The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack (40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Tales) (69 page)

He found himself gasping. It was dreadfully fetid, unbearably hot. In a paroxysm of terror he ripped and clawed at the satin until it was shredded. He made a futile attempt to dig with his feet at the earth from the collapsed burrow that blocked his retreat. If he were only able to reverse his position he might be able to claw his way through to air…air.…

White-hot agony lanced through his breast, throbbed in his eyeballs. His head seemed to be swelling, growing larger and larger; and suddenly he heard the exultant squealing of the rats. He began to scream insanely but could not drown them out. For a moment he thrashed about hysterically within his narrow prison, and then he was quiet, gasping for air. His eyelids closed, his blackened tongue protruded, and he sank down into the blackness of death with the mad squealing of the rats dinning in his ears.

TOADFACE, by Mark McLaughlin

John Masters was always hungry. Hungry enough to eat a whale. That’s all there was to it. He was on a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet and so far, he’d lost fourteen pounds. At work, he found himself constantly looking up at the clock, wishing those sluggish mechanical hands would spin him closer, always closer to his next meal, so he could leave his computer monitor and hurry to the company cafeteria and wolf down a plate of meat—any kind of meat—and some green vegetables.

Every evening after work, he would stop at the Pantheon Coffeehouse to enjoy a sugar-free caramel mocha latte. It was hot, rich, creamy and altogether wonderful, and it didn’t break any of the rules of his diet. The coffeehouse was also a great place to hang out because some of his friends and coworkers went there, so there was usually someone to chat with while he enjoyed his drink. The walls were covered with loaded bookshelves, so if none of his friends were there, he could at least find something to read.

One night, he stopped by the coffeehouse and saw Meg, a project manager from work. She was very pretty, with green eyes, black hair and a friendly smile, and Masters often thought about asking her out for dinner. He hadn’t done so yet because he had a couple worries holding him back: he was still about twenty pounds overweight, and he was ten years older than her. Maybe she didn’t consider him attractive.

Masters walked up to her table. “Hi! How’s life been treatin’ ya?” He waved a hand toward the other chair at her table. “Are you here with somebody?”

“No, go ahead and sit down,” she said. “Well, we have a new director in our department. She works from eight A.M. to eight P.M., so of course she expects the rest of us to work around the clock, too. She must have the words ‘salary’ and ‘slavery’ mixed up—she thinks they mean the same thing.”

“Tell me about it. My director is the same way. I think he just sleeps under his desk at night.” Master took a sip of his drink and then continued. “He’s always asking me to do things outside of my regular duties. Last week he asked me to fix his computer—as if I knew how. I just called one of the guys in technical support.”

“Makes sense. So what was wrong with it?”

Masters smiled. “Loose nut near the keyboard.”

Meg shook her head slightly toward the other side of the room. “Speaking of loose nuts,” she whispered, “look over there. The booth near the men’s room.”

Masters lifted his mug to sip from it, and also to hide his face as he glanced in that direction.

The man in the booth had gray-white hair and a greasy, heavily wrinkled face, with huge, startled black eyes, a thick-lipped mouth and a puffy double-chin.

“He looks like the frog prince,” Masters whispered.

“More like the toad king,” Meg replied softly. “Maybe he’s on the same diet as you. Earlier, he was eating a tuna salad sandwich, but he just ate the tuna salad and didn’t touch the bread. No, I take that back—he did touch it, he just didn’t eat it. He licked off all the salad gunk. So how’s your diet coming along?”

They began to talk about his meal plans. Masters told her what foods he was allowed to eat and which ones were strictly out-of-bounds. He told her about some of the ways he prepared different foods to make them more interesting, since boredom was the usual reason for people straying from diets.

“So would your diet help me with my thighs?” Meg asked.

“Your thighs are fine,” he replied. He then lowered his voice. “If you want a second opinion, ask old Toadface. He’s coming this way.”

A moment later, the thick-lipped man was standing over them. Masters noticed that he had a flabby, pear-shaped physique, probably from licking up too much salad gunk. The man’s shirt was wet and stained around the armpits.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Toadface said in a high, nasal voice, “but I happened to overhear you two talking about some diet. May I join you?” Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed a chair from a nearby table, pulled it over and sat down. “I’d like to hear more about this diet. It sounds extremely interesting.”

“Basically, it’s all about eating protein.” Master didn’t want to explain the whole complex matter to this bizarre man, so he decided to give him the condensed version. “You just eat a lot of meat and some vegetables, and no sugar or complex carbohydrates. Drink plenty of water and the weight just melts off.”

