This post is part of the October 2011 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s challenge is to compose a dark story with Lovecraftian words..
The entire landing party, at least half of Captain Kobeyashi’s crew, had slaughtered each other in the grotto. They lay in a tangled mess, spreading fresh blood into the sand from gaping pistol, rifle, and sword wounds. The furthest corpse was at the very foot of a coral altar heaped with gold.
Kobeyashi himself was near the entrance, seated on his knees. His starched white dress uniform was unrecognizable, spattered with gore and unidentifiable chunks of human flesh.
“Easy now,” said Harrison, leveling his gun. He motioned Joy forward with his free hand.
“What…what in God’s name did you do?” Joy cried. She found herself numbly trying to count the bodies.
“Did you ever wonder what happened to the two thousand people who lived here in 1914?” Kobeyashi said evenly, without meeting his foes’ gaze. “They did not abandon the island. The Saudeleur didn’t sign away the islanders’ lands to Bernhard…he signed away their souls.”
“Like you, giving up everything to run after some treasure?”
“Don’t you see? This isn’t a treasure trove, and that isn’t gold it contains. It’s the sepulcher of a dead god, piled high with its manifest essence.” Kobeyashi produced a pistol from the depths of his blood-spattered uniform. As if preparing for a dress inspection, he slowly and deliberately loaded it.
“Watch it,” Harrison barked. His voice quivered on the edge of breaking.
Kobeyashi gave no sign that he’d heard. He raised the pistol to his right temple. “Incorporeal for longer than humankind has existed, now enshrined once more in flesh. A pity I won’t be able to see it.”
He fired, and slumped to the ground.
“Ninety-nine…” Joy said. She seized Harrison’s shoulders. “Ninety-nine sacrifices! We have to get out of here!”
Harrison stared blankly at her for a moment, before Ishi’s warning flooded his memory and his eyes widened.
Before either could make it to the coral staircase, the grotto was gripped by a series of violent tremors. The spilled blood began to boil, to vaporize, as skin and viscera sloughed off the corpses. Rivers of meat and bone churned toward the center of the cavern, where they were joined and twisted into terrible amorphous non-Euclidean shapes. An inhuman roar flooded the grotto – the birthing cry of something altogether too terrible to comprehend.
Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
Ralph Pines
Cath
Diana Rajchel
Alynza
lufftocraft
robeiae
pyrosama
dolores haze
leahzero
AbielleRose
pezie
MysteryRiter
JSSchley
Inkstrokes
Alpha Echo
Proach
AuburnAssassin
spacejock2
Madelein.Eirwen
AlishaS
October 4, 2011 at 9:48 am
Oh, I like that!
October 4, 2011 at 10:42 am
Awesome read!
“He fired, and slumped to the ground.”
Nice.
October 5, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Well, not really nice for him 🙂 But thanks!
October 4, 2011 at 11:23 am
Gotta love the non-Euclidean geometries.
October 4, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Ooh, nice and bloody. Good job!
October 5, 2011 at 3:14 pm
I was afraid it’d be *too* bloody, frankly. I should have known better!
October 6, 2011 at 3:33 pm
ooh, now this I like. A pirate tale of real doom.
October 8, 2011 at 11:58 am
Doom, yes. Pirates? Well I suppose it depends on your definition 🙂
October 6, 2011 at 6:26 pm
O_o! Nice.
October 8, 2011 at 11:57 am
Thanks! Oh underscore oh indeed.
October 7, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Holy moly! “Rivers of meat and bone” Now that’s some writin’ right there. Now you’ve got me totally curious what happened beforehand and what’s going to happen next!
October 8, 2011 at 11:59 am
Thank you! I was worried that it was a little too over the top but apparently that’s what people like! If you’re curious about the rest of the story, here’s a clue.
October 9, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Ooh, lots of guts and gore and a taut Indiana Jones-like ending. Very nice!
October 11, 2011 at 9:32 pm
And I even named one of the prots Harrison! I have to say, I’m really surprised at how much people are liking the gooshy parts.
October 11, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Awesome. I loved your whole last paragraph. And now that I read Claire’s Indiana Jones comment combined w/ the character name Harrison, I wonder if that’s not a coincidence? Nice job!
October 11, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Thank you! People do seem to like the gooey imagery in that last paragraph. Harrison was actually named after an old teacher, but now that you mention it perhaps there was a subconscious Ford vibe…
October 16, 2011 at 5:57 pm
Nice! Do I detect a little fact in amongst your fiction?
Harrison, I totally missed that. Kobyashi, that name sounds familiar.
Rivers of meat and bone… ewww! Well done!
October 16, 2011 at 7:25 pm
Indeed so! There’s an island with a similar name and history in real life, though admittedly without the icky horrors. I named Kobeyashi after the composer Hideaki Kobayashi, but a lot of people might remember the name from Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru.