Eldritch Lover: Part One (rough draft)

The call came in at a rather late hour. Work usually never contacted me until the morning on weekdays. Never after six. Certainly never on weekends. This was something new, almost strange considering how consistent they had been. This job was strange to say the least, but at east they were professional.

It had been storming the last few days, nothing out of the ordinary really. The winds had been strong, and the rain came and went in spurts of showers or heavy force. Tonight it was drizzling, just enough to make it a bit difficult to see. I had rarely been to the main building of the company I worked for, and it was remote. It felt out of the place amongst the pine trees and rocky terrain. But this huge industrial looking building had been hidden amongst it al, safety tucked away from prying eyes.

“Sorry to call you in so late.” I was instantly greeted at the door by Dr. Yora, who had not only hired me, but sought me out specifically.

“You sounded urgent on the phone,” I said as I removed my raincoat. “What’s going on that I’m needed?” I was still confused about that and hoping for answers. I was hired as a linguistics specialist. I worked from home, I was never called in except for a sporadic meeting.

Dr. Yora was a tall woman, and that was as much as I knew about her. “Follow me. It’s not safe to talk here.”

I looked around, only seeing a few guards darted around the main floor. “Okay,” I said unsurely as I tried to keep up with her long stride. I’d never been beyond the second floor of this building, which was where I went through my interview process. It was also where most meetings were held. I’d never needed to go anywhere else until now. Dr. Yora lead me onto an elevator where she pushed a button for the basement floor.

My guts sank as the elevator did. I had a sudden impending sense of doom. I had to leave my bag and cellphone behind. The only person who knew I was here was the woman I was standing next to. I should have texted someone to let them know I had gone out. Maybe someone at my apartment saw me, I don’t know. It felt like the elevator would never stop. We went down floor after floor after floor. Each time I saw the number change another cold stone was added to my gut.

Once we reached the basement floor I let out a heavy sigh. “Nothing to worry about, Ms. Cleary.” Dr. Yora said to me. “I know this may all seem like an invitation to the underworld, but I assure you, this is still an earthly matter.”

“I wasn’t thinking that before,” I murmured under my breath.

When I hear basement, I usually expect a musty tomb of old furniture, stale pot smell, and stacks of cardboard boxes surrounding maybe a pool table or some other table game relic. This, was no basement I had ever encountered. The room was lit up with computers. Walls of tech, buttons, and things I could only describe as sci-fi wonderland.

Dr. Yora took me around a corner, and suddenly we were in an aquarium. There was a large tank positioned in the back center of the room. There were more computers monitoring the tank, along with several people busying themselves around it and the screens.

“Ms. Cleary, this afternoon we were called to investigate a discovery on Tofino beach. Something had washed ashore during the storms. At first, it was thought to be some sort of marine life. But upon closer expectation it was something unexplainable.”

I had come to accept that this place delved in things I didn’t believe in. Aliens, hidden monsters, demons, ghosts, all that sort of Scooby Doo mystery crap. They had me translate ancient texts, strange diaries, mystic relics, things I found fascinating. It was why I took the job. Well that and the amazing pay and benefits, along with getting to work from home. But the things they sent me, the odd pages I got to pour myself over, they were all captivating even if it did seem laughable.

“Did you find a mermaid?” I said jokingly.

Dr. Yora gave me a disdainful look from behind her glasses. It added a few more cold stones to my gut. “I wouldn’t have called you here if it had been something we already know how to communicate with.” We approached the tank. “No, Ms Cleary, what was discovered on the sand was something even I haven’t seen before. I need your help to discover how to communicate with it.”

A chill ran down my spine. I glanced back to the tank, not seeing anything inside it. “Do I need to believe in order to see it? Like...clap my hands for Tinkerbell?”

“This is not a story, Ms. Cleary,” Dr. Yora snapped sternly. “The creature is injured and frightened, so it has camouflaged.” She pointed to a screen where heat sensors had something outlined at the bottom of the tank. It looked like a spider web covering the entire bottom. Limbs stretched out to every side was touched.

“What is that?” I felt like I could barely breathe.

“That is what you are here for, Ms. Cleary. To find out.” Dr. Yora took a step back. “We’ve found it moves when someone touches the tank, so no one has been allowed near it until you could arrive.”

