Reincarnated Cthulhu - Chapter 20

20. Buried Alive

Could you ever imagine yourself as naught but a mere cut of beef, strung up in the grim abode of a butcher, lifeless and devoid of dignity?

That was my unenviable fate in this direst of moments. My body, bereft of volition, was reduced to a pitiful rag doll, hoisted and hauled without a modicum of care. My legs served as the pitiless grip of my captor, my form scraping the cold hard ground with each drag, each pull.

“Heck… Heck….”

The creature in possession of my unfortunate limbs huffed laboriously, a sound that did not belong to any man I knew. It was an uncanny creature indeed, that saw no humanity in me, just as I saw none in it. With great effort, I mustered enough strength to part my eyelids, a feeble attempt to observe my surroundings.

I was met with utter darkness, a void that swallows all light, an infernal abyss into which I had been tossed. Deprived of strength, I could not afford the simple luxury of turning my head, of glimpsing the beast that toyed with me so. I could only register the swift flashes of the ground that sped past my eyes.

Rock, rubble, gravel… and the gruesome remains of what once was a canary, its tiny head severed from its body.

After some indeterminate period, my body was once again made weightless, then abruptly discarded into a pit. A rain of soil and filth fell upon me. Summoning all the will I had left, I shielded my face from the foul deluge, my arm serving as the only barrier between me and the onslaught of dirt and decay.

Thus, I found myself buried alive, a living corpse interred in a premature grave.

.

.

.

.

.

. …

How much time had passed since my burial, I could not tell. The concept of time had forsaken this place. When I finally emerged, my body was a ghastly sight – flesh scraped bare, nails torn asunder. My mind was in a similar disarray, my senses dulled by the deprivation of oxygen.

“Haa… Haa….”

Every breath was a painful intake of dust and decay. Upon regaining some semblance of my senses, I fumbled desperately for my cane. My fingers instead found a broken wooden stick, rendered useless by the impact of my fall. With a sense of resignation, I cast it aside.

Who had been my captor? Why had I been buried? These unanswered questions fed my growing dread. I suspected the gravediggers at first, but the discovery of a half-eaten carcass that used to be a faithful hunting dog dashed that theory.

As I staggered onward, leaning against the dank wall for support, a faint plea for help reached my ears.

“Please… assist…”

The voice was muffled, choked by the weight of soil, but I knew it to be Noel’s without a doubt.

“Please…. My leg… It’s injured… I can assist you….”

Perhaps hearing my labored footfalls, he begged for salvation. With a newfound urgency, I set to work, hacking away at the hardened soil with a jagged rock.

“Huak… Huak… Huak…! Ahhhh….”

“Compose yourself! Regulate your breathing first!”

“What, what is all this madness? What calamity has befallen us? Phew, phew!”

Noel’s visage, already drained of color, took on a deathly pallor. He was teetering on the precipice of the unknown.

“Why are these abominations lurking in London’s underworld…?”

“I wish I knew, Noel. I truly do.”

I couldn’t help but consider a terrifying possibility – a theory inspired by the macabre tales of Lovecraft. I entertained the notion of ghouls, cursed creatures that dwell in the earth, their forms akin to hounds. They were said to be of high intelligence, their diets disturbingly including the flesh of the deceased. But I held my tongue, choosing not to alarm Noel with my conjectures.

“Arise. We may have stepped into a necropolis, but for the living to mimic the dead is futile.”

With a firm grip, I assisted Noel in regaining his footing. My words seemed to anchor him, and he reciprocated by helping me to stand. A grim thought had passed my mind – that he might forsake me and escape alone in our dire predicament, yet fortune was on my side as the timid youth showed no such intentions.

“I should never have ventured into this place… ”

Noel muttered to himself, seemingly forgetting he was currently my main support.

“But why, doctor, are you here?”

“I came in search of someone.”

“A living soul? In this subterranean cemetery? The only vestiges of life here are us and those abominations!”

“I am aware.”

I responded, my voice lacking any semblance of optimism.

Reflecting upon the catacombs, the uncremated bodies, the ghouls… the pieces seemed to fall into a morbid puzzle. Shirley Marie, it appeared highly unlikely that her body remained intact.

Our journey led us deeper into the foreboding darkness, reminiscent of explorers charting an overgrown jungle, hacking at tall grass and stubborn branches.

Noel navigated the terrain cautiously, yet I bore no ill will for his slow pace. His ability to remain upright was commendable in itself. Even in the gloom, I could discern the pallor of his lips, a worrying shade of blue.

“What purpose could this vast cavern serve… Could it be natural?”

His desperate bid to distract his mind from the enveloping fear resulted in this question. It afforded me a moment to truly scrutinize our surroundings. Noel’s query, in fact, seemed quite insightful.

“There are no stalactites, and the terrain is remarkably even. Even if it was a natural formation, it appears to have been repurposed.”

