Cthulhu's Reign

leaping back to the safety of the Womb. He punched a button on the remote as soon as he was inside, and the shutter began to iris shut; like watching my wife through a camera.

“Sayoko!”

And the shutter irised tighter in front of my eyes. My wife, being eaten alive by that damned white thing squatting astride her: the image pierced my eyes, my heart, my sanity. I could see other white shapes rising from the darkness, my wife lifting her bloody face, looking up at me. Trying to say something, and vanishing under a vast rush of grunting, squealing, hungry flesh.

And the shutter closed, searing my wife’s end into my soul.

5

The three of us — me, Manabe, and his wife — descended into the Womb. My wife’s design was perfect, with not a single angle anywhere. Chairs and tables stood perpendicular to the floor, but surfaces flowed seamlessly together, as if they had grown from it. Floors and table legs of such were of course rounded, no corners anywhere. Lights and furniture were circular, but so were cutting boards and knives and forks and even the screens of the TV and the computer. Everything was circular or curved, everything. It was monomaniacal.

“They come in through the angles,” repeated Manabe again and again. “They can invade anything through the angles, but not here! They can’t get inside the Womb!”

Kanako and I already knew it far too well. the radio, the TV, the Internet all told us how bomb shelters, even secret military bases, has been effortlessly invaded, their human occupants torn to bloody shreds. Usually it was tentacles, like a squid or a jellyfish, seeping in through an angle, but sometimes there were reports of the white beasts, or speaking mold, or huge mobile plants with human eyes.

“It’s all over,” laughed Kanako, laughter breaking into jagged shards.

We lived on in the shelter, no angles and no knowledge of when it all might end. We continued to receive reports from the outside world for three days, then suddenly the TV stations went off the air. The Internet continued until the fourth day, but that night the remaining few blogs and boards began displaying meaningless strings of consonants, or rows upon rows of unreadable characters, until dying completely on the fifth day.

On the sixth day Kanako began acting strangely. During meals or while drinking coffee she would wait until Manabe was looking elsewhere, and flash desperate glances in my direction. Her expressions were not wholly sane, but were packed with pheromones by the abnormality of our situation. I ignored her, shutting myself in my room, and painted. Driven by hopelessness, I felt that only by painting could I retain even a shred of my sanity.

On the seventh day, Kanako slipped into my room as I painted.

“Help me, Tatsuya. Hold me. I can’t bear it any more!”

She wrapped her arm around me from behind, naked, and when I turned to face her began kissing me with wild abandon. The sight of Sayoko being devoured by those white creatures flashed through my heart, and I shook my head, trying to push her away. Kanako thrust her tongue into my mouth, soft, sweet, a faint scent of perfume. the latch of my sanity slipped, and as I eagerly sought her tongue with my own, my arms tightened around her. We fell to the floor, and found solace in each other until the night. It was not love, nothing so beautiful, it was hungry sex, two people seeking refuge in the flesh, trying to escape inescapable terror. We spasmed in climax, brought each other back again and again with our mouths and our hands, losing ourselves in each other in timeless repetition, a mindless drive to forget the terror that seized us.

And as the sun rose again we returned to our senses, whispering together. What did we need? How could we escape the hopelessness, the terror? We reached a conclusion, sealed it with another brief bout, and broke apart. She returned to her room, and I to the shower.

At dinner, Kanako came wearing one of her favorite outfits, and a neutral expression.

The dining room was of course circular, as was the table. The chairs, the plates, even the steaks and the vegetables in the salad were round, free of angles.

She had a white scarf round her neck, matching her white suit, and she had made herself up as she hadn’t for days, chic and beautiful. Manabe, as always, was in his ratty jacket and slacks, glittering eyes peering from his pale face, looking like a successful businessman on his day off.

I wore my old black turtleneck sweater, a cheap jacket and jeans. Not nearly the sort of dress appropriate for a dinner invitation.

After pouring us all glasses of red wine, Kanako asked what we should toast.

“To life without angles,” said Manabe, without even stopping to think about it.

I lifted my glass in response, but Kanako shook her head.

“No. I hate that!”

“Well, then, to the beautiful suit you’re wearing, Mrs. Manabe,” I proposed. She giggled.

“This scarf looks good on me, doesn’t it?” she asked, grasping it by the end.

“Yes, it doesn’t have an angle on it,” said Manabe, and Kanako burst into laughter. Her wineglass toppled, red wine seeping into the tablecloth in a blotch that was also rounded.

“What is the matter with you?” demanded Manabe, brow furrowed.

“All you ever talk about is whether or not there are any angles. That’s all you ever think about!”

“It’s a crucial issue. The Womb is safe because it has no angles. I can sit here drinking wine because of it.”

“Of course. It’s safe because it has no angles, and I. I…”

She pulled on the end of the scarf, unwinding it to reveal her slender, white neck, and the red mark, like a scar, that flamed there.

“What is that?” asked Manabe, quizzically.

“All you worry about is future generations, and you’ve forgotten what men do here.”

“What in the world.?”

“It’s a kiss mark!”

She laughed triumphantly, white teeth flashing. I joined her in laughter, captured by her spirit.

“So you slept with Izumo. so what?”

“Are you jealous?”

“No,” denied Manabe, shaking his head. “If you have sex with both of us, the chances of being impregnated will increase. Your infidelity fits perfectly with my original plan to save humanity.”

Her laughter faded as Manabe continued.

“Was it good? Maybe we should try it together, then, tonight, all three of us. I don’t mind either way. As long as we preserve the species.”

“Hold on one minute, Manabe!” I broke in, unable to hold back any longer.

“What?”

“Are you serious? You spend a fortune building this spherical coffin, you leave my wife to be eaten alive, and then when a painter steals your wife you just suggest maybe we should try a threesome! What the hell do you think is going on outside? The world is ending! And you! All you can do is.!”

“It’s not ending,” he broke in. “There are no angles here, so They can’t get in. The world will not. ”

He suddenly broke off, slapping his hand to his mouth, eyes blinking wildly, searching left and right. From behind his hand, the sound of a clogged drain oozed from his mouth, a pause, then the sounds of his stomach violently surging back up his throat. His hand slipped from his mouth, letting thin, translucent tentacles snaked out, like wet slugs or tired noodles. They writhed, squirmed, heads twisting and seeking.

“It’s Them! Oh God, it’s THEM!”

Kanako leaped from her chair, shrieking.

A jellyfish gently began testing the air from inside his nostril.

“But how.?” he asked, voice muffled, and his right eyeball popped out, little ripping noises, as tentacles lifted it up from the inside.

“No angles. there are no angles!”

I drew back from the table and the shaking mass that was Manabe, and answered him: “There are angles, you fool! The oldest angle of all, the human triangle!”