Written in a Lovecraftian style, three men attempt to rid an underwater tomb of its Indian holds. But will the Great Spirit Daegal let them go?

The Serpent
By
Dennis M. Cummins


The past thirteen months have been a hellish existence of unceasing sounds, wakeful abominations of gurgling lakewater and that late-night splashing of some bulgy-eyed fish. A harsh reality undoubtedly worse than any tale of old could ever spawn. The passing months have produced too many atrocious happenings. And with Woodsworth and Sinclair horribly slaughtered by some predatory thing I am alone night after wakeful night with the solemn knowledge not only of their deaths but with the sound of that swimming beast coming closer and closer. I am in grave danger of being ripped to shreds by this beast. It is not fantasy nor a curiously disturbed imagination which prolongs in my mind. It is this amphibious nemesis that drives me to self-destruction.
God forgive us our sins-- our obsessive impulse to merely possess the forbidden icons of gold. Perhaps it was an emotional deprivation in infancy, or an attempt to extend our own limits of power that has led the three of us to such a fathomless ruin! For years Sinclair, Woodsworth and I had deformed cravings of ridding that underwater tomb of its Indian holds.
I could not begin to fully list the gathering of purloined artifacts embellishing this unholy mausoleum in the substructure of our unassuming residence in which the three of us tenanted. To the ordinary beholding eye one would think the room was some Satanic lair. Because of the inordinate accumulation of illegal loot we'd knocked out enough cinder blocks from the foundation wall so we could fit through and excavate a large underground room on the outer side.
In this repellent chamber of horrors I can tell you of endless shelves and crude wooden crates filled with antiquated knives, carved knick-knacks, crystal and green jade jewelry, talismans of many kind and waterlogged bones all snatched from Hassanimisco sacred ground. However in this case the ground was at the murky depths of Lake Ripple.
Among the vast whispering pines and smooth-barked white birch surroundings of this furtive and unfrequented lake there were only two other houses-- crumbling and supposedly empty. The decaying peaked gables, bull's-eye windows with gossamery moth-eaten curtains, and shortly before dusk small flapping creatures-- much like the ones that squeezed out from our own gable louver giving chase to late-season insects, stood as symbols not only of their decay and rot, but also of the hassanimisco Tribe which once thrived here.
Our unceremoniously artful expeditions on which we gathered these hallowed fortunes had always been achieved under the asylum of darkness. Waiting for that asylum in furtive coves, each expedition had been guided by bright submersible candlepower in which on numerous occasions we caught scaly glimpses of a reptilian-looking beast. These expeditions were always committed afloat under the pale watching moon and ashore before the rising sun shone its knowing daylight upon us.
Malign destiny baited us to that sacrosanct watery barrow. Perhaps it was the myths and legends we'd heard from that Indian. Old John George lived in a worm-eaten shanty further in the backwoods beyond the two abandoned houses. The maddest of myths spoken by old John had been of the tribe's holy man and how he had momentously blasphemed in the noticing eyes of the great spirit Daegal. 'Damnation was beset upon the village,' said John. 'Daegal opened the dark clouds wide and let loose a formidable torrent of water upon the tribe's peaceful valley. All was lost in the rush of deep water: teepees, livestock, tanned garments, unsuspecting blood-brothers. Then, from the center of the great flood rose the sentinel serpent, Megedagik, and swallowed the blasphemous Shaman.'
I recall the singular immersion in which we found the oracle shell. I teamed with Sinclair in the October-chilled water occasionally bobbing up for a gasp of air. Woodsworth-- who'd a touch of congestion, tended the small boat and sacked treasures as we ascended with them. Plunging past underwater creatures with milky inadequate eyes and through tall waving lake-weed, the water swirled silty-black as we brushed it from hidden vestiges.
Our lights were bright, but brushing away the mucky layers of bottom silt we could scarcely see four feet in front of our goggles. At once, our light-beams rendezvoused on what appeared to be a large stone. With closer observation Sinclair easily flipped it and-- with a bubbly holler, exposed a bleached skull with gaping haunted sockets. The stone was instead a large turtle shell. But it seemed by the incoherent scribblings on the underside that it was more than just a simple shell.
As I reached downward for it something gently tapped my arm. Tilting my light, I exhaled a burst of bubbly air as I observed the wafting, bony hand (which was attached to the fleshless structure of some long undisturbed remnant) seemingly attempting to stop our thrilled exhumation of the admirable discovery.
As we ascended from the shadowy bottom I glanced down one last time at the unknown ghoul. With all the turbulence from brushing silt and treading water, its floating arm circled nourishing a ghastly appearance in which he urged the return of the mysterious antiquity. And in the gently whispering night-wind as we rowed silently toward shore, we heard the faraway splash of an unknown existence.
The sacred terrapin shell washed up clean as a whistle despite being submerged for hundreds of years. The deeply gouged hieroglyphic etchings became clearly visible. Though we never deciphered the bizarre scratchings and reptilian-looking monsters-- nor did it interest us to try-- the legend of the Oracle Shell, promised that the long-sought-after Revelations of Universal Existence are deeply scribed in the pinkish bowl of the carapace. For a short time we delighted in the exquisite acquisition.
Old John had never given us full knowledge of the insanely dubious legend. Not once did he speak of the Shell or that this Megedagik was its guardian. Rarely did we go to town, living like the bats that squeezed from our gable vent, only going out at night. Then the nightly visits began, heavy thudding out on the back lawn like those of a large shambling animal. Loud screeching and once I awoke to a horrible scaly thing passing my upstairs bedroom window. The next morning we'd found huge tracks stamped in the lake-side lawn. That night we'd discussed the incident and other reptilian sightings such as Nessie, the serpent in Gloucester Harbor, Provincetown Cape Cod and now here in Lake Ripple.