“Then who would….”

Noel silenced himself abruptly. Our thoughts mirrored one another. We were indeed entombed by another.

The path we traversed, barely qualifying as a cave, was unmistakably intentional in design. The uniform distance between the ceiling and the ground, the loess that coated the floor instead of rock, all hinted at a planned structure. As we pressed onward, I spotted an opening in the ceiling above.

“Presumably, that’s where we descended from.”

Noel paled, confronted by the considerable distance we had plummeted from. I shared his sentiments. As a seasoned veteran, I had never faced such a fall with naught but my bare skin. A rough estimation suggested a height of no less than five meters.

“Do you reckon we could ascend?”

“Perhaps we should attempt.”

I grazed the wall with my hand. The surface was polished to a sheen, mimicking the smoothness of marble. A slimy residue clung to it, a substance that appeared to be of organic origin. The texture was reminiscent of the inner lining of a colon.

“No, I retract my words. It would be ill-advised to waste our strength.”

Noel’s face hardened, a mask of despair. The cruel irony of our situation was not lost on us. The exit was tantalizingly close, yet we remained confined in this tomb.

We were not the sole occupants of this burial ground. Fragments of bodies littered the length of the tunnel. Whether they had met their demise through suffocation or consumption, none showed signs of life.

Such gruesome scenes were not foreign to me, courtesy of past experiences, yet Noel was ill-prepared for such atrocities. He dug at the soil with a morbid fascination, compelled to unmask each body, despite knowing their ultimate fate.

Among the emerging bodies, I recognized some. They were miners or gravediggers that had accompanied us. The unidentifiable remains presumably shared the same fate. Yet, Ruben Augustine’s figure was nowhere to be found.

“Father….”

His voice wavered with fear. My worry for his sanity grew, yet I could not suggest a rest. This nightmare would surely haunt him for the remainder of his days, even if he survived this predicament.

However, we were compelled to continue our descent.

Our path was nothing but a constant downward slope.

An insidious thought gnawed at me – I must persist along this route. If the ghouls weren’t destined to a subterranean existence, there had to be a way to the surface. Yet logic seemed impotent against the pervading terror.

An unsettling notion surfaced – could this path be truly infinite?

Situated upon a route plunging into the bowels of the earth, I felt myself caught in a gentle, continuous descent.

In fortunate turn, my spiralling delusion was abruptly rectified before reaching a threshold of insanity.

A divergence appeared in the path that had hitherto seemed without end. It resembled the mouth of a semi-circular tunnel, so wide that two carriages could easily traverse abreast despite its subterranean existence, where no coach would dare journey.

Additionally, the entrance, arch-shaped in design, spoke of masterful construction. I felt akin to an archaeologist uncovering the relics of ancient Rome. It was evident that the architects of this structure had an exquisite taste in both aesthetics and architecture.

“Without a doubt, the missing individuals ventured this way! It must lead to the open air!”

Noel proclaimed in a voice quivering with hope, his mind bordering on delirium.

“Perhaps. But let us not entertain high hopes.”

For me, a sense of unease permeated the place. Regardless of my attempts to dismiss it, the underground complex was undeniably crafted with a meticulous hand. One could only imagine the time and resources needed to erect such a grandiose structure.

Never had I heard of such an endeavour in London, either during this lifetime or prior.

With no other alternatives, we stepped into the tunnel. Beyond a short corridor, a room, somewhat smaller than the entrance, lay ahead. Noel’s shoulders sagged in visible disappointment.

“We’ve reached a dead end.”

His disillusionment was such that he failed to observe the small aperture in the ceiling, from which a faint illumination leaked, a dim radiance that filled the subterranean chamber.

Upon noticing this, I gazed up towards the hole. The extensive corridor appeared to merge into the base of a building, and to my knowledge, the only plausible structure near the cemetery was the West Norwood Cemetery’s crematorium.

I suddenly comprehended the fate of the missing bodies. They were transported to the crematorium, yet rather than reducing them to ashes, they were cast down into this abyss. A horrifying suspicion took hold – could they be trading bodies with the ghouls for silver?

A chill coursed through me at this appalling realization.

The gravediggers were all desecrators of the departed. Their shared guilt formed a grotesque fraternity. Then, the emptiness of this room signified….

“There’s nothing of consequence here, let us hasten.”

Upon my insistence, Noel cast aside his lingering musings and resumed walking.

I resolved to keep Noel oblivious to my newfound insight. The ordeal was already overwhelming him. Should he unearth the entirety of the truth, he would certainly succumb to madness.

However, my resolution was in vain.

Beyond the initial tunnel, further passages materialized. With each tunnel, we discovered an abundance of skeletal remains. The chambers served as crypts. This underground labyrinth was a vast necropolis, comprised of smaller catacombs.

