Chapter Text
“Okay.” Theon turned off the lights, and the Starks’ living room was left illuminated by only the dim glow of a half dozen tea candles.
“Cripes,” Gendry breathed, “you really went all out, Greyjoy.”
Theon took his seat at the head of the coffee table. The candles cast flickering light across his face. “This…” His cocky grin seemed downright evil tonight as he looked around the gathered. “Is no ordinary séance.You want a Ouija board reading?Go talk to the Parker Brothers.”
“Hasbro,” Robb corrected.
Theon ignored him.“This…” Another pause as he drew a book, massive and leathery, from under the table. Arcane runes, gilt in gold, intertwined one another on the cover. “Is next level shit right here.”
“What is that?”Arya squinted in the darkness. “Your D&D manual?”
Sansa nudged her under the table. Which led to Arya shoving her.Which led to Sansa shoving her back, which led to Arya slapping her, until finally Robb had to step in to break them apart. He wedged himself in between them and sat like that, then nodded for Theon to continue.
“I found this in my Uncle Aeron’s stuff,” Theon went on.
“You mean your weird uncle?” Jon asked.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be a bit more specific,” Theon said back.
“The uncle with the…?” Jon mimed a beard with his hand. “And the…?” He made a twirling motion with his finger, indicating a broken clock in his head.
“Still need to be a bit more specific.”
Jon rolled his eyes. “The one who’s part of that crazy doomsday cult.”
“The Order of the Drowned God,” Theon corrected. “Yes, that’s the one. He told me once that anyone who reads the Drowned God’s holy book will go insane. So we’re going to crack this baby open.” He opened the cover and a cloud of dust came flying off the pages. Even from his spot across the table, Robb could smell the must of it, and something else, like low tide. The book looked like it had been waterlogged at one point, because the pages were all yellowed and curling in on themselves. The ink they’d been printed with was bright red.
“This is super lame,” Arya announced. “You promised me ghosts and real supernatural shit.”
She tried to stand, but Gendry grabbed her by the sleeve and tugged her back into her seat. “I want to see what happens.”
“You really think Theon’s going to summon something with the Cultist’s Handbook of Crazy?” Arya rolled her eyes.
“Ignore her,” Sansa said. “She gets like this whenever someone mentions anything related to religion. It’s because of those weird Unitarians she’s been hanging out with.”
“For the last time, we’re not Unitarians, goddammit! We just believe that all other deities are an expression of a singular concept, and that’s death.”
“Is that why you hold a fight club in the school’s boiler room every Friday?”
“How do you know about that?”
Robb could tell this was quickly going to get out of hand again, so he stepped in, “Why don’t you start, Theon?”
Theon sat up straight and squared his shoulders. “I’ll summon the big guy himself, the Drowned God, just for you, Arya.”
Gendry sat up straighter too. “This I’ve got to see.”
The pages crinkled as Theon flipped through them. His eyes were alight with the reflection of the candles’ flames. “Okay,” he announced, holding a hand up. “This one has an inscription here: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.”
“The fuck does that mean?” Arya asked.
“That’s the only part that’s in English. The rest says…um…” He screwed up his face as he tried to pronounce the words correctly. “Tatre a mistrobeen…ha zar ta tantir man…”
The candles flickered.
“Um…Theon.”
Theon waved Jon off. “Ovmansizonnhazann…sobar sum undaropsadar his…”
Outside, the wind howled.
“I really don’t think you should—”
“Hyk err duns de rod sa Kanda.” With a pleased look on his face, Theon snapped the book closed. Just as the candles blew out.
Everyone sat in darkness and silence. The only sound was the wind and the scratching of tree branches against the window.
“Must have blown a fuse,” Robb finally said, and started to stand. “Good thing we’ve got—”
He stopped dead at the sound of footsteps. Slowly making their way up the front walkway.
“I…I thought your folks weren’t supposed to be home for several hours,” Gendry said.
“They’re not,” Robb answered. And anyway, that gait—one step, followed by a sliding sound against the paving stones—didn’t match his parents’. Who else would it be, though? In the middle of the night, in the middle of a storm?
The footsteps drew nearer. Step, scrape, step scrape.
Up the front steps. Step, scrape, step, scrape.
Silence.
