Clickers III (18 page)

“Who’s Whitley Strieber?” Wade sounded confused.

“The stories in this myth cycle written by Lovecraft,” Susan said. “How is it that you’ve come to the conclusion that what we’re experiencing is related to them?”

“I’m not saying they are,” Ed said, a tinge of frustration creeping into his voice. “I’m only telling you what I’ve learned from studying these goddamn things and what I know from reading Lovecraft in college.”

“I’ve never read anything by him, so you’ll have to educate me.” Susan said.

“Neither have I,” Jennifer said. “But I know somebody who probably has.”

“That horror writer you were trapped in Peachbottom’s basement with?” Ed said.

Jennifer nodded. “Rick Sycheck.”

“I didn’t go to ten years of college just to have everything I’ve worked for undermined by a fucking pulp fiction writer,” Wade muttered.

“Will you shut up?” Ed snapped.

Wade scowled. “Hey, don’t get pissy with me, Steinhardt! You’re the one who brought this bullshit up in the first place.”

“Both of you calm down,” Jennifer said. “We’re in a world of shit here, and the last thing we need is the two of you shouting at each other. Sound carries in these tunnels, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“She’s right,” Keoni said. “Please, let us continue on our way, and with less bickering.”

They walked on. Jennifer wondered how the old man, Josel, was able to be so energetic. She was exhausted, out of breath, and sore. Josel, however, seemed absolutely athletic, bounding down the passageway without even breaking a sweat.

Must be that clean island living,
she thought.

Their footsteps echoed softly in the corridor. Josel whispered something to Keoni in their language. Keoni glanced back at the group and shrugged.

“What did he say?” Wade asked.

Keoni grinned. “He says that all of you talk too much.”

“Why hasn’t anything like this been reported on in other archeological records?” Susan asked, ignoring the comment. Unlike Wade, she sounded open-minded to hear Ed out.

“It has been reported,” Ed answered. “You said yourself that there are references to Dagon in the Old Testament.”

“Indeed,” Susan agreed. “Dagon was a Semitic god. He appeared in other texts, as well. An eighteenth century letter to King Zimri-Lim of Mari, for example. But Kaatholulu, or however you pronounce it—I’m confident that he’s never been mentioned anywhere, outside of these fiction stories you mentioned. Nor has there been any evidence of a sunken city or extraterrestrial life forms arriving on earth in the Paleozoic era or any period there-after.”

“What you’re suggesting borders on insanity, Dr. Steinhardt,” Wade said.

“Do you have a better explanation, Wade?”

“Yeah, I do. How about we do what Jennifer suggested and shut our traps and try to let this witch doctor and Keoni get us out of here?”

“You need to know what we might be dealing with,” Ed insisted. For the first time, he looked worried. Panicked. “It’s true, I read Lovecraft back in college. It’s been forty years or more since I’ve read him, but some of his stories have always stuck with me. It’s fiction, yes, but the way he wrote them…their precise logic in science and archeology and history always attracted me. I always attributed his stories to pure fantasy due to what I thought were the supernatural elements in them.”

“See, that’s what I mean,” Wade said. “Supernatural elements. We aren’t chasing a bunch of boogeyman hocus pocus shit.”

“No, we aren’t.” Ed sounded frustrated. He looked at Jennifer as if imploring her to help him. She wished she could, but she was as confused about the connections he was making too.

“If this Dagon thing is mentioned in Lovecraft’s stories, what do the Dark Ones have to do with it?” Jennifer asked.

“In several of Lovecraft’s stories there are creatures called Deep Ones. They’re similar to our Dark Ones, but they’re the result of hybrids. The mating of humans with a race of creatures that came to earth millions of years ago. These Deep Ones live in underwater cities and caverns, but they can pose as humans anytime they want. I remember one story in particular. I think it was called
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
. It was one of the central stories of this particular myth cycle. Anyway, they worship a pantheon of gods known as the Great Old Ones. Father Dagon and Mother Hydra are minor Old Ones. Together with Cthulhu, they form a trio of gods the Deep Ones worship.”

