Overlord

43

High above the water, Aston tried desperately to control the flood of sensory input and the fear that threatened to snap his mind. Held fast by the slick tentacle, he hung in the air, disoriented by the wavering motion and the sight of himself from numerous angles. Yet despite the fear, he experienced a surge of elation too. Surely this was what had driven Digby on, this sensation of happiness, of gladly becoming a part of the whole.

The biologist in him quickly assessed the emotion and he realized it was a kind of mental anesthetic, a chemical design to make any creature more willingly a part of the hive, of the gestalt mind. He resisted it, refused to give up his individual thought. “I will use you!” he yelled out. “I won’t become you!”

But his voice was weak and thin, his body shivering with the need to join the horde. He tried to ignore all the other visual input he was receiving, but one signal was too strong. As he looked down on the shadow in the water, that entity looked back up at him and he saw what it saw, witnessed his tiny, insignificant body thrashing high above, weak and useless.

The creature drew him down, drew him in toward it and at the same time it rose to the glimmering surface. He watched himself go down from above even as he saw himself drawn low from below. Was he going to experience himself having his brain eaten?

He heard distant screams from the shore, Slater yelling his name over and over again. His awareness flipped and he saw his predicament from the perspective of the other creatures, saw his friends’ distress from Digby O’Donnell’s crazed eyes. He watched himself from the myriad aquatic creatures moving lazily around the giant creature in worship. It was dizzying, sickening, but one thought remained strong despite the confusion. He was keenly aware that he had only seconds to live.

The ocean’s surface broke and poured off the giant slick bulk of the creature. Its body rose, squid-like, one giant eye glowing so brightly green that he had to look away. And in redirecting his gaze he spotted its gaping maw, with rows and rows of sharp, scintillating teeth. As the beast drew him closer, a bizarre, tentacle-like tongue extended from the mouth, as thick around as his body, questing upwards. At the tip, opening and closing with a wet smacking sound, was a suction cup-like appendage, ringed with more, tiny razor-sharp teeth.

This is how it bites off the skull, Aston thought. And then it sucks the brain out.

He wondered what bizarre biological imperative had driven it to consume brains. Was it driven to eat anything else? Surely something this size would require a lot more sustenance than that, even to exist in this famished state. Was the desire for brains some by-product of the green deposits in the other creatures that otherwise sustained this beast more than simple meat might? He shook his head, trying to free his thoughts of science and concentrate only on survival. Did he have any chance at all?

Bloodstone. He remembered Jen cutting the tentacle with her dagger and that tentacle swiftly retreating. Could that be the answer? He scrabbled in his jacket and pulled free his own intricately carved dagger. With a yell of effort, he swept it down and gouged it into the shining wet flesh of the tentacle that encircled him. He saw a dark burst of shadow like he had seen before, a spurt of bright green ichor. A deep, resonant rumble of pain thrummed out from the creature, that grew into a shriek that he heard in his mind, but not his ears. Through his oneness with O’Donnell and all the other creatures, he knew they felt it, too. He gasped at the sharp blaze of agony in his mind as he felt it with them.

He sensed O’Donnell flinch in pain and surprise and the man dropped the idol into the churning sea. Aston felt a surge of hope as the overlord paused, stunned by the unexpected hurt and somehow partially disconnected now from all it knew of the cavern, all its sensation of feeding. The idol, in the hands of a living being, obviously amplified the beast’s attraction, drew it forth. With that connection severed, the idol in the water untouched, the Overlord began to sink back into the water, its grip on Aston loosening.

As a grin of triumph spread across his face, Aston saw through O’Donnell’s eyes as the madman scrabbled into the water and gathered up the idol again. As he recovered it, the connection between them all returned, strong and clear, and the coil about Aston tightened crushingly again.