Chapter 30: Destruction

John Marson watched as Mrs. Parker walked away. Then he took a deep breath, and addressed the crowd:

“Listen to me, Taveye!” he said. “For a long time, this demon has made us sick! It’s been killing this town slowly from the inside! But today, my friends, today we are taking back our home. We’ll kill the cancer that’s eating us, once and for all, and Taveye will be better and stronger for it!”

The crowd erupted in cheering and applause. But then there was a piercing cry:

“NO!”

Susan Holt was standing in the wet sand. Her eyes were widened in fear, and she had fresh scratches and bruises all over her. Had she battled her way past the current through the tunnel?

“Where is… the book?” she asked.

“It’s gone, Susan. I’m sorry.”

“We remember… everything.” she said. “But they… have… forgotten. And… now nothing… else remembers.”

She looked at Mr. Marson. “You threaten us. We will… fight.”

I thought I saw… something surfacing from the sea before going under again. A grim determination emanated from below the water, just as it did from the crowd. Fight.

“We have requested that you leave many times.” Mrs. Wick said. “Now I’m asking you once more. Stand aside.”

“You!” she pointed at Mr. Marson. “You killed him! Everything… is destroyed, because of you!” She screamed and lunged at him, but George Farrow grabbed her.

“Stand aside, she said!”

“Susan!” I called.

“I’m warning you.” George Farrow said to me. Someone passed him some kind of fishing tool, and he waved it around threateningly. “She looks like a woman, but if she gets in our way, then she’s devilspawn too.”

“It’s time you get me in the damn boat.” said Mr. Marson. They helped him walk towards it while Susan Holt fought like a wild animal, kicking and shrieking and biting, but the Taveyans formed a wall around her.

“Mr. Marson, wait!” I said. But he didn’t listen. I knew that it would end today. Perhaps this was the only possible way for it to end. Mr. Marson reached the boat. The others got in with him. They carried some kind of strange grey box. ‘Made in Essmouth’, it said on the side, but not what was in it. Though I had a sneaking suspicion…

Susan Holt was still not giving up.

“Susan, don’t fight.” I said, and to the Taveyans: “Let her go, I want to talk to her.”

She calmed down a little, and they did as I asked. She walked towards me. “You must help.” Help us. “Fight them.”

“I can’t help, Susan.”

“I don’t wish you any harm,” Mrs. Wick told her, “But if you interfere, we cannot guarantee your safety. It would be better for you to leave.”

“We… have lived here before you.” said Susan Holt. “You will not live here after us.”

“Is that a threat?” Mrs. Wick asked.

“No. But it is true.”

Susan’s eyes stared into mine, and again I felt like I was being drawn into them. Or, no, like she was drawing something out of me.

“Remember that all is one.” she said.

Above us, the sky turned a shade darker. Or maybe my vision did.

“The loss of one lessens the all.”

The boat was moving now.

“The lone soul cannot live as death is all around him.”

I was aware of the sea, and the creatures swarming the boat, bashing against the side.

“If the others perish, then so does he.” Without knowing why, I found myself joining in the chant. “Because he is them…”

“…and they are him.”

“So it is with us…”

“…and them alike.”

“Let he who reads these words remember…”

“…that all is one.”

She was silent again, and so was I, and I looked around to see that everyone was staring at us.

“What was that?” Mrs. Wick asked.

“Those were the opening lines of the book.” I replied.

Mrs. Wick’s expression turned wooden. “Wait.” she said. Then her composure seemed to crack, and she ran towards the boat. “Wait!” she yelled. “Wait! Mr. Marson!” She waved at them wildly, but they didn’t respond. “Mr. Marson! Stop!”

But it was too late. There was no way of stopping it now. I looked from the sea to Susan and back. Someone in the boat got up and lifted the box, and I made a decision. I didn’t know how to save the being. I didn’t know how to save Taveye. But I could save her from them both. Unnoticed, I walked up to her, quickly took off the necklace, and slipped it around her neck.

Voices overwhelmed me, the being’s mind overwhelmed me, and again, it was incomprehensible. Susan screamed.

“Where are we?! Where are we?!” she asked. “WHERE ARE WE?!”

She tried to take the necklace off, but I grabbed her by the wrist. “Susan, follow me.”

She fought, reached for the necklace with her other hand, but I lifted her off the ground. She was so thin she hardly weighed anything at all. I carried her towards the dune as fast as I could manage. I suddenly had a throbbing headache, worse than I’d ever felt, and the being’s mind was calling out to me with full force, but I ignored it.

Susan had stopped resisting me. She was muttering to herself. It sounded like gibberish, but maybe it made sense to her. Slowly, I climbed the path up the dune. But then there was a loud bang behind us. An explosion. She gave a terrible, agonised cry, then starting coughing violently. I felt the being’s mind change. It was hurt. Badly hurt. Dying… I looked behind me and saw a pillar of water shoot up into the air, and then collapse. It left behind a hole in the sea itself. A hideous, gaping wound, with light flowing out of it, impossible light, of no colour I knew, and yet I knew it was not the colour it should be. Then rain poured down on us, heavy like a waterfall that was everywhere at once. I reached the top of the dune. The ground was shaking and I collapsed, with Susan Holt still in my arms, but Jeff carried her while Cathy took my hand, and led me like a blind man away from the great carnage behind us. Wood creaked and stone rumbled around us. The rain was relentless, and the earth would not stop moving and I was dizzy but still I ran and ran and ran. Ran until we came to a dry place, and there I sat down and tried to stop thinking and stop feeling. But I still knew, I still felt when it died. It left an absence in my mind. A great silence that could never be drowned out. It wasn’t sleeping this time. It was completely, irrevocably gone.

Beside me, Susan Holt wailed, and then went quiet.

We were in a car, driving down the same road the bus went. To Essmouth, and the city.

“You alright back there?” Jeff asked.

“I’m… fine. I think. But she’s asleep or unconscious, or something.”

I looked, and it was as if the strangeness had gone out of her. When she woke up, would she be human again? Or maybe that was too soon to hope for. Out the window I saw the shapes of trees, bright but muddled by droplets on the glass. The rain had stopped now. I still felt dizzy. I touched my hand to my head, and felt blood. I stared at my fingers.

“Must have… must have hurt my…”

…