Robb held his breath, waiting for the knock. But instead, there came a scratching. Like the tree branches on the windows. Robb’s hair stood on end as he thought perhaps it hadn’t been tree branches at all. Someone out there was definitely scratching. With long fingernails, it sounded like. And a soft grunting, snuffling sound, like a rooting pig.
Everyone looked at each other.
“I’m not answering that,” Arya announced.
“Maybe they’ll leave,” Sansa said, hand clasped at his throat. “The lights are off and—”
She screamed and everyone turned to hush her.
“Something dripped on me,” she hissed.
“Probably just rain,” Theon said.
“Inside? And anyway, it’s thick and warm.”
Robb recognized the look on Theon’s face, that he was going to open his mouth and say something incredibly inappropriate, so he jumped in and said, “Theon, would you go get a flashlight? You know where they are.”
Theon muttered something under his breath and went to go do it, while Robb knelt down by Sansa’s side. The scratching at the door continued.
“Arya, go check out the peephole. Don’t—don’t open it. Just look out, okay?”
Arya nodded and bounced to her feet. Gendry followed after her like a puppy, pulling out his phone to light the way.
Robb used his own phone to light Sansa’s outstretched hand, to see what had dripped on her. The glow from the screen illuminated the green substance on her fingers, and the stain it had left on her shirt. It was thick, like snot, and smelled slightly of seawater. Also warm, when Robb took it and rubbed it between his fingers. He lifted his phone to ceiling, to see where it might have come from, but the beam didn’t reach that far. He stood, but at that moment, Theon called from the kitchen, “Um, Robb, th-there’s something—I think you should see this.”
In a flash, Robb was on his feet and running for the kitchen. “What? What is it?”
Theon just stood by the cabinet where he’d fished the flashlight from. Stood there and cast the beam of light at the wall. Which was currently bleeding the same green substance from the living room.It oozed from the ceiling and crawled down the wall in long tendrils. Theon turned the flashlight around to show more of the substance oozing from the cabinets and refrigerator. “I think you’ve got a serious mold issue.”
As Robb looked at the substance, it seemed to be…pulsing. Expanding, contracting, then reaching farther. Breathing almost.
“Yeah, okay,” he said.“I’m calling Mom and Dad.” Robb began dialing. As it rang, he grabbed Theon’s wrist and dragged him back into the living room. “Okay, everyone,” he announced, phone to his ear as he waited for his parents to pick up. “Just stay together and don’t panic. I’m going to—”
A piercing screech erupted through his phone. He cursed and dropped it, ears ringing. It continued to scream at him before abruptly cutting off.
“What was that?” Sansa asked.
“I don’t…know?” Robb bent to retrieve the phone. Only to find it was so hot to the touch that he dropped it again. The carpet began smoking where it lay, and he quickly kicked it into the kitchen, where the floor tiles would hopefully not combust into flame.
He was beginning to suspect something very odd was going on.
“Theon, what was in that passage you read?”
Theon, flashlight in one hand, used the other to clutch his uncle’s book tightly to his chest. “I only read what was there.”
Robb held out his hands. “Give it here.”
Theon balked. “What are you going to do?”
“Just give it here. I want to see that page.”
“Robb,” Jon said, “you don’t actually think—”
A flash of light filled the room, followed by a clap of thunder that made them all jump. For a second, Gendry was illuminated in the living room entryway, looking rather spooked for a six-foot-tall high school quarterback. Then the room went dark again, save for Theon’s flashlight.
“Gendry?” Jon took a step towards him. “Where’s Arya?”
“She answered the door.” His voice sounded very faraway. He did not elaborate.
“And?” Robb prompted.
“Oh.” He blinked. “It got her.”
“It?”Theon asked.
“Got her?” Robb and Jon screamed over him.
Gendry just kind of stared at them with a faraway stare. They stared back as, from the arch of the doorway, something long and slimy and black reached out and wrapped itself around Gendry’s neck. And yanked him back into the entrance hallway before anyone could even make a sound of warning.
A second passed where no one reacted.
Then Sansa screamed. Not a startled scream. A scream of terror.
She wasn’t the only one. Theon dropped his flashlight and latched onto Robb for dear life. Robb might have appreciated it—his longtime crush, hugging him while sober—except for the fact that something decidedly not human was in their entry hall and had gotten both Arya and Gendry.
