Clickers III Read online

  Suddenly, from the left hand tunnel, came the sounds of pursuit; running footsteps, guttural cries and clicking noises. It was impossible to tell how close they were. Jennifer had a feeling they were still far away, but they were quickly gaining. Their sounds, their very intonations, sent a chill down Jennifer’s spine.

  There was something else, though…something that Jennifer could not put her finger on. It felt like something big and vast. Something unknown and alien, something indescribable, was close by. This something was alive, it was very close, and it was on the verge of waking up. And when it did it would know where they were and it would summon the Dark Ones to their location and they would be slaughtered.

  “Come!” Josel whispered, breaking her thoughts. He darted down the far right tunnel. They jumped to their feet and scrambled after him.

  As Jennifer plunged down the passageway, trying to quell the racing of her heart, she felt the tension rise. Josel and Keoni began running faster down the corridor and the others picked up their pace in order to keep up. She felt the floor tilt downward slightly, felt it curve even more sharply to the right as it took them deeper down into the earth. She almost tripped several times and had to focus on Keoni to see where she was going.

  And she wondered if they were doing the right thing in letting Josel lead them down this path. Because the deeper they traveled into the earth, the greater that feeling grew— that something vast and alien lurked within the very rock walls.

  They reached another fork in the tunnels and Josel didn’t hesitate. He took the left fork and the tunnel led them into what seemed to be a black abyss. The beam from Keoni’s flashlight dimmed considerably, and then went out. He cursed in the sudden darkness.

  Josel slowed down. “Stay close together.”

  Edward pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket and flipped it. The tiny flame seemed ineffectual against the gloom.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” Wade said.

  “I don’t,” Ed replied. “It was a gift from my wife. Sort of an in-joke between us. Too much to go into right now.”

  “We must continue to move fast,” Josel said, “but I warn you. This tunnel will become very steep in its descent. Stay close behind me. Take each others hands if you must, but by all means do not lose sight of each other.”

  Without another word, Josel turned and scurried down the tunnel, Keoni close behind him. Edward held the cigarette lighter aloft and lurched after them, followed by Jennifer, Susan, and Wade. Josel had been right. The downhill grade of this tunnel was noticeably steeper. They had to slow their pace now, resorting to a brisk walk as the downward momentum of the tunnel propelled them deep into the earth. Jennifer gripped the back of Ed’s billowy Hawaiian shirt and she felt Susan’s fingers touch her left arm. Jennifer took Susan’s hand and she felt Susan’s fingers squeeze. They were on the same wavelength now.

  She sensed Wade behind Susan, imagined he was probably holding onto the back of Susan’s shirt. Their being connected this way physically helped keep Jennifer in tune with their entire party. They moved fast, as one solid unit. And as they descended into the depths of the island, Jennifer wondered if the rest of them began to get the same feeling. It crept into her the deeper into the earth they got. It crawled over her slowly, inexorably, sinking its tendrils into her, wrapping its fingers around every fiber of her being. She couldn’t place the feeling; it wasn’t exactly fear but it was something like it.

  It was more like dread.

  The boy was halfway to the other side of the island, leading the Dark Ones through the bewildering network of underground tunnels, when he felt a subtle shift in the air. The ground thrummed beneath his feet. He was clutching the knife he’d used to gut the scientist he’d killed earlier in the day. His hands were still sticky with the man’s blood. He felt a sense of bloodlust, a sense of purpose.

  He’d been quietly watching Josel over the past fort-night. The man was slipping. He’d become lazy in the last few years. It wasn’t so much a physical laziness, but a mental and spiritual one. Where in his earliest memories Josel had been full of knowledge and possessed a sense of spiritual authority unlike anybody he had ever known, now the old man seemed less sharp, less devout.

