Arkham International: Call of the Cursed Sea – Chapter Five: Gills Bay

CHAPTER FIVE: GILLS BAY

by Josh Reynolds

Trish Scarborough watched pensively as the waters of the Pentland Firth parted before the prow of the ferry. It had taken them longer than she liked to get to the Caithness coast and secure tickets to Orkney. Normally, it wouldn’t have bothered her, but of late she’d begun to feel as if time were slipping away from them. As if every delay meant the difference between success and failure.

Overhead, a gull screamed, and she flinched for reasons she couldn’t name. The afternoon was overcast, edging into sullen night, and she could taste rain on the air. The waters surged around the hull of the ferry, as if trying to pull it under. The thought made her uneasy, and she turned to her companions.

Mabati sat on one of the benches that lined the upper deck of the ferry. He seemed perfectly at ease, despite the choppy waters and the situation. Then, from what little Taylor had let slip about him, this wasn’t his first go-round.

Roland, on the other hand, was looking distinctly queasy, though he was doing his best not to show it. Trish leaned nonchalantly against the rail and said, “We should be there in a few hours. Plenty of time for you to fill us in on what you and Pickell were up to, Mabati.”

“I thought I had made it clear earlier,” Mabati said. He hunched forward, hands clasped. “There is something on Scapa Flow. But as to what that something might be, I fear I cannot say. Not with any certainty, at least.”

“Try,” Roland grated. The ferry crested a wave, and he closed his eyes. He looked as if he wished he were somewhere, anywhere else. Trish hid her smile. Roland had never been good with sea travel, though he refused to admit it. His stubbornness reminded her of better times, if only for a moment.

Mabati sighed. “It might be a – a nest, for lack of a better word.” He paused. “Though spawning ground might be more accurate, given the context. It is hard to say with such creatures.” He looked at Trish. “The thing that you saw on that schooner, and last year, in Mexico… they were Deep Ones. You have heard of them before, yes?”

Trish paused. She had, though only in the vaguest of terms. The first time had been in Russia. Something to do with a strange statue supposedly hauled up out of Lake Baikal by an unlucky fisherman. The Reds had confiscated it, of course, and sent the fisherman to a gulag. She’d managed to get pictures of the statue in transit; an ugly thing, resembling a cross between a fish, a man, and a frog – just like the creature whose afterimage they’d seen aboard the Nikolai. She’d come to learn more since combing through the Foundation’s files in her spare time. Enough to know that whatever the creatures were, Lake Baikal wasn’t the only place they might be lurking. “I have,” she said.

“Innsmouth,” Roland said, leaning back.

Mabati nodded. “Yes, the infamous raid your government enacted. That set the Deep Ones back a few months, I’m told.” Mabati clenched his hands together nervously. Trish wondered if he had good reason to be. “As I said earlier, whatever we have stumbled onto, it has been in motion for longer than any of us – any of our ancestors, even – have walked the earth.”

“You can’t be certain of that,” Trish said, uneasily.

“I can. I am. I wish I were not, but…” Mabati trailed off and looked towards the water. “These… attacks are not politically or materially motivated, whatever. They are nothing less than foraging operations, conducted en masse. Supplies, Miss Scarborough. Our enemy is gathering supplies.”

“You make it sound like they’re preparing to invade,” Roland interjected.

“They might well be. Or, at the very least, they are preparing for something.” Mabati paused. “The recent events in Massachusetts, in Arkham, have upset a natural order which has been the status quo for millennia. Now, things that have kept to the shadows are creeping into the light once more. The upheaval of that event, whatever the truth of its nature, has had a cascading effect on the rest of the world. Not just the part of it that those such as myself make our home in, but all of it. Every living thing on this planet got a wake-up call that day, and now some of them are preparing for what comes next.”

“Which is?” Trish demanded.

Mabati shrugged. “That is what Pickell and I were hoping to determine. In some old texts, possibly written around the time Pytheas of Massalia first visited Britain, it is mentioned that Scapa Flow – or rather, the place that would become Scapa Flow – was home to an odd folk. Skin-turners and water-breathers. Many academics believe this is an early reference to the stories of the selkie, but I suspect it is something quite different.”

“Deep Ones,” Roland said, glancing at the sea.

“Yes. In fact, the whole of the selkie legend might simply be a – a mask for something much darker.” Mabati frowned. “Or such was my theory. I never expected Pickell to investigate by himself.” He shook his head. “I didn’t intend for him to investigate at all, frankly.” He looked at his hands, and Trish thought she understood how he must feel. She was no stranger to guilt herself.

Mabati sighed. “When he came to me–”

“Wait, I thought you said you went to him,” Trish said.

Mabati frowned. “Well, no. The British government asked me to investigate certain… phenomena reported by men on duty at the base. Pickell is the one who believed it was tied to the derelict ships that have been reported all across the world. He said he had the full backing of the Foundation. I assumed it was they who had informed him about it in the first place.”

Trish looked at Roland. “If he did, Taylor didn’t tell us. She seemed surprised you even knew his name.”

Mabati’s frown deepened. “I thought it was fortunate. I see I should have been more suspicious.”

Roland sat up. “What kind of phenomena were you investigating?”

“The usual sort of thing… strange noises, sightings of something in the waters around where the German fleet was scuttled, odd marks left in out of the way places. Such things have always occurred there, but of late they have been on the increase.”

“A moment ago, you used the term spawning ground,” Trish said. Her mind was working now, flicking through possibilities like index cards. “Like salmon heading upstream.”