“But the Dark Ones are unlike any life form you’ve ever seen,” Jennifer said. “How can anybody see a connection unless they’re well-versed in the stories of Lovecraft?”

“They wouldn’t see that connection,” Ed admitted. “You’re right. Most people wouldn’t, but still…”

Wade muttered again under his breath.

“I find it hard to believe that for seventy years nobody has made a connection,” Jennifer said.

“Maybe somebody did in the past and something happened to them,” Ed said quickly. “Maybe they received the same warning that my colleagues and I received. For all we know, other expeditions have been made to this island. Maybe they never returned.” He turned to Keoni. “Keoni? Can you ask our guide how many scientific expeditions have been made to his island by US or European scientists?”

Keoni addressed Josel. “How many American have been to Naranu for study?”

“Too many to count.”

“Did you drive them away?”

“Some.” The tone of Josel’s voice hinged on a lie.

Jennifer pounced on it. “Did you really drive them away or did you kill them?”

Josel stopped and faced Jennifer. “People like you have been coming to Naranu for almost two hundred years. We held them off as long as possible. The few that slipped past us…many of them never made it out alive. Some…I have heard some have become…what do you call it? Famous, well-known disappearances.”

“Oh yeah? Like who?”

Josel shrugged. “Names escape me at this point. I only recall what my great grandfathers have told me, of various scientific expeditions coming here and going into the jungle to what you call Mount Rigiri. They never came out alive.” He paused. “The Dark Ones ambushed them. Took them down, deep into R’lyeh.”

“And their disappearances weren’t investigated? I find that hard to believe.”

“They were always investigated. When white people came looking for their brothers, we told them their people had left. Some believed, others didn’t. Those that didn’t, we would make an effort to show them that we pretended to care about their missing people, so we looked for them. Then we sent them off the island.”

“But it probably didn’t happen enough to raise enough suspicion,” Jennifer said, mostly to herself.

“No, it didn’t,” Josel said. “Now, we must go.”

He turned and began heading back down the tunnel.

“This is bullshit,” Wade muttered.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Ed whispered. They were moving along at a rapid pace behind Josel and Keoni.

They fell silent as they followed the two South Pacific natives. Jennifer’s mind was racing. Her time with Rick before and after their siege at Peachbottom had been short, but overall she’d liked him. She’d talked to him only once on an extensive intellectual level, six months after Peachbottom, at a dinner held in their honor by Augustus Livingston. They’d exchanged numbers at that time. She’d never called him, and she wondered if after everything that had happened to Rick since Peachbottom if he’d changed his number. She wished she had her cell phone with her now so she could call him, ask him about this H. P. Lovecraft guy and what his stories were really about.

Then, for some strange reason, her thoughts turned to Tony. She knew so little about him, but Jennifer doubted the cocky Italian was a fan of this Lovecraft character. She could just imagine his reaction—probably something funny and crude. The thought made her smile.

They came to a three-way fork in the tunnel and stopped. Jennifer noticed that the rock walls were growing damper. They were cold to the touch—almost slimy. Despite this, the air in the corridor had gotten warmer.

Josel said to Keoni, motioning down the left fork. “That way is the direction you came from.”

Keoni nodded.

“This way,” Josel motioned toward the center tunnel, “goes to the west part of the island. This other tunnel will take us east. We shall pause and let the mainlanders catch their breath. Perhaps they will talk less afterward.”

Sighing with relief, Jennifer crouched down on her haunches and rested her back against the tunnel wall. Immediately, the moisture seeped through her shirt, but she didn’t care. If anything, the cool wetness helped revive her strength and soothe her frazzled nerves. Susan did the same on the other side of the tunnel. Wade sat down in the center of the corridor, cross-legged. Ed, Keoni, and Josel remained standing. Ed was visibly relaxed. Only Keoni and Josel seemed to remain alert. They stood stiffly, as if their legs were coiled springs ready to snap.

