I don't know if "Black Utopia" is a fitting title anymore.
But, here is the revised version. I'm even less happy with it than I was with the original.
I cut out half of the story and it still ended up being a page longer than before.
I don't actually expect anyone to read it here, but I need an excuse to update.
Again, if the format from Word didn't carry over, I can't be bothered to go through and fix it all.
Enjoy. Or not.
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Light mist settled on the windshield, obscuring the view. James switched on his electric wipers and they slowly jerked across the window, smearing dirt across it. Squinting, he tried to find his turn off in the misty winter-evening light. The headlights in his car were about as effective as the wipers. On a hill in the distance he saw lights- lit windows in a mansion of titanic size. He knew he was near where he should be.
He found his turnoff and slid in the mud, but made the turn. After bumbling around on a dark trail for a couple of minutes, he found his objective and pulled to a stop next to the first police car he found; it said “Arkham Police” on the door. He got out and pulled out his ID wallet and handed it to the first officer he saw. “Kowalski, FBI. Can you take me to the officer in charge?”
The cop nodded and handed the wallet back, he was wearing his black police frock coat with the collar up to keep out the dampness. James followed him through the fog. Ahead of him was a tall hill of exposed rock, at its base was a circle of cars with their headlights pointing at a black opening in the side of the hill, dug into the rock. Men in long, dark coats and police uniforms paced around and talked in small groups. Some carried weapons and looked into the blackness of the opening.
One broke away from his group and walked toward James. “You must be Agent Kowalski?” he said.
“Yes. Do you want to see my credentials?”
“That won’t be necessary, sir. I’m Captain Bannon. I guess you want to know the situation.” It wasn’t a question.
James nodded, “I wasn’t told much--only that the Utopians might have kidnapped a girl.”
“Not just any girl. They took the mayor’s daughter. Did it in broad daylight, too. Grabbed her as she was leaving her father’s house and drove away. We have a witness that says the car went into this mine,” he gestured at the black chasm, “and haven’t come out. We have reason to believe that the mine shaft connects with the mansion at the top of the hill- you know who lives there…”
James grunted, “The Utopians.”
“Yep. We’re sure it was them. We’re trying to find any maps of these mines, but the old Arkham Mining Company went out of business almost a hundred years ago.”
“Yeah,” James nodded, “Something about ghosts or demons and the workers wouldn’t go into the mines anymore. It’s just a story- a myth.”
“People around here put a lot of stock in myth.” Bannon went silent and looked at the mine entrance. He sighed, “You probably want to talk to the witness.”
The witness was about sixty pounds of desiccated flesh. “I come over in ’73,” he spoke in a German accent, “nothing more denn ein Junge. But even back den, these people were here. They live in das große Wohnhaus…what is the word…mansion! The mansion on the hill. They make worship to their heathen gods. They have killed. They take people who get too close. They--”
James held up his hand. “Did you see a car enter the mine?”
“Ja, I did.” The old man answered. “They came down the trail and went inside.”
“And what were you doing at the time?” James looked deeply into the old man’s faded blue eyes.
“I was hunting. I had my Craig rifle- I fought for America you know. Joined das Heer. Kept my rifle when I left. Good rifle.”
“That’s all I need, sir.” James walked away, towards the mine, and motioned for Bannon to follow him. “This is bad procedure, but we need to go in there.”
“That is bad. We should wait for morning. Maybe call in more of your Fed boys.”
“Mr. Hoover made it clear to me that political pressure is being placed upon the Bureau to take swift action.”
“Hoover? The President?”
“No, the vacuum maker. Of course not the President- J Edgar Hoover. Please tell me you’ve heard of him.”
“Mr. Kowalski, I do not appreciate your sarcasm.”
James nodded, “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. Anyway, I need two of your best men.”
“Pemberton and Miller.”
***
James looked at the two officers, each with a shotgun on his shoulder. They were middle-aged and clearly experienced. “Either of you seen any action?”
Pemberton nodded, “We was in the 26th Division, 101st Regiment. Both of us. We fought at Soissons and St Mihel.”
James smiled, “Good.”
“What about you, sir?” Asked Miller, “You seen any action?”
