Deep Waters - Take Two...

As we raced off into the dark, away from the coast, a curtain of rain, black against the blackness, began to sweep in from the Atlantic, flickering with sparks of light.

‘Weather’s gettin’ ugly Boothe,’ I said, ‘any clues about where we’re headed?’

‘Ssh,’ he replied, ‘have to concentrate…’

I shot a glance across at him: he was in the zone again, blank-eyed and twiddling his fingers into strange knots. I shook my head and turned to concentrate on the road.

Suddenly, a white misty spiral appeared in front of us, forming a helical cone along the road. I braked sharply and tried to veer off to one side, but Boothe grabbed the wheel and tried to push us back on course.

‘No!’ he cried, ‘drive in. In!’

I was anything but agreeable but, Boothe hadn’t let me down yet, so I wrenched the wheel again and planted my foot, the tyres crunching gravel on the road shoulder. We fishtailed back to the blacktop and roared into the circling white haze.

Everything went quiet. We plummeted onwards through the twisty bands of mist and I noticed that the glimpses of sky between the whiteness were getting lighter and lighter. Next thing the sound cut back in and we rocketed out onto the asphalt, the suspension bouncing wildly. I frantically fought the wheel to get the car back under control.

‘What’s going on, Boothe?’ I yelled.

He was doing that dreamy thing again, blank eyes with a self-satisfied smile across his face.

‘Just getting us to when we need to be,’ he said.

‘You mean where we need to be, right?’

‘Nope,’ he said slumping into the corner against the passenger side window. ‘You need to take the right before we get to Newburyport, then cut across Osborn to the state highway before heading back into the town centre. That way we’ll be coming at them from the north this time.’

‘At who?’ I asked.

He looked over at me, ‘The Latinos, Benson. Keep up.’ He snuggled down and went to sleep.

I twisted the steering wheel and ground my teeth. We sped off once more.

*****

The engine was grumbling muscularly in the dark as I pulled up across the road from the house with the concrete Mexican out front next to the mail box. I killed the lights along with the engine and we rolled a few yards to halt in the shade of an overhanging balsam poplar. I wrenched on the handbrake and nudged Boothe. He jerked awake and I nodded over to where my car was parked in front of the house. It was weird to be sitting in that car but also looking at it from across the street.

‘Hey! Great timing!’ said Boothe. I assumed he was congratulating himself, because I’d had very little to do with getting us here. I noticed that the front door of the Latino’s place was caved in.

Suddenly, two figures leapt through the front wall of the building and floated across the lawn to the Firebird. It was Boothe – another Boothe –and Winston. They pulled up at the side of the car and Winston was doubled over laughing fit to burst. The other Boothe signalled frantically and then passed through the front passenger-side door into the car’s interior. Winston struck a Wild West pose, spun his pistol around several times on his finger, and put it back inside his jacket. Then he threw himself backwards through the door of the car full-length onto the back seat.

The moment he’d done so, the wreckage of the front door burst open and I emerged, carrying the briefcase and ducking from the crack of bullets. I landed heavily and rolled, gaining my feet and crossing the distance to the driver’s side door, the keys jangling in my mouth.

‘Smooth,’ said Boothe beside me.

‘Thanks for unlocking the door,’ I answered. He shrugged.

Across the road, the Firebird clipped the sleeping concrete Mexican with its back wheel, bounced, knocking the ornament’s hat off, and sped into the night. My hands unclenched on the wheel and I felt the tension drain out of my shoulders.

‘That’s just weird,’ I breathed.

‘You get used to it,’ said Boothe offhandedly, ‘although it’s not good to interact too much - if at all.’ He popped open the door: ‘Let’s have a look,’ he said.

Stepping outside, we could hear upraised voices coming from the house, screaming and a rapid-fire jabber of Spanish. There was a crash as something heavy fell over onto something fragile.

‘We should try and see what’s going on,’ muttered Boothe.

I looked around and saw a gate through a low side fence next to the bungalow, leading to a back yard.

‘There,’ I said. ‘let’s go.’

I jogged off into the dark, keeping low and to the shadows. I vaulted the fence smoothly and crouched down; Boothe landed awkwardly next to me, breathing heavily. A series of shrill cries burst out from inside, followed by the agitated Spanish garble.

‘You getting any of this?’ I asked Boothe. He shook his head.

‘About three words in five,’ he said. ‘Something’s going on that they don’t like. Mostly it’s just cursing and religion.’

‘Madre de Dios?’

‘Yeah,’ he nodded; ‘like that.’

‘Let’s get closer,’ I said, ‘maybe there’s a window we can see through.’

I shadowed across the lawn in my best stealth mode, spoiled only by Boothe tripping over a coil of garden hose. I slinked up a set of stairs to the back door and peered through a window to the left of it. Inside was small room that seemed to be a laundry; the lights were off. Opposite however, was a door into the rest of the house and I could see some of what was going on in the main room beyond:

The first thing I saw were the two henchmen Latinos, still clinging on to each other – fear, I guess. They stumbled drunkenly past the door, and out of view once more. In the background beyond them I couldn’t quite make out what was taking place – it seemed dark and there was a strange texture to the wallpaper, or something, which I didn’t recall from my previous visit.

