Amrita

  Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings,

  and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in

  crime, perversion, and insanity.

  By the time she reached town, Amrita knew she had to find a place to sleep. She’d stayed back into the woods as she followed the road in case her dad drove past looking for her. Something that might have been his little red pickup drove past at least three times, but she stayed well out of sight. It was nearly midnight by the time she reached Olly’s neighborhood, and she was dog tired. The thought of sneaking into his room and snuggling up next to him in bed sounded amazing. And if he was dumb enough to tell her that was moving too fast, he’d get a punch in the mouth and a night on the floor.

  She stayed away from Carter Ave and Broad as she came in, still wary that Dad might be on the lookout. She felt bad running off, and she knew there’d be hell to pay once she went back, but she didn’t know what else to do. Her father had spent his whole life getting away from Gran and her weird, awesome, powerful knowledge, and she wanted to let him keep whatever ignorance he could. She owed him that.

  Sticking to the back streets got her turned around, though, and she couldn’t find Olly’s house. She thought Union crossed his street, but the further she walked the less sure she was. She was exhausted, and she couldn’t think straight. Once she realized with muzzy uncertainty that she was approaching downtown from the back side, she considered just spreading out on one of the benches at the Greyhound station, but her dad might check there too if he drove around town. It was too late in the fall to sleep in a park, and plus she really didn’t feel like fending off any homeless dudes with ideas. When she saw the glass-enclosed ATM booth with a bench inside growing off the side of a Key Bank branch, she figured it was as good as she was gonna get. The door wasn’t locked, and her eyes slid closed the second her head hit the bench. The cold metal felt as good as a feather bed. Olly’s not the only one that needs a break, dumbass. You’ve been pushing it pretty hard through some seriously weird stuff.

  In her dream she was riding the shoggoth again, and when it started wrecking things, she felt a fierce glee. Humans with indistinct faces disappeared under the crushing limbs of the great beast, and it felt right. They deserved fear. They desired death. She delivered both and went on her way, inhabiting the body of the alien creature so completely that she no longer felt herself on its back.

  Then suddenly she was a different shoggoth, one meant for land, with a flexibility of form and strength even greater than the one she’d known before. She had twenty arms and knew how to move them all at once. She tore through a building like cheesecloth, taking a chunk out of a tall tower with ease, invading a space that looked kind of like a church. She was hunting something, but she wasn’t sure what. A tingle in her maw like putting her tongue on a nine-volt battery told her that her prey was there, hiding, begging for death even as it ran from her. Her tentacles waved, dowsing out the buzzing wrongness with senses she’d never known she had. The hunt was delicious. This was the life she’d always wanted: the freedom of complete power.

  Her surging limbs tore through a tiny opening, and there was her prey, bleating and barking, biting at her like a mosquito. The pain was brief, and only served to heighten the thrill of the find. She reached for the tiny, faceless man, feeling the truth of what Gran had said before. These creatures were hardly more than rabbits, than chickens. They died so easily and tasted so good – surely that was their proper place in the grand scheme of things.

  She hoisted her prey into the air, but now a different sensation nagged at her, pulling her away from the shoggoth. In a heartbeat she was stranded back in her own small, weak body, wondering what had happened. The dream had been so real. She’d never moved so fluidly from sleep to waking. She didn’t know if she’d slept for five minutes or three hours, but already she felt refreshed.

  Someone was standing over her in the tiny booth. She jerked upright, pushing them back against the ATM, a fist raised to take them down. The person fell back into sliver of moonlight by the door, and she saw bright red hair. A long, dopey face with watery blue eyes and fresh stitches holding the puffy bottom lip together. It was that asshole Rafe Judkins, the kid she’d fought with after calling him a squid.

  “What the hell, Judkins?” she growled.

  “Get kicked out of your house?” the boy sneered. His words were garbled; he couldn’t move his mouth very well.

  “You wish. How’s the lip?” Her knuckles ached with the memory of pounding him into the floor, and after her vivid dream, doing it again sounded pretty nice.

  His eyes went flat and sullen. “I can’t believe you’re the one we’re supposed to be watching for.”

  “Were you following me?”

  “My turn on night watch. Wander around in the middle of the night and you never know what might happen.”

  She grabbed his shirt and cocked a fist again, enjoying how he quailed. “I know exactly what happens when you mess with me.”

  “Enough, children,” said a crisp voice from the doorway. A tall, red-headed woman stood there, pale face pinched in a frown. She had the same watery eyes as Rafe.

  “Want to tell your boy not to creep on women when they’re sleeping?”

  “You’re lucky we were told to watch for you, or far worse might have happened,” the woman said, emotionless. “Come with us.”

