Kid Kthulhu: The Awakening, Chapter 11: The Deserted Village

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Everyone who reads this be sure to check out Thomas Perkins' Deviantart concepts of "Kid Kthulhu" retro comics covers. Now there's talent!

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The Catskill Mountain Range: their borrowed Humvee easily negotiated the rough off-the-road terrain. "So what are we looking for, again?" Kris asked.

"There was an old mansion—'s not there now, they blew it up—but, look," he stopped the car and pointed out the window. "See those ridges? They kinda look like giant molehills? That's 'cause that's exactly what they are. Only they're not molehills." He filled her in on the degenerate Martense family, who'd deteriorated into savage ape-like cannibals, living underground.

Her eyes widened. She'd had some knowledge of this beforehand, but the details…"Okay. Aaand…we're looking for these goomers because?"

"Intel says they have something. Apparently, Jan Martense, the one who got murdered, brought something back from some war. Brother Elder doesn't think it's the Trapezohedron or anything, but it could be something important, maybe some documents or records to something important. There are other objects of Power besides the Shining Trapezohedron, after all. And these things do live underground; it's conceivable that they may have something to do with the Silent Eternal Ones. Those guys seem fond of genetic experimentation, anyway." Shrug. "Maybe that explains how the Martenses became what they are. Anyway, he wants me to see if I can find something."

"How? Anything they have would be…well, it could be anywhere. And it would probably be underground, wouldn't it? I mean, I could see if it was in, like, some town or something above ground, we could kinda hunt for it, but it could be anywhere…we can't dig up the entire county!"

"They've almost got to have certain places where they concentrate more than others. Remember, they've devolved to an animal state, pretty much. So if they have kept anything important like that, it stands to reason they'd probably stash it somewhere close to someplace with some, I dunno, ceremonial importance to them. So if we can locate those areas of greatest ceremonial importance…"

"I see. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, only underground."

"Something like that, yeah. Of course, if they just shift it from tunnel to tunnel, there's no really practical way of finding it…" He trailed off, obviously thinking. "Well, anyway, cross that bridge when, you know. But we do have a place to start. There's a remnant of a village a couple of miles from Leffert's Corners that's supposed to be deserted." He started the Humvee, put it into gear. "Shouldn't be that far away. You got that charm?" Brother Oberon had given her a charm with the Elder Sign on it for her to wear around her neck. It wasn't total protection, but it would ward off the magic of the Silent Eternal Ones.

But not their science. Once again, Cal wished she'd go in for that process Brother Elder had mentioned. He didn't want her to die, of course, but what Brother Elder had told him about sounded worse than death.

"Yeah, right here." She fished it out from around her neck, the odd leaf-like sign glowing softly in the gathering darkness.

Soon, the headlights revealed a random scattering of huts in varying degrees of disrepair. Only a couple looked to be actually livable, if by "livable," one meant "could shield one from a light rain." The others…

"Wow. I didn't think such places existed, Cal." Kris's voice was hushed. The silent huts around her were like something one might see in videos of particularly poor third-world countries, only there didn't seem to be anyone living in them.

They got out of the vehicle, Cal already in his "Kid Kthulhu" guise, Kris dressed warmly in a heavy shirt and cargo pants. She wore a navy jacket over it all, one with lots of pockets. Now she went around to the back of the vehicle, and rummaged around in the back of the Humvee for a moment. "Kris?"

"Just a sec." She came around front, carrying a short-barreled pump-action riot shotgun, with a Glock automatic pistol stuck in a form-molded holster on her belt. He could see several filled magazines bulging in her pockets, and other bulges in her jacket he guessed were spare shotgun shells.

"Good Lord, Kris. What's all that for?"

"Oh, come on, Cal. I don't intend for those Elder Things or anything else to get the drop on me or you. I might not have super powers, but I can shoot. And they're not bulletproof." She adjusted an LED flashlight affixed to an elastic band around her head. "Let's go see what we can see."

"Uh, Kris? If Aidoann shows up, please don't shoot her. I don't-*"

"Ah, relax, ya big baby. I'm not gonna shoot'cher girlfriend. I'll let you handle her. Uh, you don't haveta take that literally, you know."