Mabati nodded. “You see it as well,” he said, in a satisfied tone.

“I don’t,” Roland said, dubiously.

Trish looked at Roland. “What if it’s not an invasion, but a migration? Some antediluvian cycle that got activated by whatever it was that happened in Arkham? These… things, the Deep Ones, they’re careful. Quiet. But this isn’t quiet. It’s – it’s frenzied. There’s an urgency to it that we haven’t seen before.”

Roland was about to reply but was interrupted by the sound of a pistol being cocked. Trish and the others turned to see a squat, unsettling figure stepping onto the deck to join them. He was dressed like a laborer or stevedore, in baggy clothes and a shapeless coat. A fisherman’s cap was pulled low over his bulbous skull, and he held a Webley in one thick fist. “Mabati,” the newcomer croaked.

Mabati stood slowly. “I am Nkosi Mabati. And who might you be?”

“You know,” the newcomer replied, in a flat tone. To Trish, he sounded like a fish gasping in the bottom of a boat. She stared at him, taking in the wide, unblinking eyes and the faint sheen to his mottled skin. She’d thought it was sweat at first, but now she was certain that it was simply his flesh, shimmering in the glow of the ferry’s electric lights. “You know who I am. You know why I am here.”

“I do.” Mabati glanced at Trish. “You know what he is?”

Trish nodded. “I think I do.”

Roland was still seated, but his hand was surreptitiously inching toward his shoulder-holster. Trish stepped forward, trying to keep the newcomer’s eyes on her. “I’d heard you lot were burrowed into society. Like Bolsheviks, only nastier. What’s the plan, then? Shoot us? That’ll bring people running. How will you explain it?”

The gunman bared stickpin teeth in a rictus grin. “No explanation. No noise. Just… accident. Happens all the time.” He raised his weapon. “Step back, please. To the rail.”

“And if we say no?” Trish asked. She hoped Roland was as fast as she recalled.

“I shoot you and drag you.” He didn’t seem unduly bothered by the idea.

She glanced at Mabati, whose face might as well have been stone. No telling what he was thinking. “I don’t really feel like making things easier for you, pal. Sorry. You’re going to kill us either way, so…” She trailed off as the gunman made an awful, hiccoughing sound that she realized was laughter.

“Not kill,” he wheezed.

“No, they don’t want us dead,” Mabati said, grimly. “Not yet, at least.”

Trish blinked. “Ah. Now we’re in familiar territory. You need to know what we know, don’t you? You need to know how much of whatever you’re planning is out in the open.”

“Rail,” the gunman said, his large eyes fixed on her. “Now. Please.”

“No dice,” Roland said. Two barks followed, and the gunman staggered with an animal whine. Roland rose, his service weapon aimed at the gunman as the latter sank down against one of the benches, burbling in pain.

“Don’t kill him,” Trish began, but she was interrupted by a cry from Mabati. She spun about and saw something large and terrible coming over the rail. It was easily the size of the thing they’d glimpsed in the hold of the Nikolai. Large enough to bring down an elephant – or carry prisoners beneath the water.

The prow of the ferry dipped as its talons caught the deck and it gave a deafening shriek as it caught sight of the injured gunman. Was that anger in its voice, or worry? Could such a thing feel sympathy or concern? It roared again, and Roland fired. Trish went for her own weapon, knowing even as she did so, that it wouldn’t do any good, even with the special ammunition the Foundation had provided them with. It was just too damn big.

Mabati flung up his hands and spat something in a language Trish didn’t understand – and didn’t want to understand. The air seemed to boil and shimmer between he and the Deep One and it cried out, not in rage this time, but in what might have been fear. There was something in the shimmer, a hint of undulating movement that made her queasy to see. The monster retreated a step, claws raised as if to ward off whatever was coming.

Mabati continued to shout, but she could hear the strain in it now. Whatever he was doing was taking a toll on him. His hands trembled as they cut gestures in the air, and he stumbled as he advanced on the Deep One. The shimmer spread with predatory intent and an azure shape took form; it resembled the talon of some great hunting cat, but large enough to scoop up the massive Deep One and carry it away.

The talon, burning with cold fire, swept out and the Deep One wailed as it connected. The monster jackknifed over the side of the ferry and vanished into the surging waters below. Mabati nearly collapsed as the shimmer vanished, but Trish caught him. She heard a guttural cry of denial and saw that the gunman was back on his feet, his weapon aimed at them. His eyes bulged with fury and fear and – what? Sadness, maybe.

A pistol spoke. Trish flinched.

The gunman toppled onto his face, his pistol clattering from his grip. Trish relaxed and looked at Roland. “Good shot.”

Roland shook his head. “Not mine. I was dry.” He indicated his weapon. “I emptied it into that – that thing.” He looked as if he were in shock. She sympathized. It was one thing to see an image of a creature like that. It was something else again to see it in the stinking flesh. “I thought it was you,” Roland went on.

Trish helped Mabati to sit. “Maybe we have a guardian angel,” she said, trying to sound calmer than she felt. She didn’t like how any of this was shaping up. Too many questions and not enough answers. She could hear an alarm bell ringing somewhere and knew that the crew would have questions. Hopefully they’d accept her answers.

“Yeah, maybe,” Roland said. He looked down at the dead man. “Either way, I can tell you this much: this isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”

“No, my friends,” Mabati said, weakly. He dabbed at his face with a handkerchief. “I fear it is only beginning.”

Read or listen to more of Arkham International Season Two: Call of the Cursed Sea.

Read or listen to Arkham International Season One: Shadow of the Drowned City.