“The water wouldn’t be a problem. Can it be any sort of meat?” Toadface blinked his wide eyes with rapt curiosity.

“Yes, I think so,” Masters said. “After all, meat is meat.”

The man cocked his head to one side. “But do some meats have more protein in them than others?”

“I suppose so.” Masters had never thought about it before. “I guess lean meat would have more protein in it, since there’s less fat content.”

The man smiled, revealing an abundance of yellowed, oddly narrow teeth. “But if the animal—the source of the meat—ate a lot of protein itself… Then it would probably contain even more protein. Yes?”

Masters couldn’t bear to look at that hideously eager, hungry smile a second longer, so he glanced at his watch, pretended to be surprised at the time, and stood up. “Wow, I almost forgot. There’s a movie on TV tonight I’d really like to see. I’d better get going.”

“Yeah, I’m running late myself,” Meg said. “See you at work, John.” She gave him a big hug—something she’d never done before. He wondered if it would be okay to give her a little kiss, a peck on the cheek. But no, not with Toadface standing by.

Masters watched her leave, lost in thought. Toadface said, “What’s the name of the movie?”

“What movie?” he replied without thinking. Then he remembered his impromptu lie, but it was too late.

Toadface was clearly upset. His mouth stretched wide in an ugly grimace. Then the grimace turned into a vicious smile as the man looked down from Master’s face. “You just came from work, didn’t you?”

With a rush of panic, Masters realized he was still wearing his name tag. JOHN MASTERS, ACCOUNTING. INNSMOUTH QUALITY CONSTRUCTION.

There was nothing for him to say, so he just turned and walked away from the table, dismayed that the clammy creep now knew his name and where he worked.

* * * *

Later that night, Masters fried some chicken and made himself a salad. He wondered if Toadface would give him any trouble. Would the flabby freak suddenly show up at his office?

Masters worried about visiting the coffeehouse again. He’d never seen Toadface before, but perhaps the weirdo would start hanging out there, ready to make trouble.

He decided the best thing to do would be to start visiting a new coffeehouse for a little while. Surely another place would be able to make him a sugar-free caramel mocha latte. How hard could it be?

Later, with bedtime drawing near, he made sure all the doors and windows of his rented house were locked. After all, anybody who knew his name could look up his address in the phone book. As he double-checked the last window, which happened to be in the kitchen, he looked out to admire the ocean.

He was relatively new to Innsmouth. He’d moved to the city for the job a year ago, and he rather liked this quaint seaport community. His new place was on a hill with a nice view of the Atlantic from the rooms on the east side.

As he looked down at the rolling waters, he noticed a couple walking on the moonlit beach. The fact that they were down there at eleven-thirty didn’t surprise him. People always seemed to be walking down there, no matter what the hour.

Did Toadface ever walk the beach? As he though about it, it occurred to him that he’d noticed other funny-looking folks around town. Some of them even had that same bulgy-eyed, puffy face—though most were not as extreme as Toadface’s. Maybe it was some sort of disease or hereditary condition.

He went to bed and drifted off to sleep. He dreamed about following a cat through the mall—for some reason it was very important for him to catch that cat. Then the cat was gone, and he found himself speeding through murky ocean depths, teeming with purple and black eels.

He ended up in the corner of an underwater coffeehouse, where instead of mugs filled with java, the bulbous-eyed clerks gave their customers large shells filled with squirming chunks of freshly minced sea-worms. And really, the business wasn’t set in a house—it was in a cave, lit by ropy growths of luminous seaweed festooned upon the walls.

Everyone there was humanoid, and that was the most normal adjective anyone could apply to them. They were all naked, and covered with a variety of aquatic adornments—warts, gills, fleshy fringes, even tentacles. Some had hair, but most were bald, and a few heads were topped with finlike crests.

From out of a side corridor drifted Toadface, grinning hugely. He too was naked, revealing flapping gills in his armpits. The space between his legs held a bizarre cluster of pulsing, elongated lumps.

“Okay,” Masters said. “I’m ready to wake up. I’m willing myself to wake up right now. Right now. Right now. So how come I’m not waking up?” His words sounded impossibly clear—but then, this was a dream, wasn’t it?

Toadface laughed. “You’ll never wake up. Your soul is down in Innsmouth’s most prestigious suburb. Lucky you!” The creature’s mouth didn’t move as he talked. The words seemed to be sounding in Master’s mind.

“What are you telling me?” Masters said.