"She is so not my girlfriend!"

"Shhuuuuuure, she's not." Grin. "Come on, loverboy, it's getting late." She racked the slide, then loaded an extra round into the extended tubular magazine, topping it off. Took him by the arm. "Come on."

He rolled his eyes and sighed.

The first hut proved to be disappointingly bare. Cal looked up; even without his special senses, he could see right through the rickety roof. There were large gaps in between the boards; he didn't see how it had ever been rainproof. There was no furniture, just some empty boxes and packing crates. Had people once actually lived here? Here, in America?

The next hut was a bit more sturdy, and the roof actually appeared to be functional. Maybe this had been a town hall or something. Or the abode of the village chieftain. Or both. But it, too, seemed empty…

"Cal, look." Kris was pointing to one corner on the opposite side away from the door. There was what looked like a freshly-dug hole there, leading underground. He rubbed some of the dirt between his pulpy fingers. "This hasn't been here long." He stood up. "Okay, I'm goin' down. You stay up here and-*"

She put a hand on his arm. "Are you crazy? Haven't you watched enough slasher movies to know that's always how the monster gets you? So come on now. Or do you want me to go first?"

He sighed. Short of tying her to a tree, he didn't see any way of keeping her here. And, he guessed, she had a point. They didn't need to get separated. "Okay. Just follow me."

"Just a sec." She pulled something else out of the pocket of her jacket, and replaced her headlight with some binocular-type goggles. "Night vision," she said, to his questioning look.

"You've been reading too many 'Punisher' comics."

"Maybe you should read more of 'em."

He made himself tubular-thin, and slipped down into the hole, landing on his feet, already looking around for any sign of the degenerate things the Martense family had become. Nothing.

He heard Kris grunting overhead, and felt a trickle of earth as she scraped her way down the hole, landing beside him, shotgun at the ready. He could sorta agree with her philosophy regarding the guns; there was nothing to be gained by going easy on the things in this underground complex. They might've been human once, but they were man-eating monsters now.

His unique vision showed him a tunnel stretching off towards the southeast, according to his compass. Brother Elder had told him he really didn't need it; all he had to do was orient himself with the larger water masses that he could sense directly in this form, and use that like an inbuilt GPS. Well, maybe later on, he'd be comfortable doing that.

They had to get down on their hands and knees for some parts of the tunnel. Evidently, the Martense creatures either weren't very big or were used to tight, cramped spaces.

After crawling for what seemed like an hour, he paused, held up his hand. "Sh."

"What?" she whispered.

"I…sense something. Up ahead."

"'Sense something'? You mean you can hear, or see it?" Kris knew about his ability to see in what would be total blackness to anyone else.

"No…I can't explain it, but there's something up ahead." He moved cautiously forward, stopping every few feet, moving his head from side to side like a Geiger counter, evidently trying to triangulate on whatever it was he'd sensed. "It's just up ahead."

The pair crawled carefully along the low tunnel, every sense alert. Finally, he stopped again, turning to her, placing his fingers over his face where his lips would be in human form. "Sh."

Now they could hear a low chanting that seemed to emanate from the darkness up ahead. Peering cautiously over the lip of the tunnel's edge, they could make out a larger cavern-like area, with dozens of the degenerate beast-men gathered there, bowing and genuflecting before a central object.

The "central object" in question was a Silent Eternal One.

The creature rose, seemingly growing out of the floor of the cavern, towering a good twelve feet into the air. Its upper tentacles waved gently back and forth, almost like the leaves on a tree would in a gentle wind. The creature seemed to sway, slightly, in time with the chanting coming from the apelike hordes before it.

One of the ape creatures stood up, and, moving stiffly, as though accustomed to traveling on all fours, approached the alien before it. It was carrying something in its grip, something like a large box.

Whatever that is, thought Cal, I bet that's what we're here for. Of course, it could be something totally useless, some trinket sacred to the beast men, but meaning nothing to the People or their war…but then why offer it to the Silent Eternal One?