  “The hell I will.”

  “The high priestess of the Deep Ones sent a message to watch for you and take you in if needed.” She shook her head disdainfully. “She says you’re meant to take part in the effort tonight.”

  Amrita pushed Rafe away. “Shit. You’re in on it.”

  “We don’t need her,” Rafe said to his mother.

  Without any change of expression, the woman slapped him across the face. He held his hurt lip and whimpered. She turned back to Amrita as if it hadn’t happened. “We’ll take you to the church. Father Pabodie will know what to do with you.”

  “Damn, lady, you beat your own son and expect me to just skip down the street after you?”

  “He was in the hospital for two days because of you. Don’t tell me you care about his welfare now.”

  “Well, no, but I’m not his mom.”

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  The plain-faced woman bared her teeth. “I was told to bring you if we found you. You can go freely or get hogtied and dragged.”

  “Try it, lady. I’ll put you down just like your weirdo kid.”

  “The night is passing, and important things are afoot. Let’s not waste time.” She turned and walked away. Rafe glared at Amrita and followed. His mouth was bloody.

  Amrita thought about running away, but she remembered what Gran had said about important things happening, and after her dream the thought of seeing more shoggoths and maybe even some of Gran’s fishy folk didn’t sound so bad. Mostly she just wanted that feeling back – the one of being on top of the world and able to do anything she wanted. She trotted until she caught up with Rafe and his mom. They were fast-walking toward the Baptist church on Salem Street.

  “So…” she said, “secret society, huh? How’s that going?”

  The woman said nothing. Rafe looked as if he wanted to speak, but he glanced at his mother and stayed quiet.

  “My grandma says that everybody up here is just lunch for the ones down there, you know. That can’t feel awesome.”

  “The high priestess knows much, but like many great ones, she simplifies and exaggerates when it comes to those beneath her.”

  “Above her, in this case.”

  “The weakest and stupidest can do little more than fill a belly,” the woman admitted, “but those who serve well will rise—”

  “Sink,” Amrita offered.

  “Stop that. We will serve in the kingdom to come. Did your grandmother not live among us? Did she become lunch?”

  “So it’s the other ones that’ll get eaten.”

  “Inevitably.”

  “But not you. You’re too smart.”

  “I am.”

  “Uh-huh. And while we’re talking about things that aren’t true, how come Cthulhu and all them are in a bunch of old sci-fi stories I found online?”

  Mrs. Judkins chuckled. It sounded odd, flat, emotionless. “Old Uncle Howard. He’s caused more problems than any other human that lived. He caught a whiff of things he couldn’t grasp and thought to make money off them. He was a sad, silly, racist hack, and he died penniless. It wasn’t cancer that killed him, no matter what the histories say. Those who meddle without understanding pay the price.”

  “None of you folks ever heard the phrase ‘live and let live?’”

  The woman said nothing.

  Amrita sighed. “So we’re supposed to rise up and just, what, kill the whole world?”

  “We’re going to make a better one.”

  Amrita decided she did not like this empty-faced lady or her idiot son. “Nobody gets a vote on it? Seems like folks might have a thing or two to say on the subject.”

  “The wood may argue all it likes; the fire does not hear it.”

  She shook her head, bemused. Gran wants me to be in charge of a cult of assholes and morons. The more she heard, the more determined she became to get involved, if only so there was someone with an actual conscience at the table. Not that I’m a saint or anything, but next to these folks I look like Ghandi.

  “Okay, fine. If I’m supposed to get in on this, tell me what’s going down.”

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  They approached the Baptist church. It was a squat brick building with a faded wooden cross on one side and a peeling white steeple above. Its concrete foundation was cracked and weedy. Rather than go through the seventies-style glass doors that led to the foyer, Rafe’s mom led them to the far side, where a cellar door peeked out of the tall grass beside the chapel wall. She grabbed the rusting handles of the iron door and fixed Amrita with a watery stare.

  “Weak minds cannot survive what you will see.”

  “Bite me, lady. I’ve seen plenty.”

  The woman heaved, but the doors simply squeaked and settled back into place.

  “True horror,” Amrita said, grinning.

  Rafe hustled to help his mother, and the two of them hauled the heavy doors up and out, revealing a dimly-lit cellar beneath. Many bodies moved about inside. A spry old man wearing black priest’s robes and a funny red pope hat stepped up the stairs and into the moonlight.

  “We’re ready here,” he said to Mrs. Judkins. “You’re just in time.” Then he caught sight of Amrita, and his white eyebrows raised. “So it’s true. The young one joins us.”

  “Perhaps,” Rafe’s mother said, sounding skeptical.

