Fools Motley Magazine

by Gregory Story

Down the corridor past doors agape like the mouths of the patients within, the heels of Evelyn’s sensible shoes clatter on the linoleum. The echoing claps seem to set a beat to the moans from inside the rooms. She looks neither left or right. Walking’s tough enough what with the roll of the seas causing the hall to sway to some subtle rhythm, and Evelyn doesn’t need a visual reminder that there are five hundred patients just like her mother aboard ship.

She pauses at a water fountain feeling slightly nauseous not just from the ever-present pitch and yaw, but also from the cloying, clammy mix of sea air and disinfectant. Steeling herself for the worst, Evelyn enters the cabin containing her mother. The old woman’s frail withered form lies on the bed loosely strapped in around the torso. Her pencil thin limbs tremble slightly with palsy.

“It’s beautiful on deck. I had no idea the Pacific was so blue,” Evelyn says with forced gaiety while seating herself on the bed just opposite.

The narrow room contains no other place to sit. The bedsprings creak as the ship rides the waves rolling her mother from side to side. Wraith-like, white skin splotched with liver spots and hanging limply on bone, the frail form doesn’t appear heavy enough to make such a racket. As Evelyn struggles to find something to say, the “eek, eek” of the springs is the only sound in the cramped compartment.

“I’ll have the attendants put you in a wheelchair so we can go for a stroll on deck if the sea calms this afternoon. Would you like that?” Evelyn asks.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’naagh fhtagn,” the old woman wheezes through her toothless sunken hole of a mouth.

“Well maybe not today. There seems to be a storm coming up,” Evelyn says biting down on her lip to keep back the tears.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’naagh fhtagn,” the old woman gibbers.

“I have to go now, mother. I’ll be back soon,” Evelyn says reaching out to squeeze a hand cramped into a claw.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’naagh fhtagn.”

On the promenade deck, Evelyn leans over the rail. The Pacific heaves like some baby blue blanket being tousled. She loves the color of the water. It mirrors the sky. Looking into this gorgeous depth’s a relief from the endless parade of wheelchairs passing behind her. Each contains some rough facsimile of her mother strapped in for support and bundled against a breeze that’s picking up.

“What was that?” Evelyn blurts wheeling around.

“I beg your pardon,” a tall man of forty replies.

“What’s that he’s saying? Evelyn says pointing to the old codger in the wheelchair the man’s pushing.

There’s no mistaking the sound. Through slavering lips, the old man keeps repeating, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’naagh fhtagn.”

“My father’s suffering from senile dementia. He’s been mumbling the same bit of doggerel for months. I’m told it’s common in these cases,” the man defensively replies.

“I know, but my mother keeps saying the same thing.

For the first time, Evelyn looks at the man wheeling the chair and likes what she see, erect bearing, sharp features, big shoulders tightly contained in a crisp blazer. Unconsciously, she tosses her head back letting her raven hair blow in the breeze painfully aware of how drab her shoes and pantsuit must seem, but the man smiles and wheels his chair around so he’s standing up close.

“Hell of a thing to have in common, isn’t it?” He says.

“Yes, you must think I’m awfully rude. This trip’s giving me the willies is all.”

“I know what you mean,” he says leaning over his father to adjust the blanket on the old man’s lap and then standing beside Evelyn at the rail. “It seemed like such a wonderful idea, a free cruise aboard a hospital ship. I thought it would be a nice way for dad to say goodbye to the world, but he isn’t even aware he’s aboard ship. None of them are. Just look at them.”

The man sweeps his hand towards a long line of wheelchairs being slowly pushed along the deck by loved ones or attendants. The occupants sit drooped and drooling. Evelyn feels the man grab her hand as a wheelchair passes in front of his father.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’naagh fhtagn,” the old crone in the chair is chanting.

The man’s father repeats the phrase as if in response.

“I don’t know about you, but I could sure use a drink. Will you join me in the Terrace Room after I drop off my father?”

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’naagh fhtagn,” another wheelchair rider says in passing.

“First round’s on me,” Evelyn replies.

In the cabin’s tiny bathroom, she hurriedly applies makeup. She’s put on a saucy sundress and changed out of her walking shoes into pumps and feels slightly dizzy with anticipation. So far, she’s learned his name’s Tod. He works as a CPA in Chicago, and strangely enough, his father’s in the care of the same physician as her mother though they live over a thousand miles apart.

The look in his eyes thrills her as she comes into the bar. Tarting up has had the desired effect. Tod grandly order a bottle "of your best champagne” and tells the barman to have it brought round to the first table on the patio overlooking the pool. It’s too depressing in the bar. People are hunched over their drinks getting quietly smashed. Their table outside gives a good view of the water now bristling with whitecaps.