Nodding, James said, “First Battalion, 339th. Fought the Reds.”
“Cold, eh?” Pemberton laughed. James forced a smile.
“Look,” James said, “you two know how bad an idea this is. But it’s something we have to do. There are rumors about people who let Mr. Hoover down, and I do not want to see if they’re true.” He picked up his Thompson and slung it on his shoulder. “I wish we had these in Archangel.”
The three were handed flashlights by other officers and they walked into the mine. The yellow glow from their flashlights illuminating narrow shafts of darkness, they relied on their hearing to determine what was ahead of them. As James pointed his flashlight down the mineshaft, the two officers searched around them. One grunted and gestured to an old overturned mine cart with “Arkham Mining Corporation” in large white letters on its side. The beam shifted from the cart to one of the supporting beams and an old oil lantern. James gingerly walked over to it; his flashlight aimed at the floor of the mine, and rummaged in his picket for a book of matches, struck one and held it to the wick. It lit. One of the officers gasped.
James spun around and saw nothing in the dim yellowish light cast by the aged panes of glass in the lantern. “What?” he asked.
Pemberton, his face pale white, pointed down the shaft. “Something moved down there. Something not human.”
Miller chuckled, “Looks like Pemberton’s got a case of the willies.”
“I’m serious!” he shouted, “I saw something.” His voice echoed in the mine.
James nodded, “I believe you, but it’s not there now. Let’s-” A voice came from down the mineshaft.
“Help…” the voice cried, “I’m down here! Help me…please hurry! They’re here!”
“We’re coming!” shouted Pemberton as he pulled out his sidearm, Miller follow suit.
They followed the voice down a side tunnel, unsupported by the usual timber frame seen in mines and the passage seemed…newer. Every few yards lay a discarded and broken pick or hammer and chisel. The walls turned from dirt to loose rock. The tunnel opened up into a deep, dark room. The three police stopped.
“Hello?” asked James into the room.
“I’m over here!” shouted the voice, very close now. They worked their way to the right along the wall. Their flashlights couldn’t reach far into the inky blackness.
Soon they found a wooden shack and heard sobbing from inside. Breaking their way in, they found a teenage girl in a fetal position, crying. It was the girl they were looking for.
She looked up with teary eyes and said, “They’re coming. Can’t you hear them?”
James listened carefully and sure enough, he heard scratching and dragging of feet. A wet breathing sounded from the outside of the shed. Pemberton aimed his gun alongside his flashlight and slowly scanned the outside through the door. Carefully, he poked out and scanned around, then left.
A few seconds later, gunfire erupted and the girl screamed. But she was drowned out by a shrill, inhuman howl of pain and torment. It died as quickly as it started and silence took the shed.
“Pemberton?” asked Miller, “Pemberton, you out there?” He too scanned the outside and almost instantly began firing. After emptying his gun, he grabbed the door and flung it shut and backed himself against it.
“I saw it,” the officer said, his voice breaking, “blood on its hands. We gotta get out of here.”
“What was it?” asked James.
“Satan.” The girl answered.
“What?” Miller looked at her, wide-eyed, “I think I killed the one I shot. But, I saw others. Must be the every devil out of hell out there.”
“Ok,” said James, “how do we get out of here?”
They began searching the shed with their flashlights. James stopped as his light illuminated some drawings on the one rock wall. He stood and looked closer.
One depicted a person being devoured by a squid. Another was a dozen stick figures bowing to a star with a flame in the middle. Letters were scrawled beneath it.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Ia Cthulhu! Ia Shub-Niggurath!
As James tried to figure out what those words meant, a pounding began on the wall next to him, opposite the door.
Miller sighed, “You run with the girl. We follow the wall until we find the tunnel. You get the hell out of here, I’ll cover us and meet you outside.” He took the shotgun from his shoulder and made sure it was loaded.
James just nodded and turned to the girl. She was sobbing again. The pounding on the shack’s wall got louder and the boards began to loosen. James dropped his Thompson, pulled the girl up and slung her over his shoulder. He nodded to Miller, who yanked the door open and fired into the face of the creature on the other side.
