“I went along with the worship ceremonies and the weird orgies and the bad costumes. I even helped them steal this boat,” Sandy explained to Lagrasse, who was an enthusiastic audience. “Then, right in the middle of the crash my common sense kicks in again. Guess I look pretty stupid.”
“Not as stupid as them,” Lagrasse said.
Landsburg could feel the silent worshipers as they weighed these words. God, what if Sandy was right? What if the book wasn’t genuine? What if all the others had died in vain?
But wait—
“These arguments are moot. The evidence lies beneath our feet. I and the Necronomibok have led you to the island of the great Krac’thlen, and it is just as the Necronomibok said it would be. This is the final evidence of the righteousness of our faith!”
The worshipers seemed to stand up straighter and Landsburg rejoiced. His power over them was restored. He was their leader again. They were eager to get going, into the city. Landsburg, too, felt the compulsion to penetrate the ruined city.
Only Sandy wasn’t responding. She was biting her lip and staring at the row of dead former friends. Well, she did not have to share in the glory that would be bestowed upon him by Krac’thlen. There would be women a-plenty for the chief priests of Krac’thlen. It was so written in the Necronomibok. He was pretty sure of that.
“You want me to show you the way?” asked the man with the hideous head wound.
“I shall lead the way,” Landsburg declared. “You may accompany us if you so desire.”
Landsburg was mortified that Sandy was hanging back with Lagrasse, which put a huge wet blanket over his triumphant march through the streets of the long dead city of Krac’thlen. But Lagrasse was doing him a big favor—Landsburg would have been lost in the maze of stone edifices. Whenever he was unsure of where to turn, he would face his flock of followers, and Lagrasse, at the rear with Sandy, would silently indicate the correct way to go.
They came at last to the lip of a drop-off into a vast, flat amphitheater, where the bones were pale in the perpetual gray of this overheated part of the world.
“Who are all these dead people?” Sandy gasped.
“Oh, that’s all the other people who found the final evidence of the righteousness of our faith,” Lagrasse said.
“Is this where you bring the bodies of the dead from the shipwrecks?” Landsburg asked, projecting his voice for his followers to hear. “Even the non-believers are inspired by the awesome temple where Krac’thlen awaits dreaming!”
“Hey, don’t drag me into it,” Lagrasse insisted. “They brought themselves.”
“Heed not the madman,” Landsburg intoned. “Heed the wisdom of the Necronomibok and march with me to Krac’thlen.”
Landsburg stepped down into the amphitheater, and heard the steps of his followers. He was still their leader, and he felt triumphant. Christ, he hoped he was right about all this.
Sandy, he saw with a glance back, wasn’t coming. She gave him a sad little wave.
With Krac’thlen’s power to wield, Landsburg would enslave her and punish her for her duplicity!
Landsburg stopped at the chasm opening of the pyramid and raised his voice to the great god Krac’thlen.
Sure enough, Krac’thlen—or a reasonable facsimile—answered.
“I could have saved them. I should have tried harder to stop them.” Sandy had tears on her face as the great tentacle tossed another clean bone out of the pyramid. They were watching from Lagrasse’s favorite rooftop nearby.
“Don’t beat yourself up. I’ve tried over and over again to keep them from going in there. They never listen. If they came here to go in, they’re gonna go in. You can’t stop them.” He was still staring at her chest.
“Oh, here,” she said, and peeled off the still damp T-shirt. “I guess I’m beginning to see what you mean about this place. About normal rules not applying. I should be horrified but I’m just—not.”
“It’s too freaky a place to act normal in,” Lagrasse agreed. ‘Tell me about those kinky orgies you mentioned before.”
Sandy was dumbfounded that he would even ask the question, then she was surprised that she wanted to tell him all about the kinky orgies. They ended up having a kinky little orgy of their own, even as Krac’thlen, or whoever it was, spit out more sucked bones.
They heard the rumble of stone on stone, and Lagrasse had a vision of something emerging from the pyramid. Strangely, he didn’t want to stop his entertainment with the new arrival, Sandy.
Her eyes were shining. She too was aware of the movement of heavy stone inside the courtyard below, and yet she, too, continued working on their task of mutual satisfaction. The fear injected a fresh thrill into the coupling.
They finished up breathlessly and lay staring at the gray sky for a moment. Finally, Lagrasse got to his feet on the old roof and took in the changed landscape below him.
“There he is. Hey, little fella.”
Sandy became curious and she joined her lover on the roof edge. In the courtyard, the walls of the three-sided pyramid had been shoved open, like the petals of a gigantic flower of old stone. The creature with the tentacles was inside.
It had the winged mantle of a squid, but also the bulbous, fleshy torso of an octopus. There were only eight tentacles, Sandy decided after watching it for many long minutes.
The creature had to weigh hundreds of tons. It floated in a crater inside the pyramid, filled with murky green water and bobbing carcasses. The Colossal Squid were fingerlings to the gargantuan Master of the Pyramid. The human corpses were small as crumbs.
“Huh,” Sandy said. “It kinda looks like Krac’thlen, after all.”
‘I’ll bet your old boyfriend’s pretty pleased with himself,” Lagrasse said. “There he is. Hi, Rob!”
“Hey, Robby!” Sandy did jumping jacks to get Landsburg’s attention, but Landsburg was too busy being torn apart by the giant beak. A minute later, the flesh was being sucked off his bones, which were tossed away.
Sandy sighed. “This is just what he always wanted.”
“I’m sure he’s very happy,” Lagrasse said, putting his hands on her parts again. “I know I am.”
Chapter 35
The President of the United States of America said, “You won’t tell me?”
“Correct. I won’t tell you,” replied the voice of the man on the red phone. “It would be counterproductive.”
“You want me to deploy the resources of the U.S. Department of Defense on this huge operation without telling me the purpose?”
“The purpose is to put a stop to this crisis.”
“How can a bunch of suicidal maniacs have an impact on any of this?” the President demanded.
“Will you do this, Mr. President?”
“Why should I?”
“To save the world.”
“Bullshit.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You can spare the resources.”
“Are you kidding me, Smith?” the President fumed. “The DOD is stretched thin as a wire. They’re watching conflicts in every country on the earth.”
“About which you can do little. If we assume that the rise in global tensions is linked somehow to the catastrophe in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, then the best and only action you can take is to address that problem. I am asking you to trust that I may know of a way to slow the growth of the phenomenon.”
“You may know of a way? What if you’re wrong?”
“Then it is the same as if you fail to act. If I am right, then we might save ourselves.”