Two nights later I heard something fumbling in the dimly-moonlit back yard. Thinking it may have been Woodsworth and Sinclair, I opened my bedroom window and called out to them. At first I was met with a dead silence. Then came a loud wail, a huge splash and a fizzing sound like boiling water. Woodsworth and Sinclair heard nothing; slept right through it, in fact. But the next day as we greedily surveyed the relics in our underground crypt a heavy thudding crossed overhead collapsing a cloud of black dirt upon us. The Sacred Shell spun crazily and fell from its perch.
We'd constantly lived with the fear of being caught with our morbid collection and thought at great lengths of what we'd do with anyone who'd discovered our secret. Certainly, this didn't sound like any ordinary being up there.
It was later in the spring when it happened. The nightly beast-visits grew steadily worse and more frequent. Now the loud foreign wail echoed over the lake nightly. When it came ashore the beast left mowed down underbrush and scrub pines in its path which afterward had a burned, sulfurous look-- as if seared by a hot iron or a passing dragon. I tried to convince Woodsworth and Sinclair of some dark connection between the watery tomb, the holy carapace, and the visiting beast. But their mad carnality to possess these ancient artifacts coursed too deep in their blood.
Woodsworth and Sinclair-- while rowing ashore from the watery tomb site through a light fog, were besieged by some dreadfully voracious beast which rose out of the dark waters. Their screams were loud and echoed across the lake. I ran to the shore in time to see a massive milky silhouette passing in the fog and waves crashed against the shore as if there were a violent storm-- although there was not a breath of wind. I heard the wet slopping and loud gnashing of human bones. And when the water settled our small boat drifted out of the fog. Woodsworth was gone and Sinclair's badly mangled body hung limply over the splintered side. He was dying and of his mumbled words I could only understand a few, "return the shell!"
With only a few unreligious words of eulogy I buried him where we kept the other secrets; in the place he had loved so well, our private mausoleum. Twenty feet away in the dim-lighted cavern the Shell of Existence-- containing powers reserved for the Almighty Daegal, glowed knowingly. I knew what I must do. Above me came a shambling, heavy thudding and a loud foreboding wail. Never did I speak of my vision-- the hollow-eyed, unknown ghoul, that night as we ascended with the Oracle Shell. In lieu of what has occurred perhaps I should have. I am truly convinced that those bleached bones at the bottom of the lake belong to that blasphemous Holy Man of old John's legend.
I'd carefully sacked the inscribed reptile carapace and shoved off shore shortly after the small whirring mammals squeezed from our gable louver. The lake surface seemed smooth as a mirror and in the murmuring night-wind it reflected the milky-soft fog-bank rolling toward me. The late-March breeze whistled through the tall pines and the white birch stood like a ghost-tribe.
So at last over the flooded tomb site I dropped a makeshift anchor made with a rope tied to one the foundation blocks we'd removed to excavate our secret crypt. The pale spring moon cast unnatural shadows along the shore. Arms tired, and before the drifting fog could engulf me totally, I rested momentarily. My eyes caught on the two abandoned houses. Tonight the upper bull's-eye windows seemed to stare accusingly. The bats flapped in frantic flight but not for flying morsels of food. All at once the worm-decayed structures began to creak and groan irreligiously. Wood snapping, they imploded as if an immense pair of evil hands had reached up from an unknown abyss and pulled them down in a swirling cloud of century-old dust.
Loosening the tightly knotted rope from the sack's throat I found the mystical shell emitting a florescent orange glow. What I'd thought was a reflection of the moon on the water had in fact been a dizzy vision of an underwater glow of identical florescent orange. The hair on the nape of my neck stiffened as I donned my goggles. Grasping the Oracle Shell my fingers felt an emanating warmth. Accordingly I sank off the edge of the boat and swam through the waving lake-weed, past beady-eyed underwater creatures, to where the matching orange light shone.
I could not see what caused it, but the bright orange light glowed from inside the hollow skull. Its bony arms were outstretched and I handed the legendary carapace to it. Around the ghoul were strange shreds of clothing much like those worn by Woodsworth on his last night. The skull's death-grin changed to a hideous, orange smile and the water began to bubble. I quickly swam for the surface, reached the side of the boat, and pulled myself in.
On shore the white birch ghost-tribe danced and chanted, "Daegal... Daegal... Daegal...". The water rippled beside the boat, then suddenly boiled up. Out of the fierce swirl of water rose Megedagik's menacing head thirty feet in the air, with six blazing red and green eyes and four rows of pointed teeth. I froze, wondering if I had been too late in returning the shell, or would Daegal tolerate my departure. Lake water descended through its neck-scales like a waterfall. The hideous monster leaned over as if looking for something, its sour breath exhaled in fog-like plumes. He tore the empty sack to ribbons, the boat rocking as if in high sea. The serpent poked its nostrils at me; sniffed; then lifted its scaly head and went under.
At that moment, it seemed that the Great Spirit Daegal had spared me from Megedagik's powerful gnashing jaws. Now I know it was only a temporary reprieve. The scaly beast comes nightly. With each visit another attempt to enter this old house. It won't be long before it succeeds. Now the burned, sulfurous trails cover every inch of the yard and the blazing red and green eyes peer in my bedroom window. I have tried to leave, but I was blocked by the serpent and twice by the dancing birch ghost-tribe. The Great Spirit Daegal will not let me go.
Right now-- while jotting down my final writings, my big toe on the twelve-gauge's trigger, Megedagik is ripping away the back wall. I will not be slaughtered like Woodsworth and Sinclair!