Not stopping to look at what it was, James ran as fast as he could. Every few steps, the officer would pause and fire a shot behind him. James slowed and looked around with his flashlight. “I think we took a wrong turn…” The girl struggled on his shoulder and he put her down.
“I remember,” she said, “It’s this way.” She ran down the shaft, Kowalski and Miller followed. After a few turns, she stopped. “Hand me your flashlight.” She took it and threw it to the ground, breaking it.
“What the hell did you do that for?” yelled Miller.
She laughed. “Fooled you.”
The sound of scratching came from all around. James fumbled in his pocket for his matches but only managed to drop them. He felt around on the ground for them and his hands found something wet and scaly- it moved away. The girl’s voice was a whisper in his ear, “The master has been expecting you.”
James tried to jump up and run, but something hit him in the head and ringing filled his ears. He dropped to his knees and the world faded out.
***
James was standing in the middle of a huge paved road, a road like he had never seen. Signs suspended above told of upcoming cities and places to eat. There were abandoned cars scattered across all lanes like discarded peanut shells. A strange, watery voice talked in his mind, “The future.” In the blink of an eye he walked for miles until he overlooked a vast metropolis, overgrown by forest. Tarnished metal buildings without windows towered into the clouds. A large green sign read “Chicago”. The voice returned to his mind, “A future you can stop.” Suddenly, darkness fell on the city before him and a huge appendage, a tentacle, descended from the clouds and ripped a vast swath out of the tallest of the buildings. It seemed to take forever to fall.
He heard footsteps behind him but couldn’t take his eyes off of the city. “It’s terrible, isn’t it?” asked the watery voice. James nodded and turned.
Next to him was a fish, walking like a man.
It said, “This is what happens if what is planned takes place. You will find yourself in a unique position.”
James just nodded.
“Do not accept your fate.” The fish-man pulled a handkerchief out of thin air and pressed it to James’ face. He blacked out.
He awoke to the sound of thunder. Light flashed in front of his eyes, illuminating steep canyon walls of basalt. Scraggly bushes poked out from cracks in the rock. Lightning creased the dark sky, throwing shadows from the bushes across the ground like the arms of slaves begging for release from a sadistic overseer. Ahead, a steady stream of light poured into the sky from the end of the canyon.
He moved ahead, not feeling his les move nor hearing his own footsteps. Chanting filled the air, a language he could not imagine being spoken by a human tongue. Undulating sound carried him forward, toward the light.
He came to the end of the canyon and stood on the edge of a great chasm. The chanting was reverberating off the walls, shaking the world under him. Stones rose from the chasm, forming a walkway to the middle. Lighting flashed and as the light cleared, a large platform appeared in the middle of the blackness. He walked to it.
On the platform rested a stone altar. He felt himself move to the side of it and a hooded figure came from behind him and lay on it. The hood fell backward to reveal James’ face. The chanting grew louder again. A second hooded figure emerged and pulled back his hood to reveal a man remarkably similar to him, but different. The rocks all around him shook with the sound of chanting. The standing figure pulled a knife from his sleeve and held it over the laying figure. The knife was thrust down, the chanting ended and he felt himself falling into the silent black chasm.
He fell and fell, the wind whistling past his ears. There was a light below. He heard footsteps and a girl laughing. “Fooled you,” a voice behind him said. The light below grew more and more intense. There was a rock floor coming up to meet him. He hit with a wet thump.
***
James opened his eyes, but couldn’t tell if he was blind or not. There was absolutely no light. Two sets of hands lifted him up to his feet, and he found he could stand and walk. He still couldn’t see and felt his way up the pair of hands on his left. They felt cold and clammy. There was the smell of rotten meat in the air.
“Agent Kowalski,” an educated east coast voice spoke out of the darkness, “it will take your eyes some time to adjust to the darkness.”
James tried to look around, but the pounding pain from the back of his head prevented him from moving too much. Out of the inky blackness four hooded shadows resolved into form.
“I can’t see your faces.” James said.
“Indeed, that is the point,” said the same voice, “You would not appreciate it. There is a dark side to this fabled utopia which has been created.”
“Utopia?”
