Dagon's Promise

The sandy beach was stained red. The unusual heat of the October afternoon turned the air into a nearly visible miasma. I wondered that I didn't gag as I strode the water's edge. Nor was I appalled at my rumbling stomach, though not even scavenging gulls would dine on this tainted flesh.

I felt them before they came ashore. I didn't know what to expect, but everyone commented at the unusual violence of the ocean. No less than four times in as many hours the coast guard had issued warnings against swimming and surfing.

Suddenly a series of huge waves washed up onto the sand. The solitude was rent by the screams and cries as the hopping and slithering creatures left behind tore into their victims, rending and shredding.

I watched as a young woman become separated from her thigh, Shrieking as her blood sprayed her scaled attacker. Her imploring eyes bored into my own mine, as if in blame. Dagon's servant began to eat.

A dozen feet from her an elderly lady watched as her own belly was eaten out, her entrails spilling onto the dirt. The man she was with panicked and ran toward the water. The next wave washed him out, his screams lost as several of the beings dragged him down. His head rolled ashore only to be plucked up by a shuffling monster. The sucking sounds drowned the mayhem and embeded itself in my mind.

The beach was replaced by a fragmented city of stone. The crumbling buildings swayed and bobbed as if underwater. At the center was a huge domed structure. Carved tentacles spread from the base and encircled the foundation of the ancient city in a grotesque parody of a monstrous squid protecting its worshipers. The beings swam toward the temple by the thousands.

My head filled with croaks and belches and somewhere in the recesses of my mind they began to form words. These people were chanting! Beseeching. The time was nigh and they prayed to Dagon to waken the Mighty Cthulhu!

A creature resembling a human shark shambled toward my hiding place in the weeds. He lifted me by my hair and opened his hideous diseased mouth. I smelled only blood and decay... and something else. Something that seeped into my very senses, poisoning the well of my soul.

The monster holding me croaked, “You are Marsh, prepare thyself.” He let go and I crumpled to the ground.

I do not know how long I was unconscious, but when I came around the carnage had moved up the beach and I followed. Here and there was a live human among the rotting meat and bloating bodies. Some prayed to their weak gods to let them live, but most begged me for release. I didn't respond. I couldn't. How can a person live with that much blood spurting and oozing from torn limbs and wet globs of meat lying next to their owners?

I didn't see as many Deep Ones now, but their tracks showed them moving inland. They didn't go home. They have COME home and they want their world back.

I now knew I was to become one of the victors. These feeble life forms didn't warrant my response. My new gods were ancient when today's divine beings were mere infants. I will be a master over humans. I am a Marsh! The Great Old Ones smile upon my family. I will get my rewards.

Tonight's Halloween festivities have promise. And I am hungry.


Word Count: 585