Susan sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

“Phosphate,” Keoni told her. “The island is composed mostly of phosphate rock. These tunnels are thick with it. The natives never mined it, which is a shame. If they did, they’d be very wealthy, and the reserves would last for generations.”

“Why didn’t they?” Jennifer asked, and then the answer occurred to her, even as Keoni answered.

“For the same reason as everything else. They wanted to keep others off the island. A prosperous phosphate mining operation would only attract more attention.”

“You know where phosphate comes from, don’t you?” Wade grinned.

Jennifer shook her head.

Wade’s grin grew wider. “It’s bird droppings.”

“No way.”

He nodded. “I’m serious. We’re basically sitting on a volcanic island that’s surrounded by coral reefs and fossilized bird shit.”

“You need to get out more,” Ed said.

“I’ll tell you guys one thing,” Wade said. “If we make it out of this, I’m never leaving my home again.”

The others laughed at the comment.

“Hell,” Jennifer replied, “if we make it out of this, I’m never leaving my bedroom again. I can’t believe that after—”

Suddenly, from the left hand tunnel, came the sounds of pursuit; running footsteps, guttural cries and clicking noises. It was impossible to tell how close they were. Jennifer had a feeling they were still far away, but they were quickly gaining. Their sounds, their very intonations, sent a chill down Jennifer’s spine.

There was something else, though…something that Jennifer could not put her finger on. It felt like something big and vast. Something unknown and alien, something indescribable, was close by. This something was alive, it was very close, and it was on the verge of waking up. And when it did it would know where they were and it would summon the Dark Ones to their location and they would be slaughtered.

“Come!” Josel whispered, breaking her thoughts. He darted down the far right tunnel. They jumped to their feet and scrambled after him.

As Jennifer plunged down the passageway, trying to quell the racing of her heart, she felt the tension rise. Josel and Keoni began running faster down the corridor and the others picked up their pace in order to keep up. She felt the floor tilt downward slightly, felt it curve even more sharply to the right as it took them deeper down into the earth. She almost tripped several times and had to focus on Keoni to see where she was going.

And she wondered if they were doing the right thing in letting Josel lead them down this path. Because the deeper they traveled into the earth, the greater that feeling grew— that something vast and alien lurked within the very rock walls.

They reached another fork in the tunnels and Josel didn’t hesitate. He took the left fork and the tunnel led them into what seemed to be a black abyss. The beam from Keoni’s flashlight dimmed considerably, and then went out. He cursed in the sudden darkness.

Josel slowed down. “Stay close together.”

Edward pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket and flipped it. The tiny flame seemed ineffectual against the gloom.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Wade said.

“I don’t,” Ed replied. “It was a gift from my wife. Sort of an in-joke between us. Too much to go into right now.”

“We must continue to move fast,” Josel said, “but I warn you. This tunnel will become very steep in its descent. Stay close behind me. Take each others hands if you must, but by all means do not lose sight of each other.”

Without another word, Josel turned and scurried down the tunnel, Keoni close behind him. Edward held the cigarette lighter aloft and lurched after them, followed by Jennifer, Susan, and Wade. Josel had been right. The downhill grade of this tunnel was noticeably steeper. They had to slow their pace now, resorting to a brisk walk as the downward momentum of the tunnel propelled them deep into the earth. Jennifer gripped the back of Ed’s billowy Hawaiian shirt and she felt Susan’s fingers touch her left arm. Jennifer took Susan’s hand and she felt Susan’s fingers squeeze. They were on the same wavelength now.

She sensed Wade behind Susan, imagined he was probably holding onto the back of Susan’s shirt. Their being connected this way physically helped keep Jennifer in tune with their entire party. They moved fast, as one solid unit. And as they descended into the depths of the island, Jennifer wondered if the rest of them began to get the same feeling. It crept into her the deeper into the earth they got. It crawled over her slowly, inexorably, sinking its tendrils into her, wrapping its fingers around every fiber of her being. She couldn’t place the feeling; it wasn’t exactly fear but it was something like it.

It was more like dread.