Dead Roots (The Analyst) (30 page)

“This is
At the Mountains of Madness
,” Tom said. “This is
my copy
of
At the Mountains of Madness.
I sold this book at a garage sale before we moved away from Riverbank.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Artie, listen to me. This book-- this used to belong to me. I sold it at a garage sale and it somehow wound up here, in Orchard.
This
is the vessel. Akebara—it’s inhabiting
this book.
”

“How do you--
what?
That's great that you figured something out, but we're kind of busy here!”

“Artie, if we exorcise this book, the people out there will stop,” Keda explained as he pushed a grandfather clock up against one of the windows. “Don't you get it? Akebara has rooted here and taken these people. They serve it, now. They're being controlled-- they're all branches and leaves.”

“
Arrgh
. If I get torn limb from limb by a bunch of rednecks, your next case is gonna be clearing
me
out of your closet!”

“The trouble is, I cannot do an exorcism under these conditions,” Keda added mechanically.

“Don't tell me that,” Tom said with an irritated groan.

“I don't have any tools, I don't know exactly what this thing is-- I don't know how to deal with it. I will need a good few days of observation before I can properly prepare for an exorcism and a banishing ritual.”

“So what the fuck do we do, then?”

 Keda pushed hard on the big clock to check its sturdiness. “I can lock the entity at best-- numb its power. Cage it. Its influence on the world and people around it will be limited to the most basic vicinity. However, given the nature of this entity-- a tree-- it's likely you're still going to deal with a very formidable creature.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything about this place is telling me that Akebara is incredibly close. You are facing your demon before the day is done, Tom-- perhaps even before the sun sets. It is here. Make no mistake.”

“We're getting off track,” Artie shouted from the kitchen as he shoved the refrigerator in front of the back door. “Just-- Tom, Keda, somebody tell me what the course of action here is. I want a plan.”

“Okay,” Keda said simply. “I can start applying a locking charm to this... book. This vessel. That should subdue the townspeople and give us time to get it to a safe place for an exorcism. Where is Heather?”

“She went after Bailey,” Tom answered. “Come to think of it... what's taking her so long?”

As if in response, Tom heard a shrill scream come from the basement. A jolt of panic ran through him. He whipped around to face the source: the door to the darkened cellar.

“Go,” Artie barked. “We'll be fine.
Go.
”

Tom set off down the stairs, counting himself lucky he didn't trip in his hurry.

11

“The Mouth”

Tom couldn't find a light switch. Heather was screaming somewhere in the darkness.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said to himself. He pulled out his lighter and tried to see by the glow of the tiny flame. “Heather, I'm here. Are you okay?”

Cast in shadow, he saw that the basement was a small concrete room, barren but for some wooden load-bearing struts and cardboard boxes. He saw Heather's form wrestling in the dark, barely standing, but holding her ground against an assailant he couldn't make out.

“Tom,
it's got me.
”

 His lighter flickered and almost went out. He took several careful steps towards Heather, trying to get close enough to see what had her.

A hand appeared from behind and wrapped around her throat. Bailey, Tom thought, but immediately realized he had jumped to conclusions. Another hand was gripped under her armpit, another around her ankle. Another one appeared to pull her by the hair. Her head whipped back, her face locked in an anguished scream. Her booted feet scraped across the floor. She dug her fingernails into the concrete, to little avail.

“
Tom!
”

Tom snapped himself out of his entranced staring. He dropped his lighter and grabbed Heather around the waist, trying to pull her free, using the heavy handle of his wood ax for leverage. Grunting with effort, he tried to pry the hand from her throat.

“I can't... there's too many…”

“
Tom,
” Heather screamed. A light flashed repeatedly in the dark. She was beating her heavy flashlight against one of the hands that gripped her, involuntarily switching the lamp on and off. One came free, replaced in seconds by another.

Tom felt a hand grab his shirt. He released Heather and tried to pry it off with his free hand, struggling to make out details.

