He stood up, and addressed our huddled company, declaring his theory that we might come across a much smaller kraken and be able to destroy it, thus striking a maybe mortal blow at the larger one which menaced us in the cemetery.
Personally I thought that, if what we’d witnessed on TV was authentic, then nuclear weapons would have destroyed at least several of the greater monsters. Unless of course the monsters could neutralise missiles.
At least our group seemed somewhat comforted by Henkel’s idea.
I’d often wondered in what way I would die one day. That’s the big question which most people avoid asking themselves, not least because there’s no answer until it happens, and even then you mightn’t know the answer, supposing your mind has degenerated prior to death, as my mother’s did. Whereas the truck that skidded and mowed down my dad from behind might have obliterated him before he could even realize. So somehow — due to family history — I thought that I wouldn’t know about death when I died. I would simply cease, the way I once ceased due to anesthetic when I needed a kidney stone broken up by laser. Did I hope simply to cease or alternatively to know the very threshold of death? Had the creature come to teach me?
“There’s still no mobile phone signal,” said Wim Ruyslinck’s girlfriend.
“Did you just try to call Mijnheer Ruyslinck?” demanded Henkel.
“Yes, but his phone’s set to vibrate, not ring. I wouldn’t draw attention to him like that.”
“Wise. However, we should conserve batteries, in case there’s any future use for them. Everyone should switch off their phones. I’ll keep mine switched on in case there is any change. When my charge runs out, I’ll appoint someone else.”
“Runs out?” queried Betsy Goldman, who was plump. “When’s that? In a week or a fortnight? What do we eat till then?”
“The human body doesn’t normally die of hunger for forty or fifty days provided it can drink. Fasting is normal for many people in the world, often involuntarily.”
“You mean I’m starting from a good baseline?” Betsy laughed, perhaps a shade hysterically, but others chuckled or grinned, the first hint of good spirits.
“Very good!” Henkel said approvingly.
Fortunately, her husband and Rudolfo, Jack Ballantyne, and the Dutchman all returned safely soon enough, bearing vases brimming with water.
That, comparatively, was the good time, the time when there was still some hope, even if meager.
We’re allowed our sanctuary, here in this dusty shadowy minor labyrinth of stairways and galleries where the warped oval sun only reaches through a grimy round skylight or so at the top. A place resembling a library, except that instead of books on shelves there are almost identical caskets containing the dead, blessed to have died when they did.
Maybe the creature cannot easily mount or descend the stairs, though I doubt it. So far at least, Cthulhu hasn’t done so. There comes a click in our minds, and the drawn-out whisper inside us, of thoooo-loooo, thoooo-loooo: that might be its name, or maybe a call of power akin to an abracadabra.
Yet the stairs don’t stop Cthulhu from taking us one by one to play with. And then to discard, vilely and agonisingly used. Maybe beyond any agonies caused by human torturers, since I believe its tendrils can reach into our brains to push the buttons of pain. For we must eat. And Cthulhu feeds its pets.
After half a week of hunger for us, our water-bearers of the day sighted a small heap of dead fish and fruits on a path they used. Was that bait? Iain McKinnon darted ahead bravely to scoop the food into his empty vase, and survived. He returned for the rest of the rations, and survived.
On the following day, a pile of raw meat and vegetables was further away. Subsequently, some cheeses and salamis were outside the house-size version of the Pantheon of Rome. Presently we needed to hunt through statued galleries of the cemetery to find wherever our food might be. On all expeditions, near or far, we carried forks — the gardening, not the dining, kind — to defend ourselves and each other, however feebly.
A week passed before, half way along a gallery, Iain Mackinnon trod on a patch of the strongest of glues of the same colour as the flagstones. He couldn’t wrench his sneakers free. As he stopped to untie the trainers, so that Katie Drummond and Paul Goldman and Jack Ballantyne could then try to jump him out of that stickiness, k-thoooo-loooo, thoooo-loooo, towering Cthulhu came. The tines and blades of the gardening tools jerked down to clang against the flagstones as if a powerful magnetic field dragged them. It was, said Paul afterwards, like some bizarre salute to a potentate, the lowering — then the necessary letting go — of swords. Katie could only scream and wave her arms at the advancing entity. Neither she nor Paul nor Jack were going to throw themselves bodily at that monster. One of its feet seemed to suck the glue back into itself as its arm-tentacles immobilized and lifted the Scots student who bellowed, then tried vainly to bite at face-tentacles. as he was rushed away. The forks and spade were no longer fastened to the flagstones. Snatching them up, for what use those might be, the trio did give chase led by Katie, but when they rounded a corner the next gallery was empty except for mournful statues. Thus they related when they returned to our labyrinth — carrying the day’s food, yes; Katie having to be commanded and cajoled by Paul Goldman, for what else could they do, what else?
That night we all heard the thin, piercing screams, for what seemed hours, dying away, starting again. Henkel had to restrain Katie. Of course no one slept. The next day the hideous mess that had been Iain Mackinnon lay on the space outside the Pantheon. He almost seemed to have been turned inside-out by an insane vivisection.
It was. slippery to bury him in a copse as close nearby as we could. Pastor Jimmy Garrett managed to say words and quote parts of the Bible that weren’t excessively evangelistic; and I noticed that his hair, now lank and stringy where it had been lovingly tended and conditioned before, was falling out after these weeks. So hair doesn’t always just go dramatically white overnight with shock.
Katie begged our field marshal to strangle her; she promised not to struggle. Then she begged the taciturn German translator, Hans-Ulrich. Of course nobody would strangle her. In due course, might suicide by assistance become easier to contemplate?
No one went to fetch food for four days. Eventually hunger pangs prevailed. The instinct for survival is so strong. Katie didn’t try to smash her head against the hard stone that was all around us, even though we had no sedatives, only some painkillers and stomach settlers in a couple of the women’s shoulder bags, and a few tampons, soon used. Most bags including mine had been left aboard the bus for our brief stroll into Staglieno.
As time wore on, Zsuzsa was taken similarly, and Selma Strandberg and Nellie van Oven and Wim Ruyslinck and Hans-Ulrich. The monster only rarely resorted to glue, preferring the direct approach. Nevertheless, not each far sortie resulted in a victim. Cthulhu preferred to fool us that by luck or at random we might return safely. Hence the rabbits would scurry to snatch their suppers.
No one spotted another lens in the prevailing mist, supposing that the original lens was designed for us to see. Of course we didn’t venture outdoors more than was essential — oh, the crushing endless fearful misery, even though for distraction we took turns telling our life stories. I think there was only one lens, and that it showed a memory of our world just before the Cthulhu creatures arrived, not an image of normality continuing in some parallel reality that might even be reachable. Nor did anyone stumble upon a mini- monster to stab and slash and crush.