  The boy had known Josel all his life. His earliest memory was of attending ceremonial dances in the center of the island where Josel presided over rituals. At that early an age, the boy did not understand the significance of these rituals. He’d recalled the images of the Dark Ones they’d carved into the bark of trees and on the rocky walls of the mountain. He remembered being told by his father, one of the nine tribal chiefs, that if he ever saw a stranger on this island he was to report the sighting to him or the other chiefs immediately. Mainlanders were not allowed on the island; if they arrived, they were to convince them to leave. Drive them off physically if the opportunity arose. His father had done this in the past, or so he’d related in evening soliloquies to Dagon. For the most part, mainlanders, as well as other Island people, stayed clear of Naranu. For thousands of years they had done an excellent job in keeping interlopers off the island and they’d been rewarded handsomely.

  It had only been within the last two years when his father began teaching him the old language and he began to understand the nature behind the rituals. It was highly likely that his father was dead now, slain by the Elder during the massacre. The boy was almost certain of this; he’d crept to the edge of the jungle after having followed the chiefs and the tribe’s soldiers to the beach to meet up with the Dark Ones, and witnessed the tail end of a mass slaughter. The boy had bit back his anger and anguish and summoned all the strength he had within him to make his pitch to the Elder.

  And now he couldn’t back down. He had to prove to the Elder that he was capable of being a leader. The boy wanted to impress the Dark Ones. He hoped that he and perhaps a few others of his people—if any were left alive— would be spared.

  His first step was to take the Elder to Josel’s house. The boy knew all the tunnels of Naranu like the back of his hand. He’d traversed down their outer paths as a young boy when he accompanied his father on various secret trips beneath the island. What his father and the other tribal chiefs never learned was that the boy explored the inner tunnels numerous times on his own. He’d done this hundreds of times by his count. He’d learned much from these secret trips. He’d also learned much from the secret writings he’d sneaked a peek at that were hidden in his father’s quarters, back at the house.

  It was from these writings that the boy learned the secrets behind the Dark Ones.

  And the Secret Order of Dagon.

  And along with those revelations, the purpose of his people. Unlike neighboring islands, they had resisted the worship of the female deity, Eijebong, in favor of the one true god. Others might strive to go to Buitani when they died. The boy’s people were content to travel to the Great Deep and become one with the waters there.

  The boy picked up the pace of his run down the tunnel, his heart racing in his chest. The Elder was close behind him along with a dozen of his soldiers. The boy was secretly grateful that there were no Clickers following in their wake; the creatures were too large to fit inside the subterranean chambers. When the march had first begun, while they were still topside and trekking through the jungle, the creatures had loomed over the boy as if to kill him, but the Elder had warned them away. The Clickers had thundered along in the rear of the procession, occasionally diverting to slay and feast on a survivor or wild animal or destroy a building or hut. Now, it was only the Elder and the Dark Ones who accompanied him. Regardless, the boy wasn’t afraid. Not anymore. His purpose was simple.

  Keoni Mumea wasn’t one of them. He was descended from other island people. Samoa, probably Marshall Islands. Maybe something else. He was a mutt. An animal. Descended from the kind of people

  who used to invade Naranu many years ago. Naranuans had always driven off other island invaders, but they had been unable to drive off this latest wave of mainlanders, w
ho were worse than any Pacific Islander.

  Keoni was worse than the scientists, though. He was consorting with them. Helping them. The boy had simmered with a secret hate for the caretaker ever since he’d arrived on the island about a fortnight before the first wave of mainlanders arrived. He’d been so charming to the Naranuan women. He’d swept them off their feet. Had taken a couple of them to his hut to mate. Worst of all, the tribal chiefs had liked him. The boy didn’t know what everybody saw in Keoni. To him, Keoni represented everything that was wrong about anything that was non-Naranuan. He was a womanizer, a con artist, a two-faced snake. True to form, within days of his arrival Keoni had learned about the tunnels thanks to one of the tribal chiefs giving him a tour.

  The tribal chief in question had been the boy’s father.

