Lake Huron Horror

On taking a leave of absence after the rather intense Maritime summer semester of study given by Professor Harriman at Miskatonic University, I endeavored to follow my interest in subaquarian archeology by travelling to the cold shores of Lake Huron there I was requested by Professor Harriman to obtain for him samples of the primordial ooze recently discovered in sink-holes there that he might update certain sections of the “Hitherto Unknown Protozoa of Neglected, Faraway, or Unknown Lands” volume written in 1885 by Dr. Hermester Barrington. If only I had known of what was to come.

My journey from the placid banks of the Miskatonic River to the nearly frozen shore of Lake Huron was uneventful and I was grateful to see that all the equipment I had shipped ahead of time had arrived safely and was awaiting me at the Valhalla Inn where I had booked my lodging.

“Are you here with the Doc?” Asked the desk clerk as he noted my stacks of dive gear and other apparatus. “I have that package from the veterinary supply he was asking after.”

“Who?” I asked signing the ledger.

“Doc Burton, he had a similar lot of equipment, unfriendly sort.”

“Veterinary supply?”

“Some sort of tranquilizer, but what he needs it for in the lake is beyond me! If you see him tell him it is here behind the counter.”

After assuring the clerk I was there on my own I had the bellhop bring the equipment up to my suite. After removing my coat and taking off my shoes I flopped onto the queen size bed and grabbing the phone, placed a call back to Professor Harriman to assure him that I and the Universities expensive equipment had arrived safely. I mentioned the odd Doc Burton to him in passing.

“Doc Burton? That name sounds familiar, let me do some checking and I will get back to you.” With that we concluded our call. As it was now well towards dinner time I put my shoes back on and went down to the lobby of the hotel to see if there might be a restaurant where I could break my fast.

As I sat at my table a rather slim, intense looking man with dark hair and a receding hairline strode up and peered down at me through wire rim glasses. With no preamble he blurted out: “I hear you will be diving in the sink holes.” His voice was cold.

“Yes, I am here from Miskatonic University to gather some biological samples of the primordial slime.”

With my mention of the University he grew, if possible, even more glacial in his demeanor. “Stay away from my dive site.” A scar grew livid red on one side of his cheek.

“The Lake is open to all, I will dive where I need to.” I answered, all told a bit miffed that he would presume to tell me my business.

“Then Zoth-Ommog take you and the University.” He exclaimed and stomped off in a bit of a snit.

Puzzling at his odd reference, the ill humors of the conflict put me off eating, though I did force down some of the dinner knowing I would need my energy levels high if I were to perform adequately during the dives scheduled the next day.

Rolling the odd curse that Doc Burton had hurled in his parting volley around in my mind I felt I should report to Professor Harriman and get further guidance. Being after normal University hours I used his cell number and he answered on the first ring.

“Matthews? I figured you would be calling back.”

“I met the mysterious Doc Burton.”

“And?”

“He is an ass, warned me away from his dive site.”

“Odd, describe him for me?”

“Oh, medium height, dark hair, wire rim glasses, a receding hairline, scar on the left cheek.”

The Professor seemed agitated at my words. “Stay clear of him for now, did he say anything else?”

“He said “Zoth-Ommog take you and the University”, do you know what he could possibly mean?”

“I will have to check with Dr. Raymond, Dean of occult studies, I will probably have to look at the Necronomicon.”

I shuddered at his reference to that dark book. I remembered the feeling of revulsion I felt when I had been near its evil influence, if any book was blatantly evil, then the Necronomicon was it.

He continued, “I will call you as soon as I know anything, Matthews?”

“Yes sir?”

“Be careful.” He terminated the call.

My night was spent tossing and turning as the effects of being in a strange place, travel and worry over the next day’s work took their toll. Odd terrifying half remembered dreams also tormented me. I was grateful for the morning. Just before I was too leave to meet with the hired boat the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Matthews? This is Professor Harriman.”

“Professor! Is anything wrong?”

“I don’t know, I just wanted to warn you about Doc Burton.” He paused.

“Yes, what is it?” I said a little impatiently as I was supposed to be meeting the boat in less than 30 minutes.