I was never fond of the regular aquarium. I found fish to be weird in the way the moved and looked. Sharks petrified me, as did dolphins. Don’t get me started on piranha. I had learned we knew less about our ocean than space and I was instantly terrified. Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, but I never expected I would be called to communicate with something like this.

I was placed near the monitor with the heat sensor so I could see the camouflaged creature if it approached me. I had always been good with language, had learned as many of them as I possibly could before college. I’d never spoken to the unknown though, and for the first time, I was terrified about what I might hear.

I placed my palms upon the glass and moments later, the thing began to move. The webbing coiled and pulled to the center. They gathered up, forming a tight ball at the base of a tank. Once it all was together then something rose up from the top. Limbs stretched out, looking like arms and hands. They rose through the water, coming to be level with where I was standing.

“It’s up,” Dr. Yora murmured behind me, watching with someone else on another monitor. “Notice anything, Ms. Cleary.”

Were my palms not on the glass they would have been shaking immensely. “Not yet.” My throat felt thick and tight as I spoke. I looked through the water, trying to see something, anything. On the heat sensor, the creature was right upon the glass in front of me. It looked huge and I could not distinguish what shape it could possibly be.

“My name is Mia Cleary,” I state slowly and clearly. “If you can understand me, then tap the glass three times.” I repeated this in French, in Spanish, and before I could say it in Mandarin three taps hit slowly upon the glass.

“Which one did it understand?” Dr. Yora asked.

I want to see what is in front of me. I want to understand this. I don’t want to believe this is a hoax or some trick. I want to see.

I see something ripple in the water. At first it looks like a drop of ink sinking through the tank. It spreads out, taking shape, becoming sapphire blue before me. The color melts in reverse, becoming solid before my very eyes. The hands have seven fingers, the palms are milky blue and covered by pocked holes that must act like suction cups. The arms are long, connected to a torso that looks shockingly human.

“Ms. Cleary,” Dr. Yora called out to me.

The creature had a head, but there was no face. No ears. No nose. The head was perfectly smooth and featureless. A touch of milky blue curled out from under the chin and jaw, then down the neck  and across the shoulders.  Below the torso though there was a cloud of darkness that shifted and moved in such a strange and incomprehensible way. I looked back towards the featureless head and wanted to wrench my hands away.

“Ms. Cleary,” Dr. Yora insisted again. “Are you getting anything?”

The creature moved closer to the glass, stroking the surface with a sense of urgency. They pressed their non-face against the glass, rubbing their head all over it. I stepped back in fear, removing my hands from the glass and the creature slammed its palms against it.

“Ms. Cleary! Back into position!” Dr. Yora yelled.

My heart was pulsing, my skin was cold and clammy. I wanted to go home. I just wanted to read weird diaries about demon worship. I didn’t want to do this.

The creature knocked upon the glass, calling to my attention. The hand pressed firmly onto the glass again when I looked. The fingers flexed, housing more joints than a normal hand should. The color of the palm shifted from milky blue to a sort of pale yellow. The color reminded me of a dress my grandmother wore. It reminded me of the tea set she gave me that we would use in the garden.

I approached again, placing my palm back upon the glass before the creature. They moved their hand to mine and through the glass I felt a strange tremble that tingled in the spaces between my fingers.

“Its trying,” my voice cracked. “Its really trying.”

Dr. Yora looked up from the monitor to me. “What is it doing?”

I shook my head, but I could not remove my eyes from the creature. “Just trying.”

“That’s enough for now, then,” Dr. Yora told me. “We’ll give you a room for the night. Get some rest and then you can come at this fresh in the morning.”

“Really?” I scoffed. “You want me to stop now?”

Dr. Yora led me away. “You’ve made connection with it. I’m not trying to push anything. It’s late anyways, and I need you at your best for this.”

I was afraid I would never sleep, so I asked for a pen and paper which she denied. Instead I thought myself to sleep, eventually drifting off as I made all sorts of mental notes in my mind. The next morning I was fed and given a change of clothes, ones that were more sanitary chic than i cared for. I was taken back to the creature’s tank, which began to appear again as I came close.