‘C’mon, switch on a damned light,’ I muttered.

Suddenly, I realised that the lights were on. A lamp got knocked over, sending a circle of illumination across the textured ‘wall’: as it swept past, the surface rippled as if disturbed and I saw that the room was filled with a bubbling gelid mass, dark in colour like some sort of aspic. Even stranger, the mass was filled with eyes that swam through its substance, along with a disturbing number of teeth. One set of fangs surfaced through the jelly and a gloopy voice emerged and began speaking – in Spanish unfortunately.

‘It’s telling them its name,’ said Boothe behind me. ‘It’s something weird, like – “Bug Sash”?’

‘Never heard of him,’ I muttered. There was a crash of furniture splintering and I tuned in again; however, it may as well have been Martian for all I could make out, and I had my Spanish Class grades to back me up.

‘It’s saying that it’s giving them gifts,’ breathed Boothe, peering over my shoulder.

‘Gifts, huh?’ I said. ‘That sounds interesting…’

And that’s when I knocked the flowerpot off the back step.

The change of atmosphere in the gathering inside was palpable. The Spanish came rapid fire and the light in the laundry went on.

‘Scram!’ I yelled, but I don’t think Boothe needed any encouragement.

Bullets rang out as we rounded the corner of the bungalow. I picked Boothe up by the scruff and jumped the fence, heading towards my car. A bullet whizzed past my ear.

‘¡Alto!’

Despite my grades, enough Spanish had penetrated my skull to know that that meant “stop”. I sighed, and dropped Boothe to his feet. I raised my hands and turned around in resignation.

The Latinos ranged across the lawn opposite us, as they had when we first met them; however, now they had changed:

The muscle was slowly growing, snapping the polyester of his lurid shirt, just as he had when Prudence and I had encountered him outside the Gilman House Hotel. His head twitched and he snapped his teeth together as he swelled upwards into grotesque proportions;

The two other henchmen staggered to a halt. This close up to them, I could see exactly why they always seemed to be engaged in a three-legged race: they had somehow Siamesed themselves during the “undimensioning”, and had merged into one being. Standing side-by-side, their inner shoulders had fused and their inner arms were conjoined at the elbows, giving that limb the appearance of one of those extendible things that shaving mirrors sprout out of the wall on; their inner legs had fused into one, giving them – essentially - three legs between the two of them. They shuffled forward raising all available arms; four pistols aimed our way.

‘¿No tan listo ahora, eh David Coverdale? Deberías haber corridor cuando tuviste la oportunidad.’

‘He said…’ Boothe began.

‘Never mind: I get the idea.’

The head Latino stepped forward pulling at his shirt dramatically, popping buttons everywhere. In the place where his stomach should have been, there was a swirling blankness, a spinning white light that seemed to be drawing the air inside itself. As we watched, a gelid blackness welled up in the centre of the shining light and the talking aspic stuff I had seen inside the house, began to bubble out into the air.

‘NO!’ screamed Boothe, causing me to jump out of my skin.

‘Sí. Oh sí, amigos míos…’

As more of the dark stuff emerged, it began to generate multiple floating eyes and an abundance of fanged maws that all began chittering in a bad and crazy way. Beside me Boothe fell flat on his face in a dead faint.

‘Oh, great,’ I said meaning that this was anything but.

I bent down and grabbed Boothe, flinging him over my shoulder. A quick peek showed far more unearthly teeth than I normally enjoy a close proximity to, so I ducked and rolled and sprang for the Firebird. A gun cracked and the rear window nearest to me shattered in a hail of prismatic jewels. I shrugged and stuffed Boothe through the resulting access. As I wrenched the driver’s door open, a set of lamprey teeth locked onto my denim jacket sleeve. I yanked, ripping the sleeve off and jumped inside. Firing up the engine, I planted my foot and a wave of the black jelly flopped across the hood and rolled off the roof.

‘Eat dust, evil Jell-O!’ I yelled, flipping it the bird.

A roar from ahead of me caused me to turn my head. There, on the road before me, was the Latino’s muscle-dude, as big as a whale and getting bigger, running towards me with fists raised. I had no time to react; I just put my arm across my face and stomped on the gas…

There was a huge splash.

I felt the wheels drifting across the blacktop, so I lowered my arm and gently applied the brake. The windscreen was impenetrable so I got the wipers going: in a couple of slaps the glass was clean enough for me to make out the road and adjust my trajectory. Behind me I heard several shots ring out and a ricochet bounced off the Firebird’s chassis like a big angry bee. I kept my head low and put distance behind me.

I hit the centre of Newburyport and pulled a handbrake turn to the left. I gunned the engine towards Innsmouth, thinking - surely - nothing else could go wrong this night?

To Be Continued…