“He was once on the staff here on the University, only he was called Dr. David Boyer then. He was found to have plagiarized most of his professional studies and papers he wrote from other sources. His tenure was revoked and he was sent packing in disgrace.”

I realized my mouth had dropped open and quickly closed it. “My God, is he dangerous?”

“He could be, I am still waiting to hear from Dr. Raymond over in Occult studies about the other business. Have you got your cell with you?

“Yes sir.”

“Good, Keep it with you, I will call as soon as I have more.”

“I will sir.”

“And Matthews, watch your back, I have no idea what Boyer may do if you back him into a corner.”

“I will.” With that he terminated the call.

I gathered up the gear I would need from the room into my dive bag and camera case. Packed the sampling kit for the biological samples and made sure that I had my 4 inch dive knife as well. Down in the lobby Bill Walters, the owner of a local dive operation was waiting for me.

“Mr. Matthews? Hi, I’m Bill.” He reached out and shook my hand.

“Good to meet you Bill, call me Hugh since we will be diving together. Any problems with diving today?”

“Nope, good weather, no wind. Should be a great day! I’ll need to see you dive certification card before we go.”

I gave him my rescue diver certification card and he examined it. Bill then handed me a release form to fill out and sign. Once the needed papers had been filed away in his attaché case, he grabbed one of my bags and I grabbed the others and we went outside and loaded them into his truck.

After we got in to the truck I handed him my lake map with the areas I wanted to dive on indicated. He looked over the map and handed it back. “No problems Jack, though there is another dive group on the main site.”

“Well, I need to gather samples there, we will wait until the last day; maybe they will be gone by then.”

The drive down to the water was uneventful. We loaded the gear onto the large twin-v hull boat that was going to be our dive platform. The day was bright and brisk with a blue sky and the sun hanging gloriously above us as we bounced over the waves of Lake Huron to one of the secondary dive sites. As we neared the location I removed my outer clothing and got into my thermal 300 gram protective suit and my trilaminate Bare dry suit. Bill cut the engine and dropped anchor. He then donned his dive gear while I set up the camera and prepared the sample kits.

I showed him how the biological samplers worked and explained we wanted to note as close a possible the locations we sampled on as detailed a diagram of the site as we could make and take photographs of each sample spot and anything else that was of interest.

We back rolled off of the gunwale and submerged into the lightly green tinted water. We slowly descended past 20 feet and switched on our lights surrounding us in a bubble of light as the light from above was consumed by the icy cold water. At around 60 feet we could see the normal lake bottom. Getting our bearings from our compasses we set off in the direction we presumed the sink hole to be located.

After several dozen yards we came upon the edge of the large circular sink hole. I took several digital shots of it and then we went over the edge into the abyss. I could see the odd, almost heat ripple like effect as we entered the sulfur and chemical rich water in the bottom of the sinkhole where the micro-organisms that were nearly identical to the primordial slime from which we crawled existed. Shining our lights we detected several patches of the blue-green mats of slime that coated the bottom. Taking a dive slate I recorded the details using the compass and measuring tape to layout the site and where we gathered the samples.

My dive computer indicated it was time to head back to the boat. I signaled to Bill and we began the slow ascent back to the surface, light and life-giving air.

As we packed the gear and samples I noticed a larger boat over on the horizon. Pulling a pair of high power binoculars from the gear box I focused them on the boat. I could see it was a fairly large boat with a much bigger deck than we had. On its deck was an odd looking tent made of heavy duty plastic sheeting and topped with an odd valve and tank arrangement. The boat had a small crane setup and was lifting the apparatus over the side. I could barely make out Dr. Boyer gesturing angrily as it swung perilously near the boats hull and then settled into the water. I imaged the hiss as the valves allowed water to flood the tent displacing the air it was filled with. I passed the glasses over to Bill who also took a look at the odd goings on.

The rest of the day was spent doing more dives and gathering samples from as much of the first sinkhole as we could before we lost the light. During the last dive of the day I could swear I heard odd whines and whistles much like whale song only deeper in the bass range, I passed it off as imagination.