“We do not have time to explain. Take this and think on it.” The educated voice pressed something into James’ hand. “Don’t try to look at it now. When you are in the light, take it in your hand and then look at it. Ask yourself where it comes from.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. Now, let’s go. He awaits.”
They pulled James down a black passageway; the only sound was the scraping of his feet on the ground. He slowly noticed the rotten odor getting stronger as he was pulled further down the passage. After several minutes, the passageway opened into a cavern. Lit torches illuminated the shores of an underground river. He was being pulled towards a flat bottomed barge, a ferry, moored on this side of it.
One of the cloaked figures walked ahead and tapped on the bow with his foot. A old, crackly voice came from it, “What?” A man sat up from inside the boat. The man smiled, his teeth were perfect even if the rest of his body was weathered and wrinkled like an old pair of boots. “This the one that’s ‘spected?”
“Indeed.” said the educated voice.
“Ya’ll best get in, then. I’ll take you across.”
They piled in the barge and the old man pushed them across the river with a long pole.
On the other side were a timber dock and a simple wooden door set in a sheer rock wall. The figures pulled James up to it and knocked. The door opened in a cascade of light. He was pushed through the door and another set of arms grabbed him on the other side and pulled him up an echoing set of stairs. James, blinded by the light, saw nothing. He was pulled down a hallway, footsteps cushioned by thick carpeting and then unceremoniously thrown onto the floor and sank into the carpeting an inch. His vision was coming back, the carpet was red.
James looked up and around. There was the red carpet and everything else was golden, but it all had a strange white luminous hue. It didn’t really look like gold, but a deep, inherently human feeling told him that it, indeed, was. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the object given to him and it was a coin cast from the same gold substance. Written on it, in black lettering was: “Save us.” James turned it over and on the opposite side it read “Kill him.”
“What is that?” asked a voice that James could have sworn was his own, but it came from across the room. His head bolted upright and he squinted to focus his eyes just a little better. He saw himself, or almost himself. A man, about his height, and a near-mirror image was standing across the room. He was decked out in a finely tailored black suit with a red shirt and black tie. He wore a luminous golden chain around his neck and white gloves were tucked into his lapel pocket. “Ah,” he said as he walked forward, “A coin.”
James rubbed the coin and the writing smeared away. He looked up again. “Do I know you? Because I swear I’m looking into a mirror.” He put the coin in his pocket.
“No, you don’t know me. But you soon will.”
“Yes. We’ll get to know each other real good because you’re under arrest.”
His doppelganger laughed, “Under what authority?”
“The game’s up, buddy. I’m Agent Kowalski, FBI.”
“Kowalski? What a ridiculous name. And not your real name, either.”
James started to respond, but was silenced by a swipe of his doppleganger’s hand.
“Your real name is ‘Stuart’. James Stuart. I know because I am your brother, Edward. Your twin brother. You ran away from our parents when you were a child and were picked up by the state and adopted by that vile immigrant family you think is your own.”
James reached for his shoulder holster, only to find it empty.
Edward continued, “But now that is corrected. I have conspired to bring you here and now the covenant can be sealed.”
“You brought be here? You kidnapped the girl?”
Edward laughed again, “Hardly. She willingly joined in my plan, as did her father and many of the police officers.”
“Pemberton and Miller?”
“Ignorant peons. They had no idea they were being sacrificed for the greater good.”
“Bastard. I’ll have you arrested.”
Edward smiled. “Never mind that…,” He searched for the word, “inconsequential business. You must help me. I know this is sudden- we’ve only just been reunited after years - but I don’t care. I am on the brink of the greatest event in human history and I need your help to bring it about. Look around you.” Edward raised his arms and swept around the large palatial room, like a throne room. “This magnificent place is but one tiny fraction of the wealth given to me. My world is literally paved in it. My walls are clad in it. And it is all a gift. The coin you possess is part of it. We cannot reject it. We cannot give it back. This is course that must be followed.
“You stand there, looking confused, as if I am insane. But I tell you that this is evidence of the wonders that await the human race. Utopia for all! Peace and wealth for all! No hunger, no sickness, no neediness!” His eyes burned in ferocity. “Freely given to us by our benefactors! All of humanity will thank me for bringing it about!”