“I think he likes you,” a researcher quipped.

I went back to the tank, taking the same place I did yesterday. The creature came right towards me, running it’s palms down the glass the entire time. I placed my hands back upon the glass and smiled. “How can I understand you?” I whispered.

The palms of the creature shifted to that familiar yellow again. I licked my lips and thought very, very hard about what to do next. “Markers,” I suddenly said. “Are there any markers around here?”

“I’ll get the dry erase ones.” The woman sitting with Dr. Yora said. She got up quickly, running off.

The creature’s palm had become yellow. Perhaps color was a clue. I decided to try and talk again while I waited to see if that worked. “Are you hurt?” I asked. “Is there something we can do to help you?”

The creature rapped each fingertip against the glass.

I repeated the sentences in French but before I could finish the creature spread out and arm then moved its hand along the side. There, I saw the color was not consistent. It looked black and almost jelly like. The fingers flinched when it grew near this spot.

“It’s hurt,” I said urgently.

“What are you doing to communicate?” Dr. Yora asked. “How are you figuring this out?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking really hard I-” I stop. “Maybe it’s telepathic. Maybe even empathic. I’ll need more time.”

Dr. Yora had a smile on her face, I had never seen that before. “For now we need to earn the creature’s trust so we can help it. Keep trying what you’ve been doing, Ms. Cleary, you’re doing fantastic.”

The other researcher came in, handing me the markers. There was just red, blue, and black, not the exact spread I was hoping for. It was a long shot, but if it worked, it was a start a being able to talk to this mystery.

I scribbled on the glass while the creature followed my movements, mimicking them so closely it looked like I was standing in front of the creepiest funhouse mirror ever. It was basic, but it would be the starting point to being able to reach out to it. Blue meant yes, black meant no, and red I decided to mean unknown.

I pressed my hands back to the glass. “Touch blue if you can understand me. Touch red if you almost can.” I said it out loud then thought it over again in my head.

The creature touched between blue and red.

“Oh wow,” I gasped.

Dr. Yora had moved up behind me to watch. “What is it, what did it say?”

“Maybe, yes?” I licked my lips then bit down. “Okay, next question, touch blue if you are in pain. Black if you aren’t. Red if you don’t know.”

Its hand pressed against blue.

My heart was pounding so fast and so hard. “Can we help you?”

The creature moved its palm to red.

“You’ve done it!” Dr. Yora exclaimed.

I shook my head. “No. No it’s barely understanding me and I don’t understand them. I need to get closer.”

Dr. Yora gave me a stern and all too knowing look. “That could be very dangerous. We still don’t know enough about it. I’m not risking your neck for this, Ms. Cleary.”

The creature knocked against the glass to bring my attention back to them. It swirled their fingers around the red.

“I don’t think it trusts us either,” I murmured.

The creature pressed their palms upon the glass like they were trying to push it away. I placed my palms over it and tried to feel something, anything. There was that tingle again, like ants between my fingers. I would need more time, but this creature needed help now.

I stayed long into the night, asking it questions that ultimately ran me back into a circle. Dr. Yora made me leave, saying they would use what I discovered to continue trying to communicate with the creature. I was taken to that room again so I could sleep and get some rest. But my mind was so alert and excited, I didn’t think I would ever find rest.

I came upon a quiet place and it felt like I was sinking into water. Bubbles rose above my head and I could see light filtering through the surface above me. There was this strange sound all around me, like pressure and flowing. I continued to sink down through the water and the light became dimmer and dimmer above me. In the sound all around me, I heard something. It was faint, but I could hear it. The closer I listened the more I heard. It wasn’t just sound, it was voices all talking at once, bleeding together, forming one dull roar. I tried to sift through them all, to find one voice to single out. I found a hand instead. I took hold of it and the noise stopped.

I woke by bolting up right. I coughed and wheezed from the sudden gasp I made. My left side ached horribly, but as I came to the pain faded. I lifted up my shirt, seeing there was bruising there that also faded with the pain. I raced from the room, going back to the large tank where the creature was kept.

“Ms. Cleary!” A researcher yelled at me.