  Remembering it now brought the betrayal back with a tremendous force of hate. Watching father and Keoni laugh, his father clapping the interloper on the back. The boy had been living under his father’s shadow for years, had done everything he could to get the old man to simply smile at him, to acknowledge him with a kind word. Instead all he got was disapproval. A frown, a grunt of discouragement. All Keoni had to do was crack a joke and his father laughed and smiled.

  The boy hated Keoni for this.

  And true to form, he was certain Keoni Mumea had spirited the surviving scientists away through the tunnel to the other side of the island.

  The boy assumed Keoni would take them to Josel’s house. It was Keoni’s mission to serve and protect the researchers. His instincts would lead him there, to Josel, in the hope the old man would help them.

  But Josel wouldn’t be helping them. He was probably cowering in fear back at his hut as the Dark Ones and their pets ravaged the island. He knew the Elder intended to wreak vengeance for what had happened and the boy approved of this. He understood it. He didn’t want to die, but he believed with all his heart and mind in what his people had been born and bred for thousands of years to do—be guardians of the island and Dagon—and he accepted his fate.

  He would lead the Dark Ones to Josel’s hut, taking Keoni and the intruders by such sudden surprise they’d be slow to react. The Dark Ones would fall on them, tear them to pieces, and the Elder would be forced to acknowledge not only the boy’s bravery, but also his wisdom.

  The boy would expose Josel for his sloth. And it was then when the boy would reveal his knowledge of the Old Ones and the Secret Order of Dagon. He would claim alliance to them. My life for you, he would say while bowing before them. And he would chant this in their language, all the while shrilling their secret chant at the top of his lungs.

  Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn, N’wgi, myfgilyi, yith nga nga! Ia! Ia!

  For a boy of his age to learn such a sacred and ancient chant… that had to count for something, didn’t it?

  The boy reached a fork in the tunnel. The tunnel to the left would take them to the west side of the island, while the center tunnel would take them to the north shore, which would spill out to other forks leading to the homes of the tribal chiefs and Josel. The far right tunnel hugged the shore and dipped inland, leading to farther forks that would take you to the center of the island. One of the forks farther in would take you directly to R’lyeh.

  Keoni had taken the scientists this way. The boy was sure of it. Logically it did not make sense. The boy had sensed that Keoni had secretly sneered at the Naranuan’s beliefs in the two weeks he’d been here. He wouldn’t know about R’lyeh, much less the Dark Ones. But the boy knew that Keoni had taken this right hand fork. He could sense it.

  The boy paused. His eyes widened. Could Josel be with them, guiding them deeper into the heart of the mountain? Could he secretly be hoping to atone for his failure to get rid of the scientists by leading them to Dagon himself as sacrifices? Or perhaps he hoped to interrupt the ritual and needed the mainlanders to help him?

  The Elder grunted impatiently, waiting for a decision. The other Dark Ones stood behind him, grunting and hissing. The boy motioned toward the right hand fork and darted down its dark recess. The Dark Ones followed.

  The moment the boy made this decision he felt his senses become more in tune. He was heading down the right path. Keoni had taken the scientists this way. Why he’d done so didn’t matter. This way would spell certain death for them if Keoni took them too far. The boy was fairly certain Keoni would become lost, would stumble around in the dark not knowing which way to go once he reached the middle level of the catacombs, and that’s when the boy and the Dark Ones would meet them. Then it would be over.

  With a new burst of confidence, the boy gestured ahead of him. They’re this way, he beckoned, urging the Dark Ones on. The Elder grunted behind him. The boy felt a sense of trust from the ancient Dark One, and with that trust came a sudden burst of confidence. He was going to find Keoni and the mainlanders. He was going to lead the Dark Ones to them. They were going to be his sacrifices to the Dark Ones.

  They were going to be his ticket to salvation.

  And if the Elder somehow did not see this sacrifice as being worthy enough…if he still felt the boy did not deserve to live because of his people’s inability to keep the white people off the island…

  …then at least he would die knowing he’d served Dagon to the end of his dying day.

