Thursday, October 24, 2024

The Case of Ambrose Abernathy (Part Five)

 


"Here, here!" said Trey huskily. "This Poppa's room. Quiet now! Shh!"

          As short as he was, the agent had to get down on all fours to squeeze in. His trouser knees joined his now-tattered socks in being soaked by the dripping slimy floor, and as worn as the rocks were, he managed to snag and tear them, bloodying his kneecaps. Once inside he stood up groaning loudly, much to the alarm of Trey and the squirming horde that followed them impulsively behind.

          "Sh! Sh!" susurrated huskily through the little chamber, with frightened glances at a shadowy corner. Most of the beasts started scattering immediately to the door on the other side of the room, flowing like water past the disoriented little man. He almost went to his knees again with the pattering pressure. Only Trey's grasping clutch on Abernathy's shoulder kept the bewildered agent upright. But he was nearly knocked down in the panicked exodus that ensued when a loud angry voice from the shadowy corner yelled out, "Here! What disturbs my sleep?"

          In a twinkling the beasts had scrambled out and away, yelping, all except Trey, who stood cringing and whimpering, Abernathy's shoulder pinched cruelly in the reflexive grip of his black claws. Abernathy himself might have followed after them, if it weren't for that. He watched in dread fascination as the tall shadowy figure hunched and scrabbled in the darkness. There was the crack and flare of another crystal, and the hairy and horrible figure of the thing was revealed.

          It was tall but bent, with bloody red eyes and matted, grizzled brown hair that tangled into a trailing, filthy beard. It was dressed in hanging, rotten rags. Its entire countenance was drawn down in a frown, burly black eyebrows and pinched mouth screwed up around a long thin nose, a nose that looked suddenly very familiar. Abernathy gasped.

          "Wallace Kindermass!" he exclaimed.

          The tall man looked stunned. He drew back and took in the little figure before him: Abernathy's clothes, ruined but fancy; his figure small, but upright.

          "A man," he breathed, mouth gaping to show black, broken teeth. "After all these years, another human man."

          The little agent gulped, then stepped forward, and thrust his hand out.

          "Ambrose Abernathy," he said. "Of the Department of Extranatural Affairs. I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Kindermass."

          "I thought I'd never see another human in this life," the other said, his face squeezing into a pained smile, tears flowing from his squinting eyes. "But what are you doing here? You are in great danger. You've got to flee!"

          "I wish I could," said Abernathy. "But damned if I know how. I came in through the wardrobe and it closed behind me."

          "Me too, me too!" the other nodded. "How long ago it seems!"

          "Your eldest sister said it's been almost twenty years."

          "Twenty years! And Sylvia is still alive?"

          "And your other sisters," said Abernathy hurriedly. "But that can wait for now! Don't you know any other way out of here?"

          "None." The other slumped backwards. "Oh, I tried to escape in the early years, but SHE put a stop to my wandering quick enough."

          "She?"

          "She who keeps me here. She who holds me prisoner. She who steals my substance to breed this race of ... of horrors!" Kindermass pointed venomously at Trey, who cowered under the accusation. He turned back to Abernathy. "She who will surely capture you when she learns of your presence!"

          "Where?" Abernathy looked around nervously. "Where is this She?"

          "Through that tunnel," Kindermass said, pointing to the hole where the gangrel pack had fled. "Oh run, man! You haven't much time!"

          "Come with me," the agent said, and held out his hand. "We can get out of here together, sir."

          The other laughed bitterly.

          "If it was that easy, don't you think I'd have left long ago? Look, look here," he said, gesturing Abernathy closer.

          The agent drew nearer to where the shaggy, bent figure stood in the dim blue halo of crystalline light, then gasped and drew back in dismay. Kindermass's almost skeletal legs were knotted through by pale quivering tentacles, going in and out of the scrawny flesh, that attached him to the cave floor like alien roots.

          "What ... what happened to you?"

          "I was drawn down a shining tunnel that suddenly appeared in my wardrobe, ever downward into the earth, until I came upon Her! She had lured me into the lair where she had dwelt for thousands of years, and I, poor fool, the first man ever to fall for her wiles!"

          Abernathy's eyes boggled.

          "Are you telling me there is a centuries-old woman living in this cave?"

          Kindermass cackled obscenely.

          "A woman only by analogy, only by simile. This ... this shapeless thing stole my essence, my seed, and when it ensnared my family's poor bitches from the world above, it harvested their germens and mingled them together to create in the blasphemous matrix of Her abnormal body these ... these monstrosities!" He brought his battered knuckles down in sudden anger on Trey's skull. The creature whimpered in pain and cowered under the assault.

          "She brews inside her foul innards a milk, like a female, but it is merely water and lime and fungus. This is what she feeds me on to keep me alive, me and these...these freaks! These half-breeds!" The ragged old man seemed suddenly transported with rage, bringing his hand down again and again on the dog-man's head and back.

          "Here! Here, now!" Abernathy said, grabbing the withered arms and trying to get between the two. "Violence won't help. If what you say is true, the poor beast is in some misbegotten way your own son!"

          Kindermass collapsed in his grip.

          "Do not remind me," he sobbed. "The shame! The shame..."

          "Pull yourself together, man," the little agent said, shaken. "What we've got to do now is ..."

          Whatever he thought they had to do was quickly rendered moot. There was a sudden touch at his ankle, and he was pulled backward off his feet, falling slap-down on the wet, spongy floor. He lifted himself up on slippery hands, face trailing slime, and looked around.

          While he had been distracted with Kindermass and the hapless Trey, several long tentacles had snaked out of the further cavern opening, oozing silently to where he stood. They gleamed wetly in the dim rock-light. One was already twining around his leg, while another raised up like a questing cobra, seeking for a further grip. Before he could break out of his fascinated horror, it lashed out and grabbed his wrist.

          "Momma!" Trey yapped happily. "Momma will help brudder Natty!"

          "Resist, sir, resist!" howled Kindermass.

          "I'm trying, I'm trying!" Abernathy yelled. But he was being pulled along, hopping on one leg, unbalanced, the dog-man bounding enthusiastically at his heels. The last he saw of Kindermass as he was dragged into the low cave-mouth was the skeletal bearded wretch slumping backward in his rags, the waning blue phosphorescence highlighting his despairing face.


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