“I’m telling you that this is no dream.” Toadface drifted closer. “The body loosens its grip on the soul during sleep. It was quite easy for me to draw your soul down to our lovely little grotto. It is a special talent of mine.” His bulging eyes grew even wider with insane glee. “And you shall remain forever in this sunken realm, where the Silent Ones rest in eternal slumber.”

“Hell, no!” Masters said. “I’m not staying down here! I’ll just go back into my body.”

“Not likely!” Toadface cried. “Your body is dead now. It has no soul. You are a ghost, a phantom, a spectre! I shall go and eat that delightful high-protein body of yours. I’ve decided to try out your diet.” The creature winked at him. “How do you like this little adventure? Much more exciting than any movie. Of course, you made up that whole movie excuse, didn’t you?” He waggled his fingers at Masters. “Time to go—dinner time!” Cackling uproariously, he turned and drifted down another corridor.

“Wait!” Masters shouted. Suddenly an eel swam near him, and he raised his hand to shield his face. He screamed with shock when he saw that his hand was composed of shimmering blue motes. He looked down—his body was now a man-shaped cluster of tiny lights.

He suddenly realized that Toadface was getting away. He flung himself forward through the water, and found that he could move quite fast. He zipped down the corridor and saw the flabby weirdo a short distance ahead of him. He followed him out onto the ocean floor. “Get your fat toad-ass back here!” he cried. “You think you can just drag me to this underwater freakshow, laugh in my face, tell me you’re going to eat my body, and then just leave me stranded at the bottom of the sea? Is that the deal, Toadface?”

The bug-eyed man stared back over his plump shoulder. “Don’t call me that! Go away! I don’t want you following me!”

“Oh, that’s rich!” Masters said. “So now I’m bothering you? You sure didn’t think this thing through!” He surged forward and leaped onto Toadface. But as soon as he touched the freak’s skin, a curious sensation rippled through him. It felt like a sort of cold tingle—and it seemed to convey a message. It was like jiggling the handle of a locked restroom door: the message clearly indicated that the space in question was OCCUPIED.

“Give it up!” Toadface crowed. “I’m awake, so you can’t get into me!” He flapped his arms and swam away.

“Oh, is that the deal?” Master said, right behind him. “So I can get into somebody who’s sleeping, right? You really are stupid, Toadface—you told me too much!”

“Maybe I did—but I’m still going to eat your body! And it’s dead, so even if you follow me to it, you can’t get back in!”

“Then I’ll haunt you forever, you ugly bastard!” He continued to pursue Toadface, past slime-covered rocks and huge, pinkish-gray stone pillars etched with images of fish-headed people with tentacles for arms.

“Hey, what is this place?” Masters said.

Toadface didn’t say anything, but he turned his head to shoot a frantic glance to the left. Masters followed his gaze, and saw that the freak had looked toward a ruined building made from pillars and cracked slabs of that pinkish-gray stone. It looked like some sort of temple from an old gladiator movie. Except the temples in those movies weren’t covered with carvings of fish-people.

Then he remembered Toadface’s words from that bizarre underwater coffeehouse: this sunken realm where the Silent Ones rest in eternal slumber.

He turned to the left and rushed toward the temple.

“Where are you going?” Toadface screamed. “Get away from there!”

“Not a chance!” Masters said. He entered the seaweed-shrouded maw that was the temple’s entrance. He rushed through the curving halls of a strange stone maze, and was surprised to find that he could tell where he was going, even though he had to be in utter darkness. Apparently this new form of his didn’t need light to see. It seemed to sense the contours of the world around him.

And he was able to sense something else: some being was indeed sleeping in this deep-sea maze. If what Toadface had said was correct, he could slip into a sleeping body. There might be someone or something else in that body, but so what? He wouldn’t bother waking it up.

Toadface had said these Silent Ones were slumbering for eternity. Maybe he’d be able to borrow one of their bodies. It would be like driving a car with the owner sleeping in the backseat.

Suddenly he heard Toadface, not too far behind him. “You don’t know what you’re doing! Get out of here now! I’ll find you a different body, I promise!”

Masters laughed. “Oh, yeah—like I’m going to make a deal with you!” He rounded a corner and suddenly found himself within a large chamber with a high vaulted ceiling. In the center of the chamber stood an enormous altar, upon which rested—

Hell, what were those things? There were three of them, each about eighty feet long, with flat-topped, snakelike heads, fishy faces, blubbery lips, lacy gills, bloated bodies, sinewy tentacles for arms, and legs like those of a giant iguana on super-steroids.