  Tony was practically on the edge of his seat as they approached Naranu. He stared out the window as the plane glided over the island. At first glance, it seemed like a lush, if somewhat forbidding, tropical paradise. Even in the darkness, he could see clearly. The moon was full— almost swollen—and bright. There was lush vegetation everywhere. A vast coral reef, dotted with spires, bordered one edge of the oval shaped landmass. A few small fishing boats floated amidst several artificial canals that had been bored into the reef. After the coral reef was a white, sandy beach studded with coconut palms and banana groves. The vegetation grew thicker farther inland with the presence of pineapple, pandanu, and tomano trees. Lagoons were scattered across the jungle floor. Jagged limestone pinnacles erupted from the flora, reaching skyward. In the center of the island was a large volcanic peak, surrounded by rock and sharp coral cliffs.

  At first glance, Tony had never seen anything more breathtakingly beautiful in his entire sordid life. He longed to see it in the daylight. But the awe-inspiring majesty was marred by the marauding presence of hundreds of Clickers and Dark Ones. They swarmed over the island’s entirety, destroying everything in their path. A vast force seemed to be marching toward the mountain. From this height, they looked like hideous, deformed ants. Several fires flickered at various points on the island, seemingly unchecked and belching smoke into the sky.

  “Jesus,” Clark whispered beside him. “Look at that.”

  “Yeah,” Tony agreed. “Those goddamn things sure do know how to fuck shit up.”

  “I was in the White House during the invasion,” Clark said. “And what I saw wasn’t very pretty, but I never really got a good look at the bigger picture. Everything I experienced was localized—not large scale like this. The pictures on the news afterward didn’t really do it justice.”

  “I don’t think pictures could do it justice,” Tony said. “The only

  way to really understand what those crab-lobster-scorpion fucks and their iguana masters are capable of is to see them in action for yourself.”

  “The Dark Ones are capable of much more than even you know,” Amethyst said. “If you knew what I know—”

  Tony waved his hand dismissively. “Thanks, Amethyst. That’s very helpful. If you want to be useful, how about getting me another drink. Wouldn’t want one of the seven most important people in the world to be thirsty now, would we?”

  If the operative responded to the taunt, Tony couldn’t tell because at that moment, his ears began to pop, signaling their rapid descent. Soon, they soared in over the landing strip. The small runway was bordered by swaying grass on the left and ocean on the right, and illuminated by sodium lights. There was a diminutive building at the
end of the runway, which they were taxiing toward now. There was no sign of any other buildings or vehicles, much less a control tower. Unlike the rest of the island, the area seemed to be free of rampaging sea creatures and untouched by the widespread destruction.

  As the plane rolled down the runway, Tony spotted a series of white stone markers spread out at even intervals between the jungle and the complex. He wondered if they were phosphorescent—they glowed in the darkness. He glanced out of the other side of the plane and saw matching stones on the far side of the landing zone. They seemed to form a large circle, completely surrounding the area.

  The jet braked to a halt. The whine of the engines slowly faded. Tony yawned, cracking his jaw and popping the pressure that had built up in his ears. His head began to ache slightly and he felt a tightness in his chest, in his gut. It couldn’t be nerves. Tony had never been nervous before a job in his life. Next to him, Clark undid his seatbelt, stood up, and then stretched. The operatives did the same. Clark rubbed his forehead. “Fuck, just what I need.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A fucking headache.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting one too.” Tony replied. “I’d kill for some Advil.”

  The Black Lodge agents were silent as they retrieved jackets and bags.

  “So where’s the limo?” Tony asked.

  Silence from behind him and from the next aisle. Tony traded a glance with Clark, who gave him a slight grin. At least the ex-Secret Service guy got the joke.

  “I take it that Naranu does not get many international flights,” Clark said.

  “That is correct,” Onyx said. “This is a private landing strip. It’s nowhere near the populated areas of the island. In fact, most of the people who live here don’t even know about it.”

  “The people who live here?” Tony quipped. “You mean all twelve of them?”