Step, scrape, step, scrape.
Whatever it was, it was dragging itself towards them now. Robb grabbed the dropped flashlight and trained it on the spot Gendry had been standing.
Step, scrape, step, scrape. Grunting.
Suddenly, Robb felt like someone had stabbed him through the gut. He knew with a certainty that he didn’t want to see that thing, whatever it was. He pulled the light away and instead pointed it towards the kitchen. “Run,” he said, grabbing Theon’s hand. “Everyone! Run!”
It seemed that they could feel it too, because as one, they leapt to their feet and made for the back door through the kitchen. Robb was in the lead, pulling Theon along. Jon followed, with Sansa close behind. Robb could hear it slithering after them, slow and methodical.
He reached the French doors that led out to the back porch. Here he had to let go of Theon’s wrist to throw the doors wide open. A torrent of rain and wind hit him full in the face, but he simply threw out an arm to shield himself as best he could. He reached for Theon’s hand again, and this time Theon reached back. The feel of his friend’s callused hand in his own gave Robb a momentary sense of security, before the sound of the thing reminded him that now was not the time to wallow in butterfly feelings.
Jon and Sansa followed his lead out onto the porch, down the stairs, and onto the wide expanse of lawn. The grass was slick, and the driving rain made it difficult to tell where they were headed. Through the howling wind, he heard a scream, unmistakably Sansa’s.
He didn’t want to turn, didn’t want to see what was following them, but Sansa…
He turned. And saw a black mass filling the doorway to the house. Well, black was the wrong color to call it. It seemed to suck all color and light with it, that writhing, shapeless mass of parts. A thousand worm-like tentacles reached out, pulled it along. A thousand eyes focused straight on Sansa, where she had slipped and fallen.
One of the tentacles found her ankle and began to drag her back. She kicked and screamed and twisted, but couldn’t seem to escape its grasp.Couldn’t find purchase in the slippery grass. It hauled her effortlessly into its mass, and her red hair was claimed by the colorless darkness.
“Sansa!” Jon started back, but Robb grabbed his shoulder.
“Jon, there’s nothing you can do.”
Jon looked at the spot where Sansa had disappeared—and where the thing was making its way across the lawn after them—and then back at Robb. With a frustrated growl, he turned away and they continued running.
There was a shed at the edge of the property. If they could get there, if they could barricade themselves inside until…until help came… Would help come? Robb’s panicked mind couldn’t think much past the immediate moment.
He slammed headlong into the shed, pulled the door handle. No one had mowed back here in a long time, and the long, uncut grass made it difficult to open the door more than a crack.But the sound of the thing’s pursuit and knowing he had to protect Theon and Jon where he’d failed the others gave Robb the strength to pull it free. With a triumphant cry, he dragged both Jon and Theon inside and slammed the door behind them.
Inside was dark and smelled like lawn clippings and gasoline and sawdust. Theon snapped on the light, a bare lightbulb with a pull chain. It bounced and caused light to dance around the toolshed, illuminating walls of power tools.
“Help me barricade the door!” Robb yelled. Together, they managed to haul a heavy tool shelf in front of the door to block it, then collapsed against the far wall, breathing heavily.
“What is that?” Theon asked, still panting.
“Whatever it is, it’s your fault,” Jon panted back.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you and your stupid book. Now we’re all going to die because of you!”
“Stop it, the both of you!” Robb, seated between them, held his hands out to halt their bickering. They’d write on his tombstone: He lived as he died—breaking up petty arguments.
Theon clutched the book to his chest like a schoolgirl and stared at the door intently. “It opens outwards,” he remarked.
Robb looked at him, then at their barricade. Barricades were meant to keep doors from swinging inwards. “Shit.”
Jon drew in a deep breath and staggered to his feet.
“What are you doing?” Robb demanded.
“I’m not going to sit here and wait for that thing to come get me.” He studied the wall of power tools, before deciding on something. He reached up and pulled the chainsaw down from its hook. “This havefuel in it?”
“Uh…yeah, I think so. But—”
“Good.” He hefted it in his arms and headed for the door.