Kris placed a hand on his arm, and he turned to look at her. Her face was pale and her features drawn. He remembered that she'd never seen a Silent Eternal One before. Just looking at one of the things made one feel a little queasy. And throw in the devolved creatures in the cavern….

What do we do? She mouthed. What's the plan?

Hold on, and be ready to move, he mouthed back, pulling something out of his pocket. It was small and glittered in the dim light of the cavern.

The beast man approached the Silent Eternal One, proffering the box in its hands. The creature towering above it seemed to halt its swaying momentarily, as though examining the box….

…and Cal tossed the small glittering object all the way across the cavern, where it came to rest against a rock.

The other beast men stopped and looked at this unexpected sound, with some of them looking around to see where it came from. Most looked up; it made sense that unexpected noises most probably resulted from rocks falling from the roof of the cave.

But the leader zeroed in on the small, glittering spheroid Cal had thrown. Forgetting about the box in its hands, it shambled over to the shiny object, and bent down to sniff of it…

…only to have the capsaicin charge it contained go off right in its face. Coughing and sputtering, it reeled back…

The noxious, stinging cloud spread rapidly throughout the cavern, and soon the entire group of degenerate creatures were sputtering and coughing, their eyes watering at the powerful chemical irritant. The leader dropped the box it was holding…

And Cal exploded from the tunnel entranceway where he and Kris had been hiding, racing across the cavernous room, deftly dodging the creatures, making straight for the box.

He barely slowed down long enough to grab it before he reversed course, bounding back towards Kris. "Go, go!" No point in stealth now; they surely knew he was here….

…And saw Kris pointing her shotgun straight at his head. "Duck, Cal!" And he tucked and rolled in a way no human could, and was rewarded with a backward and upside-down view of the beast man leader catching a face full of buckshot. The blood spattered on his clothes, some stinging droplets hitting him in the face.

The creatures milled around, some of them attacking each other, but others queuing up to the Silent Eternal One, as though seeking instructions. They must have received them, because just as Cal scrambled up into the tunnel along with Kris, several of them started after the duo.

"Come on!" As fast as they could, they scrambled back towards the freshly dug hole they'd entered. Cal insisted on Kris going up first; there was no ladder or rope, and he could just stretch up to the top of the hole.

Plus, the further away she was from danger, the better he felt.

He scrambled out of the hole. But, even topside, he could hear the sounds of inhuman pursuit. "Here!" He handed Kris the box, and produced a grenade from another pocket. Pulled the pin and dropped it down the hole.

They made halfway to the Humvee just as the grenade went off, demolishing the hut, and sealing the entranceway to the creatures' tunnel. Cal switched back to human form for ease of driving, and they hurried and got in. He'd just started the engine, and was preparing to tear out of there when a pair of abnormally strong, apelike arms wrapped around his neck from behind. "CAL!" yelled Kris, even as she yanked the Glock out of her waistband, firing at point-blank range straight into the disgusting thing that had her friend in an armlock, the sound of the gunshots deafening in the enclosed space. It groaned and fell back, the impact of the 115-grain high-velocity hollowpoints tearing into it.

The Humvee swerved as Cal fought for control. Kris managed to kick the dying creature out a door. "Floor it, Cal!"

Back at Leffert's Corners: Cal had switched out of his uniform, and the two stopped to get gas before heading back. "Thanks, Kris," he said. "I didn't know you could shoot like that."

"Sure I can. Before he got assigned overseas, Dad taught me how to shoot. He told me it'd come in handy someday." She quirked a smile. "Though I'm fairly sure this wasn't exactly what he had in mind." Her smile got broader. "But you definitely owe me, boy friend. And it's not the first time I've saved your bacon. Or…"and here, she started to snort, "in…in your c-case, your calamari!" She couldn't contain herself anymore, and began whooping with laughter.

"Oh, very funny, ha ha. Pick on the octopus guy, why don't'cha? Hey, at least I can open a jam jar with one tentacle…"

And so on through the darkness they drove, back to Innsmouth.

To be continued….