He felt the cold steel of the pistol's barrel against his chin, the sharp edges of the trigger against his finger, and the comforting leather from the gun's grip.
He had hoped to have the strength to go through with it, but his eyes kept wandering around his office with a peculiar distraction. There was the small, white clock on the wall to his left, which had a habit of stopping at exactly 11:17, the same time he had been notified by the hospital of his passing mother.
Three fingers of amber colored whiskey looked tempting in a crystal glass nearby, which had been a gift from an old college roommate. It had a tiny fracture at the base his friend had overlooked. There was a small round of jokes on the irony he had graduated by slipping through the cracks, but smiles vanished when a droplet escaped through it and made an eerie, slow wail. Over the years, he had tried patching it, but the horrific sound continued through the same fracture with each drop. He couldn’t for the life of him remember why he had not thrown it out.
Draped over the chair in front of his desk was the suit he had bought at a secondhand store. There had been a matchbook from an unknown laundromat inside one of the pockets with his name hastily scribbled across it. The address and phone number had come up empty without any records of it ever existing.
He had plenty of other odd and downright spooky things lying around his office and back at home that had come into his possession at one point or another. Each somehow felt connected in a supernatural way that had always made him wonder if there was more than meets the eye in life. Despite his eyes delaying him on past relics of memory, they weren't helping his current decision to blow himself away.
The pistol began to shake in his grip as he contemplated his next move although he knew he couldn't do it. After what he had witnessed earlier, a seed had been planted in his mind that empowered his curiosity more than his fear and foreboding. No matter how hard he tried, he knew he had to find out what he had seen – what it had been.
He allowed the haunting memory to be recalled even though it caused him to shudder at the thought. Rain had been falling for most of the morning in London earlier that week. If there had been a break in the weather he had been oblivious to it. He had been cooped up in his office wearing out his binoculars as he gazed onto the street below. It hadn't mattered to him that he had lost track of the time. He knew he had seen it before among the people as they went about their busy day, and he was sure he would spot it again sooner or later.
It had been repulsive. Entirely unnoticeable by the pedestrians on the sidewalk, the source of nightmares crawled among them. Long projections of tendrils jutted from most of its central body, each coated with dozens of swollen lesions that puckered and sucked as the arms slithered across each person. He stared in almost catatonic horror as they would lash out and wrap around people’s bodies, using them as its locomotion as it weaved through the throng of people, and tugging at their skin like a bottom feeder fish. Yet they were oblivious to its touch.
It had been only for a moment, but he was sure as the bottle of booze was nearly empty on his desk that something had surfaced from a gutter and slithered into a crack between two buildings.
But there had been no further sightings of the creature since then; he had been locked to his binoculars for days at the narrow alley. By now, he was familiar enough with the area to know the two buildings that formed the alley met in the back at a tall, brick shed that prevented progress. He had been waiting for days for it to retreat back out - barely sleeping or eating to avoid missing sight of it again.
Hours before he drew his pistol to his chin, he failed to notice his secretary enter his office. She was a young lady, barely in her twenties, with bundled blonde hair and soft blue eyes. Before she had worked for him, her only job had been helping her mother clean houses. While lacking in many secretarial skills like proper filing and efficient typing, her continued efforts to keep him functioning and alive by making sure he ate and slept occasionally were what he was most grateful for though he neglected to ever acknowledge her about it.
“Mr. Kipner? Are you okay?” she asked. He thought he heard her soft voice though it sounded far away. He didn't bother turning around, nor did he look at her after she tried again for his attention. It wasn't until the gentle touch of her hand on his shoulder did he finally look away from the window.
“What is it, Natasha?” he said perhaps more tense than he wished for, but she was distracting him from seeing the creature if it returned. He tried to retract the harshness of his voice through a softer expression, but it went unnoticed by the young woman.
She quickly retracted her hand from his shoulder and took a half step back. He was shocked to hear his own tone as he had never lashed out to her before. Even during the most stressful cases facing a tight deadline, he never had raised his voice.
“Natasha, I'm....I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that. My mind was on something else that caused it,” he said, and although she seemed to regain herself, her voice revealed she was still shaken.
She stammered a bit then composed herself and said,”Mr. Kipner, Sir, I am heading home for the evening unless there is anything you need me to do.” She was answered by a hasty shake of his head, and he began to turn back to his binoculars when she added,”Oh there is a letter for you from a Mr. Delven Montgomery out of Cairo. I left it here on your desk this morning. The postman informed me there was an urgency behind the delivery by Mr. Montgomery as postage was paid at thrice the cost. Goodnight, Sir. Have a great weekend.” He never heard the door close with a pleasant bang from an unappreciated lady nor did he discover the letter until hours later and deep in the night.
Frustrated from a lack of sighting all day, he rolled his chair away from the window and finally saw the letter from his old mentor.