A curious notion indeed. The catacombs concealed beneath the tombs, were the subterranean crypts of West Norwood Cemetery mere replicas of those in Paris?

Though not an authority on the matter, I could discern the antiquity of this site. It possibly predated the founding of London itself. Even the blackened skulls on display were ancient to the point of disintegrating upon touch.

A recollection surfaced. The Parisian catacombs also preexisted the arrival of the Frankish people in Paris. They simply repurposed a vast underground structure, the original function of which remains unknown.

The French catacombs, the London catacombs… it was apparent that these two colossal subterranean edifices were somehow linked.

Despite his best efforts to deny it, Noel was forced to accept the artificial origins of this structure. In a voice trembling with apprehension, he inquired.

“Where does the tunnel end… Who constructed it? Who in their right mind would erect such a building underground?”

At this juncture, I could no longer withhold what I knew. I confessed the truth.

“…Ghouls.”

At this stage, the existence of ghouls wasn’t an extravagant hallucination. It was better for him to know now than to unexpectedly encounter a ghoul in ignorance. The unknown is what truly incites madness.

“Ghouls?”

Noel retorted incredulously.

“Do you refer to grave robbers?”

And he endeavoured to interpret the circumstances in terms he could fathom. Indeed, ‘ghouls’ was a term colloquially applied to grave robbers. I shook my head.

“No, I mean it in the literal sense. They are ghouls.”

“Pray tell, what is a ghoul!”

Noel released a scream unbeknownst to himself, his visage reflecting surprise at his own outburst.

“A ghoul… a creature of another kind, bearing a canine’s head and a human form. Their intellect rivals that of mankind… perhaps a subterranean species that retains vitality despite attaining this degree of civilization.”

I struggled to comprehend my own utterances. I had never articulated the notions from Lovecraft’s literature that dwelled solely within the chambers of my memory. I was a mad prophet.

“Ghouls… genuine ghouls, damnation….”

With an expletive, Noel continued his journey, his face a vacant mask. He strained to process the revelation.

“So… a race that isn’t human….”

“Indeed. Precisely so.”

“But, why beneath a cemetery….”

It was then that I realised a crucial detail had been left unsaid.

“They… they consume flesh. Cadavers included within their vast culinary repertoire.”

Upon hearing this final disclosure, Noel bore the look of a man on the verge of tears. It did not take long for him to draw a correlation between the harrowing sights he had borne witness to in this subterranean realm and the disconcerting rumours surrounding West Norwood Cemetery. Subsequently, Noel retched, the vomit splattering on the floor, some flecks adhering to my trousers.

“I apologise… I beg your pardon….”

“Think nothing of it. For now, let us concentrate on finding a way out.”

Post the revelation of the ghouls, Noel bore the demeanour of one resigned to his fate.

“Is there a means of escape?”

“Ghouls… they aren’t confined to subterranean existence. How could they procure sustenance in such an environment to begin with?”

“But the… the bodies….”

“The bodies began disappearing only a month past. Do you believe this structure could have been erected in a mere month?”

I was compelled to confess a fact I was reluctant to disclose.

“…They’ve been ascending to London for an extended period. Otherwise, it’s inexplicable… there must exist a route.”

Even if we succeeded in safely escaping this place, as long as we resided in London, they would always be lurking beneath us. Noel and I journeyed in silence, enveloped by the gloomy ambience.

Our destination was yet another tunnel, at this point, we had ceased to tally their numbers.

The interior bore no major differences to the previous ones.

A chamber of modest proportions, featuring several tiers of shelves adorned with blackened skulls. The structure appeared even older than the tunnel we had just traversed. Identical to the ones before.

The sole divergence was the grotesque entity in the center, which appeared to be a gravedigger, its face buried in a cadaver, feasting upon it.

The sight of an actual ghoul, a creature we only knew by appellation, left us taken aback.

I was the first to regain composure. I was accustomed to corpses, blood, and such cannibalistic sights. Swiftly recovering my equanimity, I made a rational decision. From the onset, there was no reason why I couldn’t slay it.

A ghoul was merely a creature, and despite the manner of its portrayal in literature, it appeared frail and diminutive to me. I quietly approached the pale-skinned entity.

Noel, immobilized by dread, refused to budge, and I didn’t anticipate his assistance. I pushed Noel aside, and with that momentum, I lunged at the creature engrossed in its macabre feast. The creature’s frail skull shattered, and the ghoul convulsed.

“Haa… haa….”

“…Is it dead?”

“Yes.”

Noel slowly approached me. While I was still prostrated on the floor, I rolled over the body of the ghoul with its face buried in the cadaver.

And… and…

It wasn’t… a ghoul.

It was human.

Undeniably diminutive and pallid, but indisputably human!

(TO BE CONTINUED on Jun 2{FRI})