One good thing about the Innsmouth crowd, tell ‘em there’s a threat to their community and – no matter how otherwise occupied they are – they come out swinging.
In short order we had all gathered ourselves together and made our way down to the lobby via the fire stairs. We showed up just in time to see a splash of something grisly spray across the glass entrance doors and hear a handful of shots ring out in the night. Then there was the sound of Prudence’s Caprice tearing off into the dark.
‘Right,’ I turned to the troops, ‘Winston, grab a few guys and take the side entrance…’
‘Nuh-uh,’ he countered, spinning his pistol around on his finger, ‘I’m taking point – you can sneak around if you like.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Okay, hot dog,’ I said, ‘you lead the diversionary attack. We’ll back you up from the side entrance.’
‘Wait. What?’ Winston looked confused. ‘“Diversionary”? What do you mean…?’
‘Keep up, Winston,’ I said, ‘there’s a bunch of these guys. At the moment there’s only one of ‘em out front. When you hit him, the others will converge; when that happens, the rest of us can attack them from behind.’
‘So, what?’ grumbled Winston, ‘we’re… bait?’
I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You wanted to take point, remember?’ I turned and loped off towards the staff entrance behind the reception desk, several of our cronies in tow.
‘And you, Boothe!’ I called across the foyer to one of them, ‘you’re coming with me: ‘can’t risk the two of you coming into contact with each other.’
The indicated Boothe grinned sheepishly and slouched over to join our troops.
As we slipped through the door to the exit beyond, I heard the foyer doors crash open and Winston’s voice ringing out:
‘You feelin’ lucky, punk…?!’
In the meantime, our group slinked through the short passage, past the staff locker room and out through the side entrance. As we emerged, we could hear sounds of fighting mingling with the disco beats still - still! – wafting up from the waterfront.
The scene which confronted us was dynamic. Winston stood on top of the trashed Lincoln Continental, jacket fringes lashing as he fired his pistol over and over into the pillar of gelid flesh that had been the Latino’s heavy-hitter. With each bullet, the horror burst wetly but still kept on growing, bubbling up from some obscene point of generation. In other news, the fused Latinos kept Winston’s troops pinned down with a creditable display of shooting, four pistols blazing in the dark. It seemed that the two bodies which comprised their new form could moved freely through each other, turning, reloading and aiming, but they couldn’t actually separate. Standing with his back to us, taking in the scene just as we were, was the Latino’s jefe. He turned around to face us as we rushed forward.
‘Ah, David Coverdale!’ he said, grinning crazily, ‘sabía que no estarías muy lejos. Sabes, siempre odié esa mierda Whitesnake.’
‘Um, he seems to think that you’re…’ began Boothe, beside me.
‘Yeah, I know: he’s delusional. Attack!’
In the background, the Blob grabbed the front end of the Lincoln and hauled it upwards, throwing Winston to the ground; off to the right, the Twins kept Winston’s guys pinned down, alternately firing and reloading in swift, smooth movements. In front of me, Jefe ripped open his shirt and the sinister jelly burst forth again from the shining hole in his abdomen, billowing up into the air, a black cloud of staring pop-eyes and tittering fanged maws. Around me, my comrades stalled their charge, staring in amazement.
‘Cool,’ breathed Boothe.
‘C’mon you fish-heads!’ I yelled, exasperated, ‘Kill the evil Jell-O!’
We charged once more and ploughed our way into the dark mass. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a small swarm of fish nibble at you as you’ve swum through them, but this was kind of the same. Except with much bigger teeth. Fists didn’t seem to be of much use and, once we were deep in the bulk of it, guns didn’t seem like a smart move, so I hauled my switchblade out of my jacket pocket and went to work with that. Even then, each time I slashed a floating eyeball, another one just appeared to take its place, and dozens of lamprey mouths latched onto me trying to drain my blood. I admit, it looked pretty bad.
Beside me Ned Pierce fell to the ground, frantically trying to rip himself free of all the mouths that had latched greedily onto him.
‘What is this?’ he yelled, ‘what is this?!’
There was a sudden bright burst of white light, followed seconds later by an enormous explosion of sound. In the dazed silence that followed I could feel my skin sizzling and I sensed, rather than heard, large gobbets of gelid flesh detaching themselves from my body and thudding to the ground.
‘That was Bugg Sash,’ a voice like gravel being tipped into a pond rang out.
‘He Who Comes In Darkness,’ intoned a chorus of croaky responders.
Standing behind us on the road was a gathering of trench-coated and black fedora-ed figures. At their head stood Abner Gilman holding a tall staff, from the bejewelled head of which a bright white light faded into nothingness.
‘What’ve you sprats bin up to?’ Abner yelled testily.
‘A la mierda esto, me voy de aquí,’ muttered Jefe behind me, and I spun around just in time to see him and the Twins race off into the shadows. I turned to look at Abner once more.
‘Um, Mr Gilman, I can explain everything…’ I began.
‘And you’re gonna,’ he cut me off, ‘but I ain’t gonna stand in the street listenin’ to a bunch of buck-nekkid schoolkids. All o’ you: off to the Temple! Now!’
That was the point I realised that the flash of light had burnt more than just the hideous monster off of us…
*****
To Be Continued...
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