“So how do we account for four people mumbling the same bit of nonsense?” Evelyn asks.

Tod waits for the waiter to pour the champagne and leave before speaking in hushed tones.

“It’s more than four. I’m not so sure all the patients on this ship aren’t saying the same thing. I must have heard half a dozen people babbling that line when I was wheeling my father back to his cabin.”

“But how can that be, and what does it mean?”

“It means in his house at R’lyeh, Cthulhu lies not dead but dreaming.”

Tod and Evelyn both stare at the speaker who sits at the next table over. He’s wearing the uniform of a ship’s officer. His shirt’s all a mess, and his voice is slurred. It’s obvious he’s been drinking heavily.

“At least that’s what I think it means,” he adds staring morosely into his drink. “It’s been about twenty years since I read Lovecraft, and all of his books and books about him have been stolen from the ship’s library. I know cuz I’m the librarian.”

“What language is it?” Tod demands.

“No language,” the librarian says and mirthlessly laughs. “It’s some chant that Lovecraft made up that’s supposed to summon a sea monster named Cthulhu up from his watery grave on the floor of the Pacific. Somehow, Doc Moffat’s got five hundred people who can’t even talk chanting the line. Just who is this guy?”

The librarian glares at Evelyn as if she should know. The look demands a response.

“He’s a specialist in geriatrics. He’s always been wonderful to my mother,” she says.

“And to my father,” Tod adds.

“Where’s he find the time? I’ve checked the registry. Everyone aboard’s listed as Doc Moffat’s patient, and they come from over a hundred different places all over the U.S. and Canada,” the librarian sneers.

Evelyn feels a chill across her bare shoulders. Spray from the pounding seas is starting to make their exposed position unpleasant.

“Hell, Doctor Moffat probably has his own Lear Jet. He’s an eminent man. He’s even on the president’s Council on Aging,” Tod says slamming his glass down for emphasis.

“Yeah, and maybe there’s more than one Moffat. Maybe there’s a whole coven of them. Maybe, just maybe, Lovecraft had it right, and there are whole herds of folk who worship elder gods,” the librarian says.

“You’re drunk,” Tod says.

“What say we find Doctor Moffat,” Evelyn says.”

She’s already risen from the table.

“Right,” says the librarian who gulps down the rest of his drink. “By the way, Cthulhu’s got a head like a squid squirming with tentacles, and his body’s as big as this ship. Just thought you should know.”

As they head back through the bar, Evelyn slips her hand around Tod’s waist for support and comfort. The pitch and roll is turning movement aboard ship into a fun house ride. People they encounter in their circuit down halls are having a hard time keeping their wheel-chaired patients under control. Round every corner it seems, some lost soul careens by chanting, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’naagh fhtagn.” The voices grow louder joining in a cacophonous chorus that echoes down passageways. The people manning the wheelchairs give desperate looks as they hurry by with their patients.

In the main dining salon, the din becomes terrific as dozens of elderly patients shriek the same syllables in unison to the beat of the ocean pounding the hull. Doctor Moffat can be seen at the head table surrounding by people in wheelchairs chanting. Even at a distance, he looks distinguished, a silver mane of swept-back hair, aquiline features, expensive blue suit covering a big well proportioned body. He seems to be enjoying some private joke and keeps nodding his head laughing.

The ship gives a sudden lurch sending everything not firmly anchored flying forward in a maelstrom of wheelchairs and dinnerware. A sickening grating like giant nails on a blackboard eclipses the maddening chant.

“We’ve run aground,” Tod shouts as the screeching reaches a crescendo like the shrill piping of a thousand flutes.

“But we’re only halfway to Hawaii.” Evelyn says.

“We’ve reached R’lyeh. We’re home,” Doctor Moffat announces and though there’s no further motion of the ship, the shrill piping of flutes continues.

It comes from somewhere outside the ship.

“Let’s find the librarian. Maybe he can explain,” Tod says as he and Evelyn break into a run.

“Do not flee, ye of little faith,” Dr. Moffat cries out behind them.

When Evelyn looks back, she sees she’s at the head of a pack, a whole crowd of people are fleeing, some rapidly rolling wheelchairs, others on their own. A contingent remains around Dr. Moffat, patients and their caretakers alike. The doctor is standing on a chair to hold forth.

“He is life everlasting. Can you deny the power that has brought you here? Join us and be one with the body.”

A series of bells and whistles have gone off. A voice comes over the intercom ordering everyone to proceed to their lifeboat stations. The main foyer outside the dining room is filled with commotion as orderlies and crewmen try to direct and assist panic-stricken passengers. Many are pushing someone in a wheelchair at speed through the traffic, and they’re going all different directions. Evelyn and Tod have to hurry up and stop repeatedly to keep from being run down in the rush by the elevators.

