The group waited and waited. The stars had to be right.
“And with strange aeons even death may die”
That was the promise. When the stellar conjunctions were correct, then and only then could the chants be intoned and the promise fulfilled. The wait was maddening. Days and then weeks. Every day Markus feared government men might show up and arrest them all.
Finally the morning arrived. Venus nudged into position and the stars had indeed aligned. The group gathered in hushed and excited anticipation.
Markus led the service. The responses from the congregation were correctly pronounced. The pageant built to a crescendo of orgiastic worship and the last words were uttered.
All around them came the sound. It was like a large block of stone breaking or Icebergs breaking off a glacier. Impossibly loud and all around them. The sun which had been rising on a new clear day suddenly began to dim as if dusk were descending instead. Markus laughed maniacally. They had done it. The prophecy fulfilled and Cthulhu set free. A ripple passed through reality. Not an earth tremor but a physical ripple not just in the ground but the air and even their minds. Something had fundamentally changed.
The cultists began to cheer. Soon their Master would once again walk the Earth unchained and free. He would fulfill the prophecy to the letter “Cthulhu will utterly destroy humanity”. The words written so long ago would be carried out as expected.
The rest of the day was oddly unapocalyptic. Instead of remaining dark, the sun began to rise again and it grew lighter. No screams of horror, no fire from the sky, no seas rising up and drowning the land. They stood around the empty field for an hour. Finally the cultists decided to meet at Markus’ house for breakfast.
Someone turned on the TV to see if there was any news anywhere. The New York City TV affiliates were reporting strange tides just offshore from the city but nothing else. A field reporter was in lower Manhattan and reporting live when it happened. A writhing mass of flesh rose out of the sea. Strange scaly beings pulling themselves over the sea wall and attacking everyone in sight.
In appearance they looked like bipedal fish or possibly frogs with rubbery blue-green skin and abnormally pale bellies. Their mouths were a mass of fangs and their flippers were tipped with razor sharp talons. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands were coming out of the water and invading the city.
In his living room the cultists cheered. They had really done it. Impudent and arrogant humanity would soon be destroyed and what better way to begin than to destroy humanity’s unofficial capital city?
The TV reporter continued her reporting on the scene till a Deep One snatched her up and dragged her off somewhere. The cameraman didn’t last much longer and the camera dropped to the ground still transmitting its gruesome images till someone at the network cut the feed.
The cultists high fived and gave each other back slaps. Only Markus continued to watch the reports. A very shaken network anchor stuttered and stumbled over his lines for the next hour. The man hadn’t a clue as to what was going on and just repeated the same bits of news and tried to comfort the viewers at home and himself that things would be alright. Finally someone handed him a sheet of paper with fresh news. The army was stepping into the fight.
Apparently by sheer coincidence the army had been holding large scale maneuvers near the city in the preceding weeks and the local armory had just received an over-sized shipment of ammunition destined for units in the middle east. These were speedily handed out to the army units as they moved into the battle zone.
At first the army units engaged the underwater enemy rather hesitantly. The strange and possibly diabolical nature o the enemy made the soldiers skittish. Discipline however took over and soon the army was firing and engaging the enemy in a professional and rather ruthless manner.
When the high command took away the precaution about damaging buildings or about civilian casualties the military’s effectiveness increased. The soldier’s last restraint fell away and they almost gleefully fired into large masses of deep ones.
The deep ones responded with massed “wave” attacks which threatened to overwhelm the thin line of human defenders but which evaporated away under the onslaught of heavy artillery and helicopter attacks.
The underwater denizens withdrew, tacitly and stubbornly, but they withdrew leaving piles of dead and dying in their wake and literal rivers of blood to the shoreline where they disappeared under the waves.
The army advanced and with seemingly little to no thought began to dispatch any and all wounded dead ones without remorse or pity. To the common foot soldiers these ferocious aliens were nothing more than wounded animals now and could be destroyed without a second thought.
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