Dr Mackenzie MacNamara had a difficult time falling asleep that Wednesday. June 17, and she was tossing and turning in her bed. She decided to take a stroll to the S/S Willian Alexander, perhaps to have a chat with Moira, or just to think. She went down below, into Moira’s makeshift lab, and heard loud retching noises. Moira was mumbling ”just go away, go away”, and it turned out that Moira Baker had managed to ingest a small sample of the German E-Stoff, and she was feeling the full effects. Once again avoiding a fountain of vomit, Mackie decided to leave the ship and go back to the Bristol Hotel. This is when she noticed a strange package hanging from one of the cargo cranes a couple of berths away. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the limp body of Doctor Emil Radetzky of the Department of Early American History. This is when something snapped in MacKenzie MacNamara, and she ran back to the Bristol. The last thing she remembered was crying and thumping at the door of Jules Pollack’s room before waking up at sea on board the S/S William Alexander. Looking up, she saw a smiling Franz Alter, who looked down at her and said “I have very good bedside manners. Very good.” Mackie went straight back to sleep.
Jules Pollack had been fast asleep when Mackie knocked on the door. Knocking was an understatement, though, and her sobs could be heard throughout the hallway. Jules reached for his bedside glass of *cough* water, emptied it, and opened the door. It was Mackie, all right, albeit in a state of shock. Only one thing to do: call for Franz, and a bottle of whisky. Franz was more than ready to administer a very special cocktail of chemicals, but he was still concerned for Mackie. Doctor MacKenzie MacNamara was worn out, plain and simple, and she had had a nervous breakdown due to stress and exhaustion.
But what was going on with the killings? The members of the MacNamara Expedition were in a state of abject terror, and the expedition was on the verge of failure. Young Dean Abbott demanded that the expedition returned back to Arkham, preferably right away. However, the intrepid investigators were not quite ready to admit defeat. First of all, a killer had to be found, and a busy Thursday and Friday provided several leads, not only of who – or what – might be the killer, but also who the strangers from Cuba might be, and why they were keeping the S/S William Alexander under observation. Felix Jeremiah suggested breaking into Ramon Sotomayor’s apartment. Sotomayor stood out, since he had apparently just assumed his position as harbor supervisor a bit more than a month ago, and he didn’t seem to have any friends or acquaintances in Campeche. Secondly. Morale had to be boosted, and with the help of a grand performance by fetishist cross-dresser Erick Purkheiser, much steam was blown off.
Late that Friday night June 19, Howard Lake, Franz Alter and Jules Pollack were inconspicuously observing Sotomayor’s building, while Felix Jeremiah darted across the rooftops to climb down on a French balcony that might provide an easy entrance to Sotomayor’s apartment. He was concerned, though, since he had already observed one of the strange Westerners that had been noticed snooping around the harbor close to the William Alexander. Jeremiah entered the apartment without much difficulty. It was oddly spotless, with only some earth on an otherwise immaculately cleaned floor. The furnishings were sparse and generic, and there was remarkably little to go on as to ascertain the true identity of Sotomayor.
Meanwhile, Lake
noticed Sotomayor returning to his apartment. He was in turn followed by a
gentleman in a western-style suit. Sotomayor entered the small apartment
building, but Lake attempted to stop the other individual. That was quite unsuccessful,
though, since the stranger placed some form of suggestion onto Lake’s mind,
forcing him to walk back to the harbor.
It
was only a matter of minutes before Sotomayor found Felix Jeremiah hiding in
the closet, and Felix was banged against the ceiling repeatedly. Alter and
Pollack rushed to the rescue, and a wild brawl broke out. Sotomayor was, to the
horror of Felix, Jules and Franz, apparently not a member of the living at all,
and he was somehow controlled by the other man, who seemed to be yelling in
Russian as punches were thrown and shots were fired. It was only as Lake
returned that the strange protagonists were shot dead, and a quick search revealed
that the man in the Western suit may have been named Arthur Zann, or more correctly,
Arkady Zimin. The investigators looked at each other and simultaneously muttered
“Proletkult”. They also secured a strange tube, perhaps eight inches long,
which was sealed off on either end by caps carrying the strange star-like shape
they had seen so many times before. The scroll inside seemed to contain ghastly details on how to re-animate and control a corpse by injecting some weird green ichor.
After that dreadful evening that the intrepid investigators came to the horrifying conclusion that the vile agents of Proletkult must have dug up the corpse of Father Jean Victor de Galba, "El Franchese", and reanimated the corpse of that dreadful mass murderer to terrorize the members of the MacNamara Expedition in an attempt to convince most of the expedition to flee Mexico and leave the investigators in the hands of Proletkult. But why? What did Proletkult want with the distraught Yankees? What was their interest in the eggs, something that Zimin had asked about before violence and chaos took over.
