Chapter 41: At the Valley of Madness

"They've been gone for some time." Celestia's voice had a slight edge to it. She leaned forward in the passenger seat, horn glowing dimly, powering the external defense bubble while she stared at the imposing barrier of energy reaching up to the clouds in front of her.

Jeff tapped his chin, sitting next to her. "I know. Perhaps they ran into difficulty."

"Difficulty can mean many things here, none of them good."

Jeff tapped his console. "They'll be fine. We have to stick with the group in this thing. On the off chance we need the payload."

Celestia glanced towards the roof of the vehicle, well aware of the missile waiting quietly in its launcher rack. "Let's hope we do not."

"Optimism is good."

Dr. Hardy walked into the large cockpit from the rear of the massive vehicle, and sat in a chair. The cockpit alone was big enough to be the bridge of a small boat, four seats across and tall enough to stand in. "What's the situation?"

At that moment, they saw a flicker of light, and all eyes looked out the windshield. The barrier crackled and stuttered, then was gone as if it had never been.

"The situation is, get in your chair and we're rolling!" Jeff said. "All vehicles! Proceed forward with caution!" He punched the controls, and the Overwatch tank surged forward, following the smaller vehicles up the last hill before the Gate valley.

***

"Well that's fortunate," Hamilton said, eyeing the service Gator sitting at the mouth of the forty wide tunnel. "We should be there a lot faster than I thought, if this thing starts."

McAllister smiled. "Crank it up and let's see."

Hamilton jumped onto the dusty seat, and turned the vehicle on. "Yep, electric. Full battery charge. Let's do this."

"What's that huge cable thing down there?" Emmy pointed a hoof into the lower part of the tunnel, twenty feet below past a guardrail.

Chris looked down past the rail. "That's the power conduit heading to Gate 2. This entire tunnel was created to provide a direct power shunt. The Gates use an incredible amount of energy when initiating."

"I see." Emmy got into the seat next to Hamilton, and Chris squeezed in beside her.

The rest of the team piled in, and Hamilton nosed the vehicle onto the concrete service road and accelerated up the tunnel.

***

Even though it was still morning, darkness fell as the convoy drove towards the crest of the hill. The clouds spun above thickly, until a heavy dusk covered the landscape. Mist swirled near the ground, and flashes of eerie purple lightning flickered above.

Then they reached the top, and a nightmare spread before them.

"Oh shit," Jeff breathed, doubling over in a wave of nausea as the force of what he saw hit him. "Shit."

Sloping away before them was a hellish landscape of mutated plants and slimy ground. The waterfalls oozed instead of splashed, thick layers of oily filth stringing down like molasses from one fuzzy mold-infested pool to the next. The jungle had become a garden of fungi, some glowing, some breathing, some actually sliding along the ground, their gummy tentacles seeking purchase to drag their loathsome bodies along. Horrific and bizarre creatures slithered, rolled, and hopped throughout the nightmare, mouths, eyes, limbs, and organs thrashing with no logic whatsoever in their design.

But the worst of all was the unholy thing in the center, rising from the ruins of the Gate facility itself, reaching upwards into the dark, alien sky.

"The eye of the storm," Dr. Hardy whispered, holding a hand up to block his view, his voice tight with terror.

"Preserve our souls," Celestia gasped, averting her gaze.

A monstrous tangle of spongy, dark tentacles reached from the enlarged Gate anomaly, thick as tree trunks. Indescribable forms darted among them, slithering in and out like leeches. From the heart of the palpitating mass, a flexible stalk rose stories above the ground, looking out at the sky with an evil, fish-like eye the size of a water tower. An intense aura of malice emanated from it, so powerful that it inflicted physical pain upon the viewers.

Celestia tried to force her eyes back to the Thing, knowing it was only the tiniest portion of Shub-Niggurath's body, as if the creature were peeking through a keyhole into this world. Her stomach turned, and she retched, barely containing her boiling vomit. With an immense effort of will, she gulped back the sour liquid in the back of her throat and carefully peeked at the very base of the creature.

A long sphincter in the center of the tentacles bulged and belched out huge egg-like object as big as a pickup truck. It rolled to rest before uncurling into an indescribable horror with countless legs, a jumble of limbs, eyes, tentacles, and appendages with complete disregard to physics. It crawled off to join the ranks of hundreds of similar creatures that were in position around the Gate, defending their mother.

"What is it? What is that thing?" Celestia said weakly, looking away. Her head swam in circles while she shakily waved her hoof at the armored glass, the other hoof pressed against her forehead. Her voice was edged with panic.

"Shub-Niggurath. The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. An actual, living Eldritch Abomination. Do not look at it directly. Too much exposure can cause insanity," Dr. Hardy gasped, leaning against the dashboard with his face between his arms, staring at the floor.

