Byron Craft [Craft - Shoggoth 2- Rise of the Elders

SHOGGOTH 2: Rise of the Elders

Who creates and controls the shoggoths? For Professor Thomas Ironwood and his heavily armed team, the answer is crucial. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance.

The solution? Return to the tunnels beneath the Mojave Desert, locate a gigantic subterranean vault and unlock the secrets it contains. Deadly primal secrets that lie in wait from a time before human life began!

Byron Craft once again takes us below the earth in this SHOGGOTH sequel enveloping us with tentacles, claws, and mucus glop. A talented fusion of Lovecraftian sci-fi, mystery, fantasy, and horror with a 21st-century twist.

***

Byron Craft goes places HPL never dared.

F. PAUL WILSON
Author of THE KEEP, REPAIRMAN JACK SERIES,
THE GOD GENE, and much more.
www.repairmanjack.com

Bryon Craft again takes the most beloved elements of the Lovecraft canon and makes them his own. The fact that he does this while keeping everything readers love about Lovecrafts creations in the first place is astounding.

SEAN HOADE
Author of 18 books and pulp writer extraordinaire.

Bryon Craft writes cinematic, action-packed science fiction horror with panache: smart plotting, engaging characters and attention to detail put him a cut above the field. If you like your aliens slavering and carnivorous, your heroes rugged and your action explosive, youre going to love his work.

DAVID HAMBLING
Author of the Harry Stubbs series. www.facebook.com/ShadowsFromNorwood

Byron Craft is a master of combining Pulp Adventure with Lovecraftian horrors. When Byron puts pen to paper, he builds a perfect adventure around a core of sheer terror that makes for an excellent read.

MATTHEW DAVENPORT
www.davenportwrites.com

Byron Craft returns to the Lovecraftian lore of Cthulhu in Shoggoth 2 Rise of the Elders. Crafts inimitable ability to pay homage to yet make the world of Lovecraft his own is proof positive of his abilities as a writer.

PAUL ATREIDES
www.paul-atreides.com

SHOGGOTH 2: RISE OF THE ELDERS

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2018; Byron Craft

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

www.ByronCraftBooks.com

Cover art by Pahapasi, https://pahapasi.deviantart.com

ISBN-13: 978-1722661984
ISBN-10: 1722661984

The Works of Byron Craft

The Mythos Project:

The Cry of Cthulhu : Formerly: The Alchemist's Notebook

Shoggoth

Shoggoth 2; Rise of the Elders

The Arkham Detective Series:

Cthulhu's Minions

The Innsmouth Look

The Devil Came to Arkham

The Dunwich Dungeon

The Arkham Detective Collection

DEDICATION

In memory of H.P. Lovecraft, plus all my characters that keep the weird alive; and to Marcia Craft who motivates me.

SHOGGOTH 2:
Rise of the Elders

CONTENTS

Chapter 1
- Stasis -

The mist partially obscured the tentacles, tendrils, and lobster-like claws. The bulk of Trihl's girth barely had enough room to turn around in the vertical cylinder.

All five-fifths of a pentad had run out. The collision happened on the far side of the planet. Even so, very little was left alive, anywhere.

The shoggoth solar collecting stalks, that once soared upwards, wilted and atrophied under the dark smoke-filled sky and the tunnel walls, floors, and ceilings, once flourishing, became lifeless.

Below, the shoggoth slaves were rampant, devouring everything that was left living to placate their vanished solar energy feed; a revolution against their masters motivated by the ravages of hunger.

Suicide would be the solution for most rational beings, but the upper and lower lobes of Trihl's big brains were unable to comprehend death. Only finite beings laid down and never got up again.

All had been secured. Everything would be there when Trihl needed it. The stasis chamber locked. There was a hiss. It was time to sleep.

Chapter 2
- Blood in a Bottle -

The tall man with a scar waited. Darkness would fall soon. The upper crest of the sun sunk below the horizon. In a little while, the hunt would begin. He feigned being the prey so that the pursuer would become his.

The tall man with a scar leaned back in the chaise lounge and pretended to sleep. His eyes appeared closed, but his lids were not tightly shut. The thin slits presented a limited field of vision as if peering through a narrow horizontal crack. The roofs of the crowded subdivision reflected the soft orange radiance of the setting sun and surrounded his lanai. Virtually all the houses in the subdivision had a lanai contained within a pool cage. If he had risen from his faux slumber and looked to the south, to the east and then the west all that would be visible would be clay tile shingles, stamped concrete patios, and screened enclosures. Typical homeowners association protocol in Southwest Florida.

Movement atop one of the houses cast an advancing shadow. It scuttled across the roof tiles. It was skinny, bone scrawny and filthy. Although vampires were bipeds, this one scurried on all fours springing from one rooftop to the next, getting closer. The tall man with a scar did not move.

Vampires were lowly creatures. The conventional notion of a vampire, dressed in black with silk cape flowing was ill-conceived, nor did they resemble anything in the TV show Twilight. They were dirty beasts that fed off anything that had blood pumping through its veins. This one had a penchant for school children, little girls.

It was a clear and thorough trail the tall man with a scar left for the foul bloodsucker. Two-thirds of the houses were empty. Summer had arrived, off-season for the snowbird neighborhood. He had made it well known at the convenience store around the corner, all the big box stores in town and especially the local blood bank that he was a single dad with three little girls in his keeping, two of which were AB-negative; a rare blood type that is highly desirable by vampires for its flavorful platelets. The trail of bloody breadcrumbs was complete. If applicable, he would have posted the phony info all over social media except vampires lacked the intelligence to operate a computer let alone navigate the internet. The trap set, the bait was irresistible, and he, of course, who laid in wait, had no family.

A compact mini fridge next to the chaise made a satisfactory end table. A glass ashtray on its porcelain surface stored the smoldering remains of a cigar. A light breeze wafted a blue-white smoke curl across the ersatz recumbent sleeper. The entry to the enclosure opened. The screen door closer hydraulic piston arm slowly drew the door shut behind the parasite. There was a click, the latch fastened to the aluminum jamb.