“Tom, I can't hold on—Tom,
help…
”

Tom could barely choke out a response. The hand that had grabbed him receded into the blackness. He heard a metallic clang, saw the beam of Heather's flashlight cut through the room as it fell. She screamed hoarsely. Tom picked up the flashlight and shone it towards her, in time to see her lose her balance and be dragged across the floor.

There was a large, round hole in the concrete wall, as if a giant worm had tunneled through. Angry red roots lined the opening, stretched out along the walls and floor, and reaching the ceiling, like a web. Tom could see them pulsing in the beam of the flashlight. They looked wet, and organic. He surmised that if he were to cut one with his ax, it would bleed.

 Heather was still screaming for help as she disappeared, dragged by the strength of Akebara's hands.

“Heather!”

“
Help me!
”

Tom saw no choice but to follow. He ducked his head, stumbling into the hole with flashlight in one hand and ax in the other.

********

The floor was spongy, and he guessed damp. The thick roots lined every surface, making walking difficult. He couldn't place the smell. It was somewhere between deceased flesh and wet mud.

“Heather, grab onto something.”

“I can't,” Heather screamed from some distance in front of him. The light beam bobbed up and down, illuminating her twisted face. Her throat had to be raw by now, her screams coming scratched and hoarse from her throat. Her hands tried to grip one of the roots surrounding them, but they were slippery, her palms coated as if with thick red mud. Every time her fingers gained purchase, a scabbed hand would wrap around her fingers and pry them free.

Tom lost track of how long he'd been chasing her. He'd expected to feel something grabbing at his ankles or arms, but nothing came. He pushed himself harder, but the faster he ran after her, the quicker she was dragged. There was no catching up. He could do nothing but watch her scream, run after her, and hope that they came to the end of this tunnel soon, or that he thought of something before they reached whatever was waiting for them. He forced down the urge to vomit from exertion.

Tom saw what looked like light peeking out at the end of the tunnel. The end was in sight. He plodded onwards, his feet starting to get sore, legs crying out for rest. The vein-like roots all around him throbbed and sighed so loudly it may as well have been the roar of a plane.

“
Be one with me,
” a voice suddenly boomed. He looked around for its source, but knew he wouldn't find one. It was almost as if the voice spoke into his mind.

“What is that?” Heather screamed from the back of her throat. “
Tom, what is that?
”

“I don't know…”

He kept onwards. The light grew greater. The floor started to incline upwards, pushing Tom's exhausted body even harder.

The hands dragged Heather up the incline, and Tom found himself with time to catch up. Forcing himself to sprint up after her, he finally got a hand around her wrist and tried to use his weight to slow her. He succeeded only in giving his legs a rest, the arms dragging him along with her.

“Tom, get these off me—
Help me!
”

“I'm trying,” he shouted, almost irritated. “Just hold on, you're going to be okay.”

“
No I'm not!
”

They were dragged out of the tunnel into open air. Tom's eyes adjusted to the light. He lost grip of Heather.

“Tom,
don't you let me go!
”

Tom didn't hear her. He had no choice but to stop in his tracks and look at his surroundings.

The blood-colored roots stuck up from the ground, the only interruptions in a sea of fine, white sand. The bleached sun bore down on him, and he felt a sensation like being in a great, unknowable room with no end. Floating in space, alone.

The white sun was obscured, blocked by a canopy of flesh-colored branches.

“Oh... God,” Tom said to himself, his throat going dry. He swallowed, looking ahead of him and instantly wishing he'd turned around.

“Be one with me,
” Akebara's voice shook the world.

Akebara was alone on a tiny island in a pool of blood. The moat was surrounded by the frozen forms of dozens of people, standing limply with their feet rooted in the ground. Tom recognized a few faces from the files. Missing people.

The trunk of Akebara itself was thicker than it had been years ago, and twisted with the forms of people that protruded along its mass like carvings. There was little trunk to see. Akebara was more a twisted, melted-together mass of bodies, stretching towards the sky, and writhing in what Tom presumed was agony, silent but for the husky groans of the sallow-eyed faces along its mass.