It was decided to assemble a reduced expedition to brave the jungle and reach the enigmatic pyramid complex. Dr. MacNamara was simply not herself, so she would be left behind. Moira Baker was also to be left behind, since she was quite sick. That left Jules Pollack, Franz Alter, Felix Jeremiah, Howard Lake, Johnny Gale, Dorothy Gale, Dr. Evan Sinclair (formally the head of the expedition), Amanda Bowman, Kenzaburo Miyago and George Ellis Wright to press on. That Sunday, ten committed explorers and scientist with a dozen mules and all the equipment they could carry, left Campeche. They did bring the four eggs from the Cormoran with them, since so much of the longseries of strange events seem connected to the eggs. All the advanced equipment, such as halftracks, compressors and mining equipment had to be left behind, and the William Alexander set out with the remaining members of the tattered expedition to Campeche Bay, separating them from the tragic events that had befallen the expedition.
The trek through the primordial jungle was exhausting. Heat, bugs and other strange forms of wildlife kept gnawing at both the minds and bodies of the explorers. After more than week of sweating and curing, they noticed a blow dart ledged in a tree trunk in front of Jules Pollack. The expedition was soon surrounded by scores of natives, and they explained to Kenzaburo Miyago (who knew quite a few native American languages) that the expedition could continue along the path ahead, but that they would be killed if they returned. After some discussions, the expedition nevertheless decided to proceed.
It was Tuesday, June 30, when they saw the footsteps to a gigantic pyramid. Johnny Gale simply said "this is it", waving his hand towards the ancient and sinister-looking structure. The expedition took several photographs of the strange glyphs that decorated the complex, and as the expedition approached the entrance, several inscriptions in a more Egyptian style were noted. It was indeed a marvel!
It was around 4 PM before the expedition actually ventured down the narrow stairs into the pyramid itself, although Johnny and Dorothy Gale remained with the mules. The passage was quite dark, and once inside the moist vegetation gave way to dust and some sparse lichen. The stairs led down to what seemed to be a control room of sorts. The hieroglyphs indicated construction and building as well as manufacture, according to Amanda Bowman, the resident Egyptologist, who seemed to have some interest in Howard Lake, at least according to Lake. The control panel had a series of mind-boggling glyphs or symbols below a series of knobs and indentations. There was also a wide ramp leading further down into the pyramid. Lake and Jeremiah proceeded downwards into the darkness with utmost care and a firm grip around their flashlights. As they slowly walked down the ramp, they became a ware of a weird light phenomena at the end of the ramp, a greenish luminescent layer over egg-like shapes quite similar to the ones found outside Cuba. However, in this case there were hundreds, if not thousands of eggs.
Dr. Sinclair, Miyago and Wright were most eager to examine the eggs, so they rushed down from the control room while Amanda Bowman and Jules Pollack studied the hieroglyphs. The phonetic symbols indicating sh-g-th were recurring, and she told Jules about her find. Jules Pollack felt a wave of dread flowing through his body, as he remembered the abomination in the cave they saw during Christmas a year and a half ago, the slime, the tentacles, and the ungodly speed at which the Shoggoth launched itself at Moira Baker...
Pollack shouted that the expedition had better leave the pyramid, but it was too late. Dr. Sinclair, filled with bold curiosity, had already pried open one of the eggs, and a mass of ungodly protoplasm billowed out from the pod. Sinclair's screams were beyond horrifying as his very molecules were torn apart by the blasphemous apparition, and the mere sight of it almost cost both Jeremiah and Lake their minds. Miyago was next to be devoured, and then Wright. Fortunately, Franz Alter had managed to decode some of the controls, and he made a wild guess at the function of what might be some form of destruction mechanism. It was, and the entire pyramid started shaking violently as if subjected to a particularly intense earthquake. Blocks were falling down from the ceiling, and there was dust seemingly everywhere. Only the shrieks of young Wright could be heard over the rumbling.
As Lake, Pollack, Bowman, Jeremiah and Alter raced up the stairs, they became aware of four individuals, two men and two women, blocking the entrance and sealing it off by some strange force field, looking a bit like heat over pavement, but effectively stopping anyone from leaving the pyramid. It was, as feared, the agents of Proletkult, Janis Sarts, Rosa Klebb, Miranda Guzman and Ivan Svetko. Sarts laughed as he expalined their devilish plan: "Thank you for leading us to this factory. By using the Shoggoths the USSR will rule the entire World! All of it! But first, they must be nourished to be controlled, and you, my friends, will provide nourishment. The global revolution thanks you ever so much!"
Nobody really figured out how the force field actually became deactivated. Perhaps it was the rapidly collapsing pyramid itself, or perhaps the presence of the ungodly Shoggoth. The intrepid investigators were however ready to act, and they were joined by Amanda Bowman, her firm and generous bosom straining against the buttons of her tight and wet cotton shirt. Lake may have been distracted, but not Miranda Guzman, who attacked Bowman. The fight was short and confused as the Shoggoth rapidly slithered up the stairs. Amanda Bowman knocked out Miranda Guzman, who in turn was devoured by the Shoggoth. So was Ivan Svetko, the four eggs from the Santa Ana and at least five mules before the entire pyramid collapsed upon the Shoggoth. Rosa Klebb was possibly Shoggoth fodder as well, and Sarts simply disappeared, his plans for world domination shelved for now.
Dr MacKenzie MacNamara woke up feeling confused. Why am I in my bedroom? Am I in Arkham? Why is Franz Alter sitting across the room? “I have very good bedside manners. Very good.”
Rosa Klebb and Janis Sarts
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