<br /><br />God Shall Tread: Part 6 – The Thing in the Cell

Subscribe to Talien's Tower by Twitter, email or via the Site Feed

Tuesday, September 22

God Shall Tread: Part 6 – The Thing in the Cell

"Let me go! It is starving down there beyond that cell door, and if It dies the Old Ones can never come back. Hei! Hei! Let me go!"

The thing was telepathically screaming at him. Its head was facing his direction but its snake-like features were otherwise inscrutable. A Brownshirt stood guard with another scientist checked Ssruthaa's vitals.

"Let who go?" Jim-Bean

"Wza-y'ei! Wza-y'ei! Y'kaa haa ho-ii, Rhan-Tegoth-Cthulhu fthagn-Ei! Ei! Ei! Ei!-Rhan-Teogth. Rhan-Tegoth, Rhan-Tegoth!"

"I get it," Jim-Bean beamed back. "But you don't have to keep ranting about Goths…"

"No, fool! Rhan-Tegoth! You do not trussst me? And yet you trussst the ssshoggoth."

Jim-Bean made his way to the doorway, but there was no way he was going to get inside without some serious firepower.

"Oh, you didn’t know, did you?" continued Ssruthaa. "Ssstupid human. Lasssiter is a ssshoggoth in human form. Now quickly, releassse me from my bondsss! Even now Rhan-Tegoth awakesss!”

Jim-Bean recognized the name. Lassiter was the CEO of Hunt Electronics. But he wasn't entirely sure what a shoggoth was.

"Listen, fool! Listen hard! It has heard me, and is coming. Can't you hear It splashing out of Its tank down there at the end of the hallway? It is amphibious, you know--you saw the gills. It came to the earth from lead-gray Yuggoth, where the cities are under the warm deep sea. It can't stand up in there--too tall--has to sit down or crouch."

There was a splashing, padding or shuffling, as of great wet paws on a solid surface. A noisome animal stench poured into Jim-Bean's nostrils. Sudden baying followed sniffing and snorting. A trumpeting noise assailed his ears.

Jim-Bean whirled, his hand going for his pistol. The pistol he didn't bring with him. It was safely secured in the crate along with Hammer and the rest of their equipment.

Something fumbled with the latch of the heavy cell door, patting, pawing, pushing. There was a thudding on the stout metal, which grew louder and louder. The stench was horrible.

The Brownshirt in Ssruthaa's room looked up and so did the scientist. They were looking past Jim-Bean. more