The letter was brief, devoid of small talk and cut right to the chase. He wanted Robert to lead an expedition into the Belgian Congo to determine why all communication had stopped from a remote medical clinic. Montgomery had financed the construction of a hospital deep in the jungle in an effort to aid natives against foreign diseases from the increase in explorers, but routine contact from the hospital staff had unexpectedly stopped. The letter mentioned an initial expedition, but they were long overdue.
Inside the envelope, a rough sketch fell out with Montgomery's handwriting on the back. “Native scribbling from the jungle – familiar to you.” To most anyone, it would have appeared as harsh, heavy strokes from mad man’s etching. To Robert, it was the same creature he had witnessed just outside his office. There was no mistake from the tendrils jutting out from a central black body. It was no octopus; this was a creature of unknown origin.
*
It was in the early Spring of 1868 when a young Delven Theodore Montgomery III was walking along the boardwalk of what eventually became Lower Manhattan. The day was coming to an end, and he had been feeling a sense of urgency to return home before sunset though he didn't know why. For several blocks, his ears had perked to a reoccurring sound that he could not identify. Each time he investigated the sound's direction, perhaps it came from an alley nearby or behind a napping horse that was tied to a post. Yet each time he searched the spot he was certain the sound originated there had been nothing.
As he picked up his pace, the sound grew closer, from every direction at different intervals. It was as if people had been synchronized with noise makers to pull some childish prank. Finally as he turned down an alley in hopes of cutting his walk home shorter, he was struck with a vision he would never forget. A homeless man was the victim of some horrendous crime as a dark shapeless mass was latched onto him and feasting on his flesh. It had numerous arm-like extensions that were holding the man in place, each one pulsating and causing ripples against the man's skin. All the poor man could do was gasp for air in silent shock as the creature finished and dropped him lifelessly onto the cold, wet concrete.
Delven had witnessed the entire encounter, frozen in place as he stared at the grotesque act. There were no visible eyes on the beast, but Delven saw it motion in his direction. For a moment, he feared he was next, but the creature slithered off almost spider-like to a nearby drain and fit its way through despite its sheer size being far too big for the hole.
The phenomenon didn't end that day either. Several years later, when he found himself traveling with his parents south to Maryland, he caught a glimpse of it once more. They were taking a carriage ride through the country a few miles outside of Baltimore when Delven began to hear the noise again though his parents didn’t notice.
It was the same creature as before. It was like a spilled pool of oil lying motionless at the base of a tall oak tree. But then it moved. It wasn't the speed so much as the method it chose to use locomotion that bothered Delven. It lurched up almost to the loose shape of a person though devoid of any features or appendages. The top then listed to one side like a wave beginning to topple onto the beach. Just as it seemed gravity was about to take over and send it collapsing down on itself, numerous tendrils sprouted with such quickness it was as if they appeared out of thin air.
These tendrils, he thought close to a dozen in number, reached out to nearby foliage and pulled itself through every branch, leaf, and stem like water flowing over smooth river rock. It was hypnotic from the eloquence and grace of the entity, yet it was terrifying that it was certainly not a terrestrial animal. While he was no zoologist, he felt confident no expert could categorize the species among the animal kingdom.
As an adult, Montgomery was eccentric to most of his close colleagues, and to the general public he was thought to be quirky in his interests. His estate was a museum of antiquities and oddities that would give anyone a reason to pause if viewed. To the uneducated, his collection appeared to have no connection or theme, sporadically decorated from different eras and geographical places throughout the world. It wasn't uncommon for the skull of an ancient mastodon from far northern Russia to be next to a blood stained sacrificial dagger from Peru. However, he believed passionately there was, indeed, a common theme among every piece he collected. They all related in one form or another to something that was not originally a part of this world.
So there was no doubt or confusion from Delven, decades later, when he received scribbles of a mad man from the Congo jungle. He had seen it before – the black blob-like creature with tendrils reaching out in all directions, moving so methodically through the countryside undetected by all but himself.
He knew he needed help beyond those he had sent on the original expedition to the hospital. It required people like himself who had experienced seeing things not a part of this world. Experts on the occult, the supernatural, and forbidden secrets were the type he needed. Experts like Robert Kipner.
*
The private detective finished off the last of the booze as he leaned back in his chair and, less than gingerly, tossed the revolver back in the drawer. At this hour, the office was only illuminated by the full moon outside shining in through the blinds. He craned his neck to the side to peek through without his binoculars, watching the evening traffic move up and down the street below. His head hurt from drinking too much that day, but the liquor was needed to cope with the anxiety. Seeing sights like he did rattled his consciousness, challenging it not to collapse on itself and make him point a gun to his head. There had been times he felt it would, especially in the earlier years of his career when he hadn't seen as many things he should have.
The brightness of the moon tonight reminded him of the first time his eyes fell on something not of this world. He had still been an investigator, but his cases were what anyone would expect from his profession: missing women, blackmailed businessmen, cheating souls. His living had been good back then as those jobs paid well.