“I have to get my mother,” Evelyn blurts in the somewhat safer harbor of the large open area before the grand stairways.

“I have to get my father. What deck are you on?” Tod asks.

“E.”

“So am I. Let’s go back through the bar and take the outside stairs down. It’s best we know now what’s out there.”

They scoot through a vestibule into the dim recesses of the Terrace Room that leads out to the light. Some of the serious drinkers at the bar are determinedly downing their last. The librarian’s still at his table with the nice view, but now he’s wearing a hundred-mile stare looking out at a landscape of peculiar geometry.

The ship’s come to rest parallel a black sand beach. Beyond lies a dark plain of ancient basalt studded with monolithic columns. Even at distance, Evelyn spots hieroglyphics carved into the totems. The land’s slick with slime and seawater that pools in every declivity.

“Cthulhu, how was he stopped?” Tod asks the stupefied librarian pulling Evelyn up short next to the man’s table.

“I don’t remember that he was. I think he just ate some ship and went back to bed. Listen, that land can’t be out there. The ocean’s two miles deep here for a thousand miles in any direction,” the librarian says waving his empty glass at the fishy smelling panorama.

Now Evelyn points to the furthermost reaches of the new risen land. It’s starting to bend upward in a way solid rock shouldn’t be able to curve. Then the great sheet of black stone reveals its cleave, a yawning aperture as big as the ship lurks beneath the great ebony hatch. From out of its dark eminence wafts a noxious scent and a hellish piping of flutes.

“My God, are those sea serpents or something coming out of there?” Evelyn asks.

“I think they’re tentacles,” Tod replies.

The ship gives another lurch as it comes afloat again. The shoreline begins sinking underwater.

“Well, if we’re going ashore, we better get going before the whole bloody island sinks,” the librarian says rising wobbly out of his chair.

“Why would we want to go ashore?” Evelyn asks.

“Because he is there,” Dr Moffat says making a grand entrance from the Terrace Bar out onto the patio accompanied by a phalanx of patients in wheelchairs and their attendants.

“He be who?” Tod asks.

“Cthulhu, I promised him five hundred tasties, and I plan to deliver,” Dr. Moffat says in a voice oozing with confidence.

He rubs his hands together apparently warming to the subject and motions for everyone to move in close so they can hear. His voice has to compete with the sucking sound of the land slipping back beneath the sea.

“The lifeboats will be able to take us right up to the tomb entrance,” Dr. Moffat says.

“Where is it? The new risen land. It’s all gone now,” the librarian says stepping unsteadily towards the railing.

“Oh, but Cthulu’s still there. Come along now everyone. There’s a compliment of lifeboats on this deck. Just follow me,” the doctor says.

The alarm bells have ceased. A voice comes over the intercom announcing the emergency has passed, everyone may disperse from their lifeboat stations. The ship’s engines can be heard starting up, and there’s a reassuring thrust of propulsion. The seas seem to be calming, and the mysterious island’s nowhere in sight.

Dr. Moffat appears confused for a moment, and then very angry or frightened.

“What’s this? Trying to leave? Without Cthulu’s treats? He won’t like that. You don’t seem to understand who you’re dealing with here. He’s coming. He’s coming. He’s here,” the doctor screams as a tentacle rise up out of the water and envelops him around the waist.

Like a frog’s tongue snapping a bug, the whip fast appendage snatches the doctor clean off the ship before anyone can react. The movement’s so deft for something so massive. Evelyn and Tod rush for the rail to see where the doctor’s gone down. Staring intently into the bright blue water, Evelyn can see something dark and colossal below the surface.

“Is he going to eat the ship?” She asks snuggling closer to Tod.

“Maybe he already got what he came for,” he replies.

“That’s often the motif in these sorts of stories. The sorcerer who summons up an all-powerful monster via human sacrifice ends up being a sacrifice himself. I’m just glad I can honestly tell the authorities I was drinking heavily when I saw this,” the librarian says.

“How did the doctor manage to do all this?” Evelyn asks looking deep into Tod’s eyes.

Tod turns around with her so they face the cluster of wheelchairs.

The patients are slapping the padding in the armrests in unison. They move like automatons, no awareness in their actions.

“It’s Morse code,” the librarian says. “Want to know what their spelling”

“Yes,” Evelyn says.

“C - T - H - U - L - H - U.”

END

Published by Fools Motley Magazine, 2003. All rights are property of the author. Copying and distribution of this work is prohibited. Webpage designed by Fools Motley Magazine based on templates and images from www.angelfire.com . Backgrounds provided by www.coolarchive.com .