  “I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time, young lady,” the priest said cheerfully. “Your grandmother was a dear friend.”

  “Is,” Amrita said. “Is a good friend.”

  He paused. “Yes. You’ve seen her?”

  “We had a chat.”

  He reached for her face, and she ducked away.

  “Whoa, dude. I don’t know you.”

  He nodded, his stupid hat bobbing. “Yes, forgive me. I just wanted a closer look. See?”

  He stepped fully into the moonlight and tipped his head back so his hat didn’t shadow his face. His skin was pebbled and rough, and behind his ears was a full set of fringed gills that lay flat against his neck.

  Sighing, Amrita admitted to herself that this man might know a thing or two of use. She tilted her face, letting him see the new gashes in her head. He touched them gently, hmmming.

  “You are greatly blessed, to bear the mark so young.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Amrita, your grandmother asked to have you lead us tonight if we could find you. Will you?”

  She threw up her hands. “I don’t even know what the hell’s happening.”

  “Our ancient enemy has risen, and so it is time for our kind to leave the shadows and protect this earth.”

  “You mean the squid things.”

  “I do, and also their human allies. We have already struck at some of their leaders tonight, but we are now to lead an attack on their stronghold.”

  “The other church.”

  “You know more than I expected.”

  “Turns out you guys are bad at keeping secrets.”

  “Many of our shoggoths are still young and need a firm mind to guide them. I had intended to lead the column across town, but I will defer to the high priestess’s wisdom.”

  “I’m not gonna go kill a bunch of people, Mr. Reverend Guy. I’m not down.”

  “More experienced hands have been dispatched for that sort of thing, Miss Rajani.”

  She chewed her lip and hoped desperately that he wasn’t talking about Olly. Gilman hadn’t seemed to know he was a problem; maybe none of the rest of them did either. She couldn’t figure out a good way to ask Mr. Reverend-Fish without giving him away, though.

  He mistook her silence for moral qualms. “You will merely go tear down the building. No one is inside. It’d be good for you to get used to leading the younglings. You’ll get a feel for their minds.”

  She thought back to her time riding Gran’s manta-ray shoggoth. “I think I know what you mean. What you gonna do if I say no?”

  He shrugged genially. “Exactly as I intended before you arrived. But if you’re concerned about people being killed… your presence might prevent it. The shoggoth younglings will obey you.”

  She remembered the dreamy joy of total destruction. Plus, maybe I can keep an eye out for Olly. Help him if someone’s after him. “Yeah, okay. I’m can go break some shit.”

  “It is a thing that needs doing, Miss Rajani. The enemy will burn the entire earth if we don’t stop them now.”

  Amrita remembered the strength and tenacity of the tiny black squid thing that had attacked her shoggoth and thought maybe he was telling the truth. She had to figure out how to get Olly away from those wiggly bastards every bit as much as she needed to protect him from Gran’s people. “All right, bitches. Let’s roll out.”

  The priest turned toward the cellar doors. “Yog nog ng h’ ah’hri, lw’nafhnah mgehye’bthnk hnahh.” The hissing, throaty speech filled her ears, and like before, Amrita felt like she could almost understand it. Something about coming out?

  Shapes filed up the cellar stairs and out into the moonlight. The young shoggoths took nearly every possible shape. Most walked more or less upright on two legs, but there were a few on four instead, and plenty had tentacles instead of legs. Some had long, smooth snouts with sharp teeth, and still others had no visible head at all, merely clusters of eyes on their torsos. A good number dripped black slime from beaks, mouths, or other unknown orifices. They filed past and just kept coming, standing in ranks of ten on the church yard grass. None looked like Gran’s fishy folk, and none of them seemed quite sentient. There was a sense of alienness in those red eyes that told her these things had never been human.

  All told, it looked like something out of a midnight horror film. If she hadn’t been able to sense the questing simplicity of their minds, Amrita would have been frightened. Instead, she just felt… responsible. These things would do whatever she told them. That was heavy.

  “Tear Bethlehem Lutheran Church to the ground,” Father Whatever-His-Name-Was said, clapping her on the shoulders. “Do your grandmother proud.”

  “This was not how I thought tonight was gonna go,” she said. She turned to Rafe to make fun of him one last time, but she saw him eyeing his mother distrustfully and that didn’t seem very funny suddenly. Better me doing this than that lady, or even the priest dude. I don’t know a thing about him. He’s probably out there killing kids on Gran’s little island like it’s no biggie.

  “Right,” she said out loud, reaching her mind out toward the vacant, waiting shoggoth troops just like she had when she’d ridden the big one at Miskatonic Pond. It felt like stretching a sore muscle. It felt like reaching for power. “Let’s hit it, boys.”