I ran from them trying to stop me, giving a childlike chase around the tank. Eventually I found a ladder which I climbed up to get to the top of the tank. Inside the creature was moving, rising up to the surface of the tank.

“Ms. Cleary!” A researcher was chasing me up the ladder. “You need to come down here this second!”

“No! I had a dream!” I then stopped myself when I realized how ridiculou this sounded. “It’s research! Let me do this!”

“Stop!” Dr. Yora’s voice rang out clear and heavy through the room. She folded her arms as she glared up at me. “Ms. Cleary, there is protocol for this. You can’t just rush into things without consulting or even talking to anybody here!”

The creature was pounding upon the lid of the tank

“I can’t explain this well, I have not eaten nor had the coffee that usually sustains my day. But I think it was trying to reach out to me in my dream.”

Dr. Yora’s brow furrowed deeper.

“I’m serious!” I pulled up my shirt, showing the outline of the bruise along my side that had gone from blue to yellow and was almost faded away. “I woke up with a bruise similar to the injury it has.”

Dr. Yora sighed. “And you thought jumping into the tank would do what exactly?”

I pointed into the tank. “I need to talk to it face to face. I think I need to touch it in order to understand it!”

Dr. Yora wagged her fingers. “Come off the ladder. We need to discuss this.”

As I went down the ladder, the creature followed me. The bottom half appeared both like tentacles and the flowing mass of a jellyfish. I focused upon it, hoping it understood I wanted to help it.

Dr. Yora took me to eat and get coffee so I could properly start my day. All the while she gave me a sound talking to.

“This is a place of science, you can’t just run by feeling right off the first bat. I need you to tell me your process. What led you to run around like a damn chicken with it’s head cut off?” The usually polished and poised Dr. Yora looked a little dull today. She looked tired, frazzled.

“I’ll apologize for that. This the first time anything like this has ever happened to me. I’m used to translating from texts and documents. I’ve never had something alive like this to work with. Certainly nothing unknown like this.” I looked into my coffee, staring into the dark brew to see something that moved like the creature did.

Dr. Yora’s eyes narrowed upon me. “I told you what this place was when I hired you. You’ve read pages from early demonic possessions. You’ve read the Wakefield Accounts. You never believed in any of it until now?”

I shrugged. For me it was easy to brush off. Or at least it had been. “I still don’t believe it. I think Wakefield was fumes from the plant. I think the texts are interesting but manatees don’t make mermaids.”

She took her glasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Then explain to me what that creature is.”

I shook my head. “I can’t Dr. Yora. Can you?”

“Not quite.” Dr. Yora affixed her glasses back on. “My father started this institute on a shoestring budget. It literally began in our basement with my mother and uncle. I’ve seen everything you don’t want to believe. There’s a carnival that travels between worlds. A town full of werewolves. Demons have started coming to the human world because something is coming. And I am afraid our little Tofino beach monster could be a breach.”

Dr. Yora knew I didn’t believe, but I worked well and got the job done so she never argued with me. Not until now. The conviction in her voice was real, and she was a woman I admired so I listened to her, taking her word where I hadn’t before. “A breach? You mean something evil or something extraterrestrial?”

“I’m not sure. The demons aren’t into talking.”

I think about the documents I’ve translated most of them dealing with demons. “You’ve been trying to summon demons?”

“Locate,” she corrected me. “There are at least a dozen of the highest ranking members of the demonic royal family up here, including dukes and princes. The pages we’ve sent you are on how to find them amongst humans.”

I swallowed hard. “But why would they want to be here? Is there something that bad really coming?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. The Tofino creature could be a clue to what’s to come, or even where it is and how we can stop it. But until we can understand it, we have no idea what we are up against.”

“So, I still can’t touch it?” I asked.

Dr. Yora shook her head. “For the time being no. I think your marker solution was working out well.”

I push my plate aside and lean over the table towards her. “It wasn’t though, that’s the problem. I’m only getting half of what I need. The creature can understand me, I can’t understand them! My dream was a chance, an idea of what I could accomplish if I could just get in there to them.”

She sighed and shook her head once more. “I understand your frustration, but I can’t risk you getting hurt on an idea. You’ll have to figure something else out, Ms. Cleary.”

“Guess so,” I muttered.