Back at the hotel I packed and shipped the first set of samples and notes and sent them back to the university. By that time it was the dinner hour and I once again dined in the hotel’s restaurant. As I was finishing Dr. Boyer and a quiet, shy appearing girl came in. Dr. Boyer appeared angry with her and was dressing her down in public over her poor dive skills. I felt embarrassment for her and tried to give her a reassuring glance, but she never looked up from the table in front of her. When she did look up she was crying. Just as I was going to get up and come to her defense I felt the vibration of my cell phone signaling I had a call. Before it could ring, I took it out of my pocket and answered it, standing and going out into the lobby.

“Matthews? I have some information on this Zoth-Ommog.”

“Yes?”

“According to the translation of the Ponape Scriptures, Zoth-Ommog is the third son of Cthulhu. He has a cone-shaped body, a razor-fanged reptilian head like that of a Tyrannosaurus rex, four broad, flat, starfish-like arms with suckers, and a head of tentacles. He can be used to summon Cthulhu. He is supposed to be imprisoned beneath the seabed somewhere near Ponape.”

“Ok, so what would Boyer be doing referencing him?”

“I would have no idea. But if he is falling into these dark beliefs there is no telling what he is capable of.”

“I saw him putting some type of plastic containment tent over the side of his dive boat today. He has an assistant that he was publically verbally abusing tonight at dinner, I was getting ready to come to her defense just when you called.”

“Man or woman?”

“What? Oh, a young woman, she is a bit of a shrinking violet and he was very loud and obnoxious over her lack of diving skills.”

“Matthews, this is very important, you need to try to watch them; fragments of the Polanape Figurine were stolen from the Sanbourne Institute of Pacific Antiquities. Supposedly, using the correct incantation and with a properly horrible sacrifice the fragments can be used to call Zoth-Ommog from his prison, but only if done while submerged at the union of waters.”

“Sacrifice?”

“The victim, as usual a virgin, male or female, is vivisected alive, the still beating heart placed at the head, the lungs at their feet, quite gruesome.”

“What is the Union of waters?”

“A halocline between primordial waters and fresh water, no one knew of any locations of such a thing.”

“Until now.”

“Until now, the large sinkhole could be a direct link through myriad underground tunnels to the sea.” We disconnected. I wondered how I could possibly close to watch them when across the expanse of the flat lake a boat could be seen approaching for miles, much as I had seen their activities of the day before.

I called Bill and asked if he could get rebreathers. Maybe with the added bottom time from rebreathers and a few strategically located caches of stage air bottles I could appear to be at one sinkhole when I was really watching Boyer at his. Bill answered that he might be able to locate some and he would call me back. I placed my cell back into my pocket.

After the call I returned to the dining room to find that Boyer had left but his pale assistant sat crying alone at their table.

“He shouldn’t treat you like that.” I said handing her my clean handkerchief. She looked up at me startled. “Wh-who are you?” she took the handkerchief and delicately dabbed at her eyes and nose.

“Hugh Matthews, from Miskatonic University, here taking samples from the sink holes in the lake.” I sensed it was best not to lie to her.

“Ann Reynolds, Dr. Burton is my Guardian.” She gently blew her nose then offered the handkerchief back, I waved it away. Her use of the Burton name seemed forced.

“Keep it, I have plenty. What is he so upset about?” I indicated the chair across from her, she nodded her approval.

“I really don’t like diving, learned just to please him, he insists I dive deeper and deeper into that horrid hole.” She clutched the handkerchief tightly, ringing it between her hands. “The lights, strange noises, it makes my blood freeze.” If possible she grew even paler.

“Noises? Lights?” I prompted her.

“When he does his tests. From the cave at the bottom sickly green light and odd noises, vibrations that rattle in your fillings.” She closed her eyes and shuddered.

“Surely he wouldn’t place you in danger?” I took one of her small hands in mine to comfort her.

“A year ago, no I wouldn’t have thought so, but since he got that strange scroll he has changed.”

I was about to ask more about the scroll when we were interrupted.

“I will thank you Mr. Matthews to leave my charge alone.” Dr. Boyer looked livid, I actually felt he might strike me.