“Jon, wait, you can’t—”
Jon stepped over the barricade and pulled the ripcord on the chainsaw. It buzzed to life. “I’ll try to give you two some more time.” He kicked the door open. It swung outwards. The sound of the thing making its way across the lawn towards them rose above the sound of the storm, above the sound of the chainsaw. Jon stood there, silhouetted in the doorway, hair whipping in the wind. He turned back to them for an instant. “Goddamn, Theon, fuck your stupid book. But at least tell Robb how you feel about him, okay? Can I at least go to my grave knowing my brother’s happy?”
Theon’s eyes grew wide.
“Jon,” Robb said. “Don’t go.”
“It’s already got Gendry and Arya and Sansa.” Jon held his chainsaw two-handed. “Fuck that thing. Seriously. Just…fuck it.” And with that, he was running out the door, screaming like a madman. At least he had the decency to kick the door closed behind him.
The chainsaw roared and whined, as if cutting into something. A great howl filled the air, a creature in agony. “Get it,” Robb muttered. “Get it, Jon.”
He felt a hand grab his own and looked over to see Theon, still staring intently at the door. Robb squeezed back.
After a few minutes, the chainsaw went silent.
And then the step-scrape of the thing resumed.
“Fuck.” Theon turned and buried his head into Robb’s shoulder. “Robb, I’m sorry I got everyone killed.”
“It’s alright,” Robb said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I…I have something I need to tell you. Since we’re going to die and all.”
“Yeah.”
“I…” He took a deep breath. “I love you, okay?”
Robb’s heart stopped, and not just because the step-scrape had paused at the shed’s door. “What? Really?”
“Yeah.Since we were twelve.”
Robb put his hands on Theon’s shoulders and pulled his head out of the crook of his neck. “All this time?”
Theon nodded miserably.
The door handle began to turn.
“I wish I’d known that sooner,” Robb said. “I would have—shit, Theon, I love you too.”
Theon stared at him. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
The handle clicked.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“Why didn’t you?”
The door began to open outwards.
Robb closed his eyes and pressed his lips against Theon’s. Theon tensed at first, but then started kissing back. A hand wrapped around Robb’s head and pulled them closer together. Robb could taste the rain on Theon’s skin, the slightly copper tinge to the inside of his mouth. God, how many times had he imagined doing this? How many years had he wasted, frozen from acting? And now they were about to die.
Speaking of which…
The door swung open all the way, and Robb finally broke away, breathless from the kiss and about as ready as he’d ever be to face his death.
The thing that stood in the doorway looked remarkably more human than he remembered. As it stepped over the barricade and into the light, it appeared to be nothing so much as a portly, bald man in a yellow coat, arms tucked into his sleeves. He smiled as he drew near and knelt down in front of Theon.
“Ah, so you’re the one who found the book.”
Theon clutched the book tight.
“None of that now. You know that doesn’t belong to you, human.”
“You…want the book?” Robb asked.
“I was sent to retrieve it,” the odd man said. “So, if you’ll just hand it over, I’ll be on my way.” He held out an arm, and several black tentacles unfurled from the sleeve of his robe.
“You’ll…be on your way?” Robb repeated.
The odd man nodded.
“Wh-what about the people you…ate?” Theon asked.
“Oh.” A scandalous look passed over the man’s face. “I didn’t eat them. They’re quite alright. Though they might have seen a bit more of the true nature of this dream you mortals call reality than they bargained for. Still, I’m sure their minds are…mostly still intact.”
Robb and Theon looked at each other.
The odd man cleared his throat. “The book.”
“Theon.” Robb nudged him. “Give him the book.”
With shaking hands, Theon handed it over.
The tentacles wrapped around it, and then the book appeared to disappear into the folds of the man’s yellow robes. “Thank you. We’ve been tracking down errant copies of the Necronomicon for years now. You wouldn’t believe what a hassle it is. If you happen to find another copy, do give us a call.”
Theon had a thousand-yard stare as he answered, “I’ll…be in touch.”
The odd man nodded in what might have been appreciation. Then he turned and headed for the door. Scrape-step. His robe swayed slightly on the ground, and Robb could not imagine how he was making that sound. He decided he didn’t want to know.
At the doorway, the odd man turned and looked over his shoulder. “Thank you for your cooperation.” And then he smiled, and Robb knew he would probably never sleep again.