Edward turned, pointing at the far wall. Slowly, on cue, the gilded wall parted at the middle, revealing a grand staircase heading down. A gust of damp, sour air plowed across the room and shocked James into action.
“What are you talking about…uh, Edward?” He asked. “Benefactors? I’m not here for any of this. All I wanted was to find the girl.”
“Forget the girl, James,” Edward shouted, “This is far more important! You are witness to the dawn of a new age! Follow me.”
Just then two sets of arms grabbed him on either side, pulled him to his feet and led him toward the stairway. The smell was…rotten. The dampness made it stick in his nose and it got worse as he neared the stairs themselves.
The staircase was sharply sloped downward into darkness. James recoiled from it. It was the same luminous gold, but was tarnished in the creases of its ornately carved balustrade. They were shaped like squid tentacles and were decorated with a strange symbol that frightened James at the very core of his being. He had seen it in the mine, alongside that alien writing: a five pointed star with a flaming eye in the middle. They were on every individual baluster. The banister was also gold, but worked to resemble a giant snake, slithering down into the depths.
“Heed my warning,” said the person to his right, he sounded like the educated shadow, “and don’t believe what he says. He means to destroy the world, to kill all of us. Look at the gold, it does not come from this world. Throw it away. Stop him. You are the only one who can.”
James’ reply was hushed by a low growl. It took him a while to realize that it came from his brother, who had his arms up again and was slowly descending the stairs. James listened closely and realized that Edward was quietly chanting to himself. He couldn’t hear the words as he was pulled and pushed down the stairs after him.
As darkness enveloped him, James felt himself jerked to a stop. His own face appeared before him. “What you are about to see, James,” his brother said, “Is a secret. But will be revealed soon. It is the portal to the future. Come.” Edward turned away and James was pushed fully into the darkness and ran, face first, into something. Flames came to life to his sides, torches, and he saw what he had hit.
It was a door. Not gilt, as the rest of the walls he had seen were, but ancient timbers, bound together by massive wrought iron bars. Edward walked up to it, mumbling something, and they opened outwards, pushed up lumpy robed figures who were also mumbling a chant. He signaled for the group to continue.
Through the door was a massive cave, carved out of the living rock. Illuminated by torches and by a giant crack in the ceiling, which let in a single spear of light from above, it was amazing. James followed the beam of light from the ceiling down to the floor only to realize that it was a giant pit, so deep that the light was trapped inside.
The dank, rotten smelling air seemed to pulse. First it was pushing on his face, and then it was coming from behind him, as if the cave itself was breathing.
On the edge of the pit was a platform with what looked like an elevator. Robed figures were turning a crank, pulling something up from the pit. As it neared the light, James saw the strangely iridescent gold. It was being pulled up from the pit.
“A mine?” James asked no one in particular.
“No.” said his brother from the edge of their narrow walkway. “That hole leads deep underground. The pit is the connection to our benefactors.”
“Impossible.” James could not wrap his mind around it.
“Yes, it is impossible. But it simply is anyway. Come, let’s go down to the edge.”
James was pushed down a set of rickety wooden stairs and looked at the cave wall as he went. It was full of tool marks. “Impossible.” James said again.
“No, James, very possible. A people with a vision can achieve anything. As Archimedes said, 'If you give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world’. And I have. We,” Edward put his arms out, as if to hug the cave, “did it all.”
James and Edward stood at the very edge of the pit. It wasn’t the cave breathing, it was the pit itself. The rotten smell was overwhelming.
Edward shouted, “Let it begin!”
On cue, robed figures appeared from the shadows all around the pit. Edward put his arms up. “Ia Cthulhu! Ia!” he shouted. The people responded in kind.
Edward chanted, “Since the dark times before time itself, the old ones waited. Their world was taken from them and given to lesser creatures, mere mortals.”
“Ia!” chanted the congregation.
“We are inheritors of this world, a world which is not our own. But we see the light. We see salvation.”
“Ia!”
“The old ones wait in the void between worlds. Their messenger, Cthulhu, calls for us and them.”
“Ia Cthulhu!”
“He gifts us with wealth and prosperity. We gift him with sacrifice.”
“Ia!”