Getting a bit up myself I forgot the urging of my professors. “She seems of an age to determine who she would talk with.” I stood toe-to-toe with him.

He seemed to come to himself and the fire left his eyes. “I’m quite sorry, I am under a bit of strain lately. Of course Ann can speak to whomever she chooses.” He smiled but his eyes stayed cold and distant.

I felt my own anger cooling.

“Come Ann, early start tomorrow, with luck we will finish.” Somehow the last left me feeling cold as they left the room.

That night my sleep was again troubled with odd dreams of whale like clicks and moans and sickly flashes of green light. The sunrise found me staring out the hotel window across the storm tossed waters of the lake. Perhaps there would be no diving today a storm had moved in during the hours of darkness. The ring of my cell phone broke my reverie. “Matthews here”

“This is Bill, I got the rebreathers, I assume you are certified?”

I smiled. “Of course, I have several thousand hours, full cave certified.”

Bill had obtained a larger craft than the one we had used before. Even with the larger vessel the going was rough. Not as rough as when I had dived the U-352 off of North Carolina but bone jarring at times. Between rough passages I told him about Ann and Boyer. I had judged him properly as he agreed to help me watch out for Ann and to figure out what Boyer was up to. We spent the morning ferrying stage bottles along the route to the sinkhole Boyer had staked out as his own.

The dark, cloud filled skies made the depths a stygian darkness, we used shielded lights to check our compasses. Just when I was ready to turn back, sure we had missed in the darkness we literally ran into the guy wires for his odd plastic chamber. Dousing our lights we settled to the bottom at the edge of Boyer’s sink hole, watching our gauges and indicators not knowing whether he would dive today or not.

As my dive computer showed the hours of decompression I would pay for this folly, we spotted the glow of dive lights descending from above. It was Boyer and Ann. Ann was using the guy line and ascending quite timidly, beside her Boyer floated down unconcerned, the pouches of his drysuit filled with odd shaped items. Concealed in the gloom in our black dive gear, with no tell-tale bubbles thanks to the rebreathers they glided right past us, oblivious, into the mouth of the sinkhole. After a short interval, I signaled to Bill to wait and followed them down into the gaping mouth.

I stayed to one side, drifting slowly downward. I could see their dive lights a few dozen feet below me. They were both inside the plastic chamber that had been affixed to the floor. Boyer was doing something with the tanks attached to the inside wall when the blasting noise of high-pressure air pierced the quiet. I could see the air rushing into his chamber displacing the water, the plastic chamber, actually a small room, was anchored solidly to the rock floor of the sinkhole, soon its sides bulged and built-in pressure regulators released excess air before a rupture could occur. They were standing in an air filled chamber at the bottom of Lake Huron!

I was amazed at Boyer’s ingenuity and his audacity at the same time. I watched incredulous as he removed his drysuit and helped Ann with hers. Helpless I saw him plunge a concealed hypodermic, filled no doubt with the animal tranquilizer, into her neck. She only struggled for a short time and soon collapsed. He laid her on the cold, wet, slimy stone floor and removing a knife from its sheath strapped to his leg, began removing her thermals.

The odd references, the scroll Ann had mentioned, the tranquilizer, it all fell into place, Boyer was about to sacrifice his charge, perhaps had planned on it since she was a child. I had to save her from that fate. Whether this crazed act could bring Zoth-Ommag over from whatever dimension imprisoned him and lead to the ultimate return of Cthulhu was secondary, I couldn’t allow this horrific sacrifice. Breaching the chamber would kill Ann as sure as Boyer’s knife. I watched as he drew fragments, obviously those of the stolen Polanape Figurine from his pouches, and carefully arranged them around Ann’s now naked body.

Standing over Ann’s still figure Boyer began to chant, I couldn’t hear the twisted sounds, thank God! But I could feel their effect.

The sounds Ann had reported began again, rumblings, deep vibrations that indeed made your teeth ache. Behind the chamber I could see an opening in the side wall of the sink hole. The twisting, oily appearing water emanating showed it somehow reached salt water. Deep inside I could see flashes and glimmers of a sickly green that pulsed with the motions of Boyer’s hands. If I was to do anything it had to be now before he could complete the ritual.