One evening, he had been following a gentleman across several blocks, expecting the man to lead him to the brothel his wife had suspected him of disappearing to every Tuesday between 9 and 10. Kipner was confident the man hadn't detected his presence although the street was virtually deserted save for a few drunks passed out near garbage cans.
Half a block from the brothel, the man suddenly side stepped into an alley and disappeared.
Robert paused for a moment. The man had given no sign that he knew he was being followed, and Robert was certain he had not given up his location. Besides, they both were using the route most took.
He crept up slowly to the alley being careful to avoid crunching too much gravel on the sidewalk. It was a particularly narrow gap between the buildings, just wide enough for a man to walk through without turning sideways. He didn't have a light source with him, so peering around the corner was fruitless, and the nearby streetlamp wasn't any help.
He couldn't hear the man in the alley. The sounds of the city were far off, leaving nothing but a stray cat and a piece of rustling paper to be heard. No sound came from in between the buildings. He knew the man must not be far inside.
He stood motionless for what seemed like hours. No one else came down the street. How could someone stand still for so long? The area might be rougher than others, but homicides were not really known on this street. There was no need to be that paranoid.
His ears heard movement faintly in the alley that caused his hair to stand on end. It was difficult to notice at first but he quickly realized it was bone on bone crackling. His mind filled with terrible visions of fractured limbs and necks as the subtle but distinct sound ricocheted off the walls. It came from perhaps a dozen or more feet into the alleyway, but Robert was finding it difficult to take a step into the darkness. He wasn't worried about being jumped by muggers – he had faced plenty before. His confidence in a fight had kept him in business and gotten him out of sticky situations. But something was wrong. The sound was grotesque and bizarre. What could cause such a sound? Fear had crept in his mind and was spreading quickly.
The crunching sound of bone continued for several minutes, and while its location remained in the same spot, it rattled downward like a relieved spine by a chiropractor.
Before he could muster enough courage to investigate further, a long, scraping sound escalated from within the darkness against the brick walls. The movement was slow and steady with a high pitch as each scraping sound became closer than the last.
Robert found himself backing up slowly from the opening, almost stumbling off the curb's edge and onto the street. He clung to the bathing light of the streetlamp like a child to a blanket. Not bringing his revolver was an immediate regret, but the case had indicated a nonviolent solution. He wasn't sure what was about to emerge, but he would have felt more relieved protected.
Nothing prepared him for what he saw that night. It changed his lifestyle, his profession, and his philosophies. It wrecked the truths that he held that led him down the paths he chose day to day.
The first bone-like finger that pierced the thick, black darkness sent chills down his spine and found his mouth open in shock. With each extended piece of bone that reached out and curled around the lip of the building pushed Robert back another step before realizing he had left the comfort of the street's light.
It was some monstrosity that pulled itself out from the alley, a mixture of bone and thick black ooze-like tissue. Its movement was unnatural as it toppled over itself with sudden jerking motions. Numerous spider-like appendages reached out in all directions, each one exposing bone within the oily black membrane.
Terror filled Robert to plant his feet firmly to the ground and not run despite his instincts screaming at him. He could only stare at the behemoth as it crackled out from the alley and onto the sidewalk. Up to this point, it was impossible to tell if it was actively moving toward anything in particular, specifically Robert, but once it had fully freed itself from the tight alley, it quickly made for a nearby gutter drain and, despite it’s proportion and with great ease, it slipped through the bars of the grate and into the sewer below.
Suddenly Robert was very alone to the sound of absolute silence as he stood there for a moment longer, frozen in fear, before his conscious mind broke the barrier. He fell to his knees shaking and sobbing uncontrollably as a soft warm mist began to fall. There was no evidence the creature had past before his eyes, but he could not eliminate the vision from his mind. He tried to disbelieve the idea and blame it on a few swigs of whiskey earlier, but by morning he was still terrorized.
Later the next day, he had contacted his client, dropped the case, and leased a small apartment up above the street where he had witnessed it. He knew he must be crazy to want to be so close, but he couldn't resist knowing what he saw wasn't his imagination. By the end of the week, he had a truck bring his office furniture to the new location where he planned on staying for quite some time.
Although he would spend weeks staring out of the window in hopes of seeing the creature again, it wouldn't be until years later when he saw it the second time, emerging from the sewers and enveloping the people on the sidewalk as it slithered into the same alley it had once came from. By then, he had given up traditional cases and focused more on strange macabre and supernatural mysteries. During his findings, he had seen things that would be as traumatic as was seeing the dark behemoth creature crawling into the sewers, but his mind had grown thick skinned. Whether he was suppressing the fear or truly unafraid anymore, he was able to better withstand the sights of things he was not meant to see.
But when the creature had squeezed itself back out from the sewers earlier that week, he knew he wasn't imagining things any longer. There had been a moment his fear of the creature mixed with the curiosity of seeing it a second time had led to that dangerous moment with his revolver and himself. Even his thick skinned mind, after seeing horrific sights and unanswered secrets, had trouble tolerating the notion he and it shared the same world.
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