"All personnel," Jeff spoke into the comm relay, looking at the gauges on the dash and avoiding the view out the windshield. "Do not stare directly at the creature in the Gate. I repeat, do not look at the creature in the Gate. Doing so can cause irreparable brain damage."

"Jeff." Dr. Hardy touched his shoulder, staying low and being careful not to get a glimpse out the window.

"Yeah."

"I have an idea. I can program something really quick for the ARHUD interface to block out the image of that monster. We can't fight like this."

"Do it. And hurry. I think they're aware of our presence now."

Dr. Hardy nodded and staggered into the back of the vehicle, bringing up a holographic terminal.

"In the meantime..." Celestia pointed a hoof.

"Crap. All units, engage approaching targets!" Tracer rounds spraying from the armored trucks below him, stitching through the darkness and tearing the straggling alien creatures asunder that had noticed them and taken an interest. He glanced at the missile launch controls.

Not yet. It hasn't even seen us. I don't even think it noticed the shield is gone. But what happens when the demon god finally looks down?

***

Sanchez looked his map, and checked the numbers on a sign as they drove past. "Almost there! Couple more markers!"

The tires whirred on the road, and the electric motor hummed quietly, rushing them along the incline to the surface, the headlights illuminating their path.

"I wonder what we're going to see at the end," Emmy said nervously.

Chris adjusted his grip on his rifle. "We're gonna find out soon. This is the end of the tunnel."

Hamilton stopped the Gator at the bottom of a flight of steps leading to a door in end of the tunnel, and they climbed out.

Chris turned to help Emmy out. As he held her hoof, she looked into the shadows behind him, and her eyes grew wide. "Behind you! Zombie!"

Chris snapped his head around, registering the outstretched hands only a few feet behind his neck. With a yell he swiveled and back kicked the monster as hard as he could in the chest, bracing his arms against the Gator's frame and using the full power of his exo to hurl the creature backwards. It half flew, half stumbled back against the guard rail, then fell over backwards with a hiss, the eyes popping out in surprise as it vanished from sight. A second later, there was a heavy thump.

"Nice railing kill," McAllister commented, leaning over the guardrail to see the motionless form impaled on a piece of exposed rebar twenty feet below.

***

"I got it!" Dr. Hardy yelled from the back. "It's a simple black panel that covers the image of Shub-Niggurath in the ARHUD. I'm downloading it now. Look out the window!"

Jeff tried it, and a black outline covered Shub-Niggurath, blocking the Eldritch Abomination from view. It moved with the creature, but hid most of the disturbing features. Simply facing that direction and seeing the silhouette caused some discomfort, but without the actual mind-bending sight of the trans-dimensional monster's impossible features, it was manageable. "Much better. Is it on the network?"

"The program is now active on all ARHUD devices."

"Good work Doc. Now we have a chance."

I hope.
***

"Do you hear that?" Hamilton asked, cocking his head.

"It's gunfire from outside," Marky replied. "Get that door open fast. We have to see what's going on."

Chris grabbed the locking wheel handle and rotated it, retracting the mechanism. "Here goes nothing." He shoved the door outward into madness.

"Fuck!" Chris fell back, shielding his face. "Don't go out there!"

Emmy was on him in an instant. "Are you okay? What happened!"

He shook his head dazedly, trembling slightly. "I.. I don't know. There was something big out there, really big. Something wrong. It hurt my mind. I've never felt anything like it before."

"Guys, I've got ARHUD network service back," Hamilton said. "Some patch downloaded. I think it's safe to go outside now, Jeff is on the comms talking about it. I'm gonna take a look."

Chris nodded, hands on his temples. "Okay. Be careful."

Hamilton pushed the door open slowly, and winced. "Ugh. Something's definitely wrong out there. But the ARHUD is blocking it from view. Wait till you connect and your software updates." He looked around a little more, leaning out the door frame, then quickly pulled his head back in. "You're gonna have to see this crap for yourselves. I don't even know how to begin to describe it."

***

"We got Chris's team back!" Jeff hooted. "They just checked in!"

Outside, the armored vehicles were spreading out, trying to clear a path to the Gate. The beam tanks were rolling into position, preparing to lay down fire from multiple angles.

Dr. Hardy was not nearly as cheerful. "You see those things down there? The really ugly things? Yeah, those. Look at them closely."

Jeff and Celestia squinted, peering at the creatures Shub-Niggurath had spawned. "It's hard to tell, but I think they are turning to look at us," Celestia said, unhappily. "Does that mean-"

A horrible wave of stomach-churning sickness passed through everyone present in the entire valley. Some doubled over and vomited, others grabbed their heads. Here and there cries of pain and fear erupted.

Shub-Niggurath's evil eye had turned to the invaders.