I pulled my knife from its scabbard and with a few strong kicks to reach the chamber, was able to plunge it into the bulging wall of plastic. With a massive tearing sound the entire side gave way the rushing water knocking Boyer cross the chamber where he bounced against the other wall and fell senseless as the cold water quickly reclaimed the space. Ignoring him, as soon as I was able, I grabbed Ann’s apparently lifeless, naked body and forced my spare regulator into her mouth. Using the purge button I tried to force air into her and began heading for the dive boat far above.

I knew we had to get away from the cave, the pulses of light were growing stronger and the feeling of wrongness grew with each second, even as we put vertical distance between us and it. Suddenly I felt a strong tug on my right fin, looking down I saw Boyer, an air bottle clutched in a death grip with the valve partially open, he sipped the air as he stared upward hatefully his other hand clutching at my fin. Below I saw a strange shape exit the cave, partially blocking the pulses of sickly green light. With a savage kick I dislodged Boyles hand and watched as he sank towards whatever it was below.

I concentrated on getting Ann, who was now weakly struggling, to the surface where she might have a chance. In the back of my mind I worried about the Nitrogen saturating my blood, without an immediate recompression I would surely suffer a catastrophic embolism and die, even if I saved Ann. As we neared the surface I felt the pain start in my joints, ringing in my ears and saw odd flashes before my eyes. Ann, now awake, was shivering violently even as she started swimming on her own and breathing from the spare regulator without my help. At 20 feet from the surface I signaled that I had to return below, whatever Ann saw in my eyes convinced her and she set off on her own for the surface above.

Hoping Ann could now save herself I turned and sank like a rock for the depths below, hoping against hope returning to them would stave off a murderous case of decompression illness. Whatever had transpired between Boyer and whatever had come from the cave, there was no evidence of it as I shined my light below. I nearly stabbed Bill as he came up beside me. One look at my face and he immediately took me in tow, signaling me not to swim, trying to minimize any actions on my part. Looking over the rebreather control I watched as he upped the Oxygen concentration.

Of the last hours of our journey back to our boat I have no recollection. Indeed, I didn’t return to the land of the living until nearly a week later. They had put me through multiple compression chamber rides. Even a week later my eyes were still blood red from the hemorrhages that Ann and Bill had seen, witness to the severity of my decompression sickness attack.

No sign was ever found of Boyer and whatever he called from the cave. My story was passed off as rapture of the deep and the first onsets of decompression sickness. Ann came by, she had done a turn in the compression chamber herself, but merely as a precaution. She had suffered more from hypothermia, but blankets and a warm cabin on the Boyer’s dive boat put her to rights.

“Why didn’t you just come on our boat Hugh?” She had asked me.

“I had to stay down for several hours of decompression, we had staging bottles and were prepared, but only if we returned to our boat.” I explained.

She had no memories of the horror, just of waking up, nearly freezing with my spare regulator in her mouth as we surfaced. She had been horrified to see my blood red eyes.

An expedition, one that I was more than happy not to join, returned to the sink hole and recovered the Polanape Figurine fragments and sealed to cave. No trace of Boyer was ever found. A search of his room revealed the Polanpe scroll, rumored destroyed ages past, no doubt its wicked influence preyed on Boyer’s weak mind, turning him fully evil. The fragments and scroll were sent to the Miskatonic vaults, hopefully never to see the light of day again.

Ann was there for me, waiting during each of the chamber rides, my constant companion. Finally they ruled me fit as I ever would be despite a numbing on the left side of my face and tingling in my fingertips. Finally after a few weeks, we were able to continue our lives

“You know, I am glad we were ahead of Boyer.” I sat back against the trunk of the apple tree, its blossoms filled the air with scent.

“Why?” Ann asked, picking up a blossom and drawing in its fragrance.

“We are both virgins, even if the ritual wasn’t completed Zoth-Ommog killing us both surely would have allowed it full access to our dimension. Being virgins nearly cost the world.”

She dropped the blossom color draining from her face.

"What's wrong?"

She stared at me, eyes wide, "So was Dr. Burton!”