Heather was dragged through the moat of blood surrounding the tree. Tom saw the hands lift her from it, as if baptizing her. Her clothes were torn from her effortlessly, leaving her suspended nude in the air, still screaming. The dead hands with their infinite, tentacle-like arms receded into the mass of Akebara. She was slammed against its trunk, and Tom saw her arms and legs melt into it. Only her naked torso and face were visible now, like the bulkhead of some terrible galleon.

Tom's heart pounded. He tried to keep his eyes focused forward, and not on the infinite sky that lay above.

“Heather?” he called out. “
Heather?
Can you hear me? Are you in there?”

There was no answer. Her head twisted around, still struggling, but her screaming was dying down, replaced with long, low moans.

Tom dropped to his knees. He shut his eyes tightly, fingers digging impotently into the sand. The tree continued to groan, Heather's exhausted voice added to the cacophony that droned in his ears. He felt the strength leave his limbs.

********

“Do you remember me?” Tom called out when he had regained his composure. He dug his heels into the sand to force himself to his feet. “Do you
remember me,
you son of a bitch?”

There was a long silence.

“
Vaguely.
”

Tom paused in his tracks. He felt keenly aware of the infinite desert around them, in which he was only a speck.

“What?”

He approached the tree. Some of the still forms around Akebara turned to look at him, their eyelids opening slowly to reveal rolled-back sclera. Some hands reached out slowly towards him.

“You haunted me,” Tom implored angrily. “Ten years ago you haunted me in California. My dad left, because of you. I haven't spoken to my mother in years, because of you. You took my childhood! You took my
life!
”

“I do not recall.”

It was all Tom could do not to drop to his knees again.

Tom pulled his pistol out, unhooking the safety. He fought back shaking. He felt completely idiotic for having revealed such vulnerability.

“A
single sigh... in a thousand years of glory. Be one with me and become greater. Be one with me and live forever.
”

“You'll remember me,” Tom yelled. He pointed the gun at the nearest human-stalk and shot it in the head. Blood splattered out and each of the myriad taken people screamed out in pain at once, clutching their heads.

“You'll remember me and my family forever,” Tom roared. He emptied the clip into the nearest human form.

Akebara's guards all cried out with the pain of each shot, but it wasn't long before Tom realized it was a futile effort. The wounds closed and disappeared as quickly as they came. Desiccated forms reached towards him, dozens of bony hands grasping at air.

“
I am forever,
” Akebara's voice rumbled the earth. The taken all around were reaching towards Tom, snarling and roaring, but they could not move.

Tom dropped to the ground, letting his pistol land softly in the sand. That was the last of what he had.

********

A voice chided Tom over his shoulder.

“You are an Analyst. So analyze.”

Tom looked over his shoulder. A woman was standing there, with a face he recognized, but not much else. The eyeless sockets were not visible, covered by a black blindfold that complemented her long tresses of midnight hair. She was wearing a white robe with billowing sleeves that hid her folded hands. Her head was set at the end of a snake-like neck several feet long, which bent down to be level with him.

“Akebara is not trying to take you. Why?”

Tom took labored breaths through his open mouth. He stared at Creeping Wind in disbelief, but pushed his questions to the back of his mind.

He stood to survey the situation. Akebara's stationary form was writhing with the bodies of those it had claimed. The desert around them was endless. There were no clouds in the sky; it had looked like rain was coming before he’d come here. The height of the sun said it was almost noon.

“But it's not even eleven yet,” Tom said with recognition. “This place is impossible. I'm not really here.”

“Akebara's power is absolute here,” Creeping Wind said simply. Her neck rose so that she was near her full height.

“Then I have to force it to manifest...”

Tom holstered his pistol and reached into his pocket. He drew the half-empty foil packet of anti-anxiety benzo tablets. Taking one out, he put it in his mouth and swallowed it dry, gagging at the taste.