Another group of robed figures emerged onto the elevator platform, four of them, dragging a man behind them. James saw that it was Miller. Edward turned to him and said, “He’s a worthy sacrifice.” Then he turned back to the pit. “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming,”
“Ia Cthulhu!” chanted the congregation.
“Cthulhu fhtagn! Cthulhu waits!”
“Ia!”
The figures on the elevator platform pulled Miller to his feet and edged him toward the blackness below.
James pleaded, “Edward, you can’t do this.”
Edward turned back to him, burning torches reflected in his eyes, “No. He will not believe as we do. So he will be one with Cthulhu, our benefactor. Our savior.”
James shut his eyes and Edward turned away.
“As great Cthulhu gives us wealth and power, so we must in turn give to him. We cannot give back what we were given, so we give of ourselves.”
“Edward,” James said quietly, “it’s not too late. You can walk away. Throw the gold back down and bury it.”
“You refuse to understand, brother, what is given to us cannot be given back. It would be an affront to our benefactor. We accept of him and give of ourselves. Watch.”
On the platform, the robed people rocked themselves back and forth, chanting. Miller seemed to be drugged and chanted with them. Then as one, the four jumped off the edge with the Miller in their arms. They did not make a sound. No one did. After several minutes of silence, the assembled crowd quietly said, “Ia Cthulhu.”
Edward raised his arms and said, “A portal will be opened! Ready yourselves! Cthulhu is prepared to bring his people back into their world! We will usher them…”
Edward continued as James slowly walked around behind him. He thought, we cannot give back what we have been given…it will anger whatever is down there. He looked down at the coin he was given. And then he looked at the pit.
The educated shadow behind him walked up behind him and said, “Yes. Do it. End this. We cannot.”
James turned and looked at him, “Why?” he asked, “Why can’t you?”
The man pulled back his robe hood. His skin had a greenish hue, his mouth was fish-like. James noticed, for the first time, that his hands were webbed. His eyes had green whites and his pupils were narrow slits. “You see,” the educated one said between needle-like teeth, “We are transformed into servants of the master. I can walk to the edge. I can want to drop it in, but I cannot. The master has that control over us. Save us. Save the world. Drop the coin.”
James turned and looked at his brother, arms raised, chanting. Something had been lowered from the ceiling, an octagonal ring. It had a glowing triangular green light at each corner. It seemed to hum and the pit’s breathing seemed to get stronger.
James slowly walked up beside his brother, looked at him. His brother connected eyes with him. And he dropped the coin down the pit.
Edward’s eyes widened and appeared to bulge out of his head. “No!” he screamed and lunged at James, missed, and fell to the floor. The whole cave began to tremble. The robed figures around the pit scattered into the shadows. James ran towards where he had entered the cave and just as he reached the top of the stairs, they collapsed behind him. He stopped at the doorway and watched as a large chunk of the cave roof broke free and fell down into the pit. More pieces followed and the cave collapsed into itself.
He ran up the golden staircase and through room after room before breaking free into the night and into the waiting arms of a dozen men in trench coats. They gently lowered him to the ground. As he stared up into the stars, a face appeared above him, a flat nose, baby cheeks and cropped hair. “Agent Kowalski, what happened in there?” the man asked.
James smiled and stared through the face. “Hoover. Fish. Cthulhu. Cthulhu. Cthulhu. Cthul-” Hoover slapped him across his face.
“Make sense, man!” Hoover spat at him.
“Sir!” a voice in the distance shouted. “The lower levels and the mines underneath the building are all collapsed. But we did find this…”
James forced himself to sit up and saw two men pulling a fish-faced man from the mansion. He laughed. Hoover looked down at him. “What is it, Kowalski.”
James laughed, “My name is Stuart!” And he kept laughing.
Hoover shook his head and spoke to another agent. “Torch the mansion and throw that body inside. No one heard of this. Round up the insiders from the town on suspicion of alcohol traffic and let them rot in a cell until they talk.” He walked toward his car, but turned and pointed at James, who was laughing uncontrollably. “And send that laughing idiot to Arkham Asylum. I’m sure Dr. Wilson will understand that silence is essential.”
