William Meikle - The Creeping Kelp

But somehow the statues didn’t seem worthy of too much attention. All Noble wanted to do was keep walking, heading in a straight line for some unknown destination. He felt dissociated from reality; strangely calm, while at the same time, screaming silently inside.

We’re walking into a trap.

He knew it and he suspected his companions knew it, but they all walked, eyes staring flatly ahead, heading for a point in the darkness at the far end of the space they had entered.

He was brought back to reality by a pain in his hand. Suzie had him in a grip so tight that he thought his fingers might break.

“Fight it,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “We must fight it.”

He found he was able to look around. They had walked further than he had thought.

Much further.

The entrance by which they’d come in to this chamber was lost in a dim distance. Light still filtered in from high overhead, but it was dimmer now than before.

The sun is going down.

The young Lieutenant walked just beyond Suzie. His jaw was set in a grimace and sweat ran down his forehead, but he did not seem able to stop walking.

Help me !

Noble tried to deviate from his path, to move towards the officer, but he found that, although he was able to move his head from side to side, that was all he was able to do. The compulsion that held sway in his mind had control and led him, and the others, onwards into the growing darkness.

It soon became apparent where they were going. At first, it looked like just another darker shadow, but as they approached, the rusted hull of a cargo ship loomed over them. It sat half-embedded in a thick sheet of rough plastic, looking as if it were afloat on a quiet, dark sea. But it was obvious that this vessel had not been seaworthy for a while—a hole in the keel wide enough to allow a truck to pass through attested to that. The hole was darker still than the surrounding chamber and Noble felt a chill seep into him as they were led inside.

He expected it to be fully dark as they made the transition to an interior space, but if anything, it was slightly lighter inside.

They walked into what had obviously been a cargo hold and suddenly, Noble remembered the words from more than half a century before.

I worry about breakages .

It was immediately apparent that the Shoggoths had built more than just the city around them. The hold was a cavern of ever-moving light, a luminescence that seemed to come from a spot in the centre of the space.

As they got closer, Noble started to make out details. It looked like nothing less than a blob of protoplasm, an amoeba grown to monstrous size. But as they approached, they could see that this was no natural construct. Its skin, if you could call it such, was a thin translucent sheet of polythene, ever shifting as the fluid contents inside flowed and swam. Deep inside, almost invisible in the viscous fluid, there was a darker spot the size of a football.

And that’s what has hold of us .

They were brought to a halt only six feet from the thing’s perimeter—all but one of them. One of the marines kept walking, straight at the thing. It surged and enveloped him in folds of plastic. He immediately started to melt. His face took on a contorted, pained expression, but no more than it would if he’d had a toothache. Even as his flesh sloughed off he kept walking forward. It all took place in complete silence and none of the marine’s companions moved to help him. Suzie’s grip on Noble’s hand tightened, but that was the only sign of anything amiss.

They all stood watching as the young marine was assimilated, broken down into first meat and bone, then further digested, until all that remained to show he’d been there was a scrap of khaki cloth and a pink stain in the fluid matrix. His weapon seemed to hang for a while in the fluid before sinking slowly towards the ground.

The last hint of pink slowly faded. In the far distance, the now-familiar chant went up again.

Tekeli Li. Tekeli Li.

Noble felt Suzie’s grip loosen on his hand.

She started to walk forward.

He screamed in his mind

No!

But no sound came from his mouth. Suzie was within touching distance of the plastic skin of the creature. The thing shifted, opening a passage for her to walk in so that it could then enfold her.

Noble remembered the scrap of burnt material in the jar back in the lab and the way it had recoiled from him when he concentrated. He filled his mind with a picture of the kelp burning as the acid hit it and threw it towards the darker spot inside the fluid.

It flinched.

Noble reached out and found he was able to move. He grabbed Suzie by the arm and dragged her backwards, just in time as the creature surged towards her. Wings of stretched polythene opened above both Noble and Suzie.

We’re done for.

But the momentary lapse in the creature’s grip on them had allowed the marines to move. The air filled with the tang of acid and the polythene wings melted away, thick viscous fluid washing to the ground.

“Kill it,” Noble heard the Lieutenant shout. More acid sprayed, but not quickly enough. Something small and dark scuttled away into the shadows. The grip left Noble’s mind completely and he was able to move freely.

“Incoming,” a marine shouted and they turned towards the shout.

A wall of kelp writhed wildly in the hole in the keel through which they’d entered and was pushing its bulk through into the hold. One of the men carrying an acid pack ran forward to hose the kelp down, but despite the fact that pieces of it fell, charred and smoking, the bulk of the thing kept coming. It fell on the man from a height. He managed one last spray of acid before disappearing inside a mass of vegetation with a hiss and a stink of burnt meat.

The kelp came on fast.

“Get to the stairs,” the Lieutenant shouted. He pushed Noble and Suzie away from the onrushing vegetation. Noble hadn’t even noticed there were stairs, but now saw a flight of rusted steps leading up into the gloom. He was considering the risk of venturing onto a structure that had been under water so long, but Suzie had no such qualms.

“Come on,” she shouted. “We have to find it. Find it and kill it before it starts to grow again.”

That didn’t sound like much of a plan to Noble, but the continued surge of Shoggoth material and kelp in the hold made it a moot point. They were forced into retreat and the stairs were their only avenue of escape.

Noble and Suzie only just got there in time. The marines weren’t so fortunate.

They defended a line just at the foot of the steps, buying enough time for Noble and Suzie to escape. The kelp didn’t give them any respite. It came on in a tall wall, as implacable and unstoppable as a Tsunami. The Lieutenant was the closest to Noble and he was the only one to join them on the stairs. The other marines were all swallowed and swept away in a tide of writhing vegetation, with no hope of rescue. The last Noble saw was a single arm thrusting up through the fronds, a fist clenched around something round the size of an apple.

“Run,” the Lieutenant shouted.

They took the stairs two at a time and only just made it to the top when the grenade went off with a blinding flash and a blast that rocked the whole rusted keel and almost sent them tumbling back down into the kelp. When Noble’s eyes adjusted, he looked down into the hold.

The blast had left a smoking crater in the kelp, a hole some ten feet wide that was filling with seawater. The kelp was already moving pieces of plastic in to try to fill the breach, but the gush of water was too strong.