James Palmer - Shadows Through Time

Burton squeezed his eyes shut and gagged, thankful that he hadn’t yet eaten. He began muttering a Sufi meditation technique, which helped calm his jangled nerves. When he thought he had a handle on things he reopened his eyes, pleased to find that everything had once again returned to normal.

But for how long?

Burton hailed a carriage and had the driver take him to the meeting place of the Theosophic Society. If he was lucky, he could still catch Swinburne and Goforth as they left the meeting.

Burton loitered about the entrance to the Theosophic Society, which met in a white-columned building near Piccadilly Circus. He received wary glances from the doorman and departed, moving to an outdoor cafe across the street. The policeman Abberline had put on Goforth was nowhere to be seen. After half an hour the doors opened, and a group of men and women spewed forth from the open portal. Taking up the rear were Swinburne and Goforth, who looked even more chummy than they had when they had entered. Burton had no idea what sort of discussion they had, but it appeared as if it agreed with them. They laughed and smiled, nodding at some of the others as the throng broke up and everyone went their separate ways, walking or hailing carriages and hansoms, which seemed to suddenly appear at the curb as soon as the doors opened. Swinburne and Goforth eschewed transportation and instead walked east toward Coventry Street, nearing Burton’s position. He pretended to be interested in the newspaper someone had left behind on the table as they passed, both talking in a strange language Burton, for all his linguistic skill, couldn’t identify.

Burton set the paper down and waited a beat for them to pass by, then got up and followed them through a maze of streets. So intent were they on conversing in that queer tongue of theirs and gawking at the city’s architecture that they failed to register Burton’s presence.

As Burton listened to them, he picked up on something even more strange. They weren’t fully utilizing the peculiar language they spoke to one another, but instead peppered it with English. Burton picked up random words like ‘maker’, ‘building’ and ‘watch.’ It was almost as if Swinburne and this Goforth had developed a bizarre pidgin dialect, and Burton feared he knew why.

The two men turned right and down a narrow lane lined with shops—a candle maker’s, a haberdasher’s, and, down at the far end, a watchmaker’s. Swinburne and Goforth strode purposefully toward this establishment, and Burton stopped to stare into the window of the candle shop, where a tradesman practiced his art with consummate skill, smiling at Burton while hovering over a vat of boiling wax.

Burton waited until the two men had entered the watch shop before turning his attention toward them, moving cautiously to the window of the watchmaker’s and peering carefully inside. That was when he heard a noise he had hoped he would never hear again.

It was the unmistakable oily sliding sound of a shoggoth. Burton turned and glanced to his right, down a narrow alley between two shops. The blasphemous blob was gurgling toward him, sliding along the cobbles, its repugnant iridescence catching the light and highlighting the skeletal remains of vermin trapped within its undulating matrix. Gripped by surprise and fear, Burton failed to act before the loathsome entity had excreted from the narrow alley and interposed itself between Burton and the way he had come.

“Bismillah!” Burton swore, and broke into a run, diving into another narrow alley across from the watch shop. Burton huffed, in a panic. He had never seen a shoggoth out in broad daylight. The implications were dire. But he could only worry about that if he lived to tell the tale. Burton ran for his life, emerging at the far end of the narrow passage into a quiet and dingy side street, not a single solitary soul in evidence. He glanced behind him and caught a flash of pulsing ooze as the shoggoth slid easily up the alley, its bulk conforming to every ledge, every cornice, every bit of debris that would slow down a biped held upright by an internal skeleton.

Burton dashed to the right, looking around frantically for anyone who might be able to offer any assistance. He knew there was nowhere he could run that the shoggoth could not catch him. The amorphous blob could slide easily into any crevice or keyhole. But in his panicked mind, he thought his only hope was to find solace in some other, some group. Perhaps if he attracted attention to it, the shoggoth would slink away.

Burton pounded on doors and shouted up at second story windows. But no movement was evident behind the dark glass, and no one opened up to allow him entry. He moved to a brown brick building at the end of the lane, pounding on the solid wooden door there. At his surprise it opened inward, causing Burton to fall into the dim portal beyond. He fell against a large barrel chest and looked up to see a bristly black beard and two wide staring eyes. Familiar eyes.

“Challenger!”

Professor George Edward Challenger stared down at the explorer, a grim expression on his face. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he had a quivering energy about him. “Quick! Get inside!”

Challenger gripped Burton by the front of his shirt and hauled him through the doorway, then stepped out past the dazed and startled explorer. Burton saw he had something in his left hand, a long length of curving brass that smelled strongly of kerosene. Burton’s eyes widened as he noticed a flame sputtering furtively from the device’s far end. Challenger took aim at the shoggoth and pulled a trigger, and the little spark grew into a jet of fire that enveloped the shoggoth. “Go back to hell, you putrescent bastard!” Challenger yelled, uttering a maniacal laugh as the shoggoth writhed in the flames that danced along its bulk. Its many bubble-like eyes puckered and popped along its length, and a noxious sea-stench mixed with burning kerosene assaulted Burton’s nostrils. He stood in the doorway as the shoggoth slid away from them, its volume slowly reduced by the destroying flames. It slipped into a storm drain on the opposite side of the street and they saw it no more.

Challenger dowsed his flame and spun toward Burton. “Get inside, damn your eyes! Before they see!” He pushed Burton inside and slammed the door, locking it with a heavy set of bolts made redundant by the sheer number of them. “Come on,” blurted Challenger, and Burton followed him up a winding staircase to the topmost floor of the building he occupied.

“Bismillah!” Burton found himself standing in Challenger’s infamous museum, where he displayed the unusual array of artifacts he’d collected on his much-publicized trip to South America, a trip cloaked as much in mystery as it was in outlandish blandishments. Burton now believed his story. A small triceratops skull sat across the room upon a broad pedestal, its empty eye sockets staring. A lump formed in Burton’s stomach as he realized it wasn’t a fossil, but actual bone . His eyes darted between display cases filled with similar finds and grainy photographs of Challenger’s black porters standing next to titanic creatures that had been shot. Creatures the world at large thought extinct. “This place is amazing.”

“Thank you,” said Challenger as he moved to a window to look down on the street below. His head moved warily from side to side, and he pulled the shades before turning toward Burton and tossing his strange flame gun onto the floor with a heavy thud. “Welcome to my museum.”

“What is that thing?” asked Burton, pointing to the exotic weapon.

“I call it a Shoggoth gun. It’s a flame-thrower. Fire is the only thing that seems to kill them.”