Ch 3

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Peter sat in the archway breathing heavy. Adrenaline coursed through his veins aided by the insane laughter that slowly took over as the screams fell silent one by one. He looked swiftly left to right. He knew he had to get Charlene out of there but he just couldn’t force himself to move. He heard a noise to his left and looked for the source.

Suddenly, Charlene’s body shuddered and she gasped. Peters head swiveled around to see what happened and he found himself looking at some man with his hands on Charlene’s stomach. He couldn’t quite figure out what he was looking at until the man pulled his hands up, yanking free a jagged, torn, shard of metal from her abdomen, and pulling a bit of intestine out with it. She gasped and coughed, until the man decided that he wasn’t finished and plunged the makeshift knife into her abdomen and chest a few more times.

Peter shook loose his shock and sprang to his feet, backing away in horror. The sudden movement startled the madman, who looked up at Peter as if he hadn’t seen him before. The man slowly rose to his feet, a sick grin spreading across his face like oil on water, forgetting completely his first victim and setting his sights on a second, much livelier victim. Peter kept backing up and finally backed into a wall.

The man charged at Peter like he was going to punch him with his knife hand. Peter dove to one side just in time to avoid the singing edge of the blade as the man punched the wall. There was a series of plopping sounds followed by a metallic clang as Peter worked his way around behind the man. Peter ran up the stairs to the observation platform and turned around on the landing to see the man staring at the stumps where his fingers used to be.

The man bent over and reached down with his good left hand, and Peter saw where he was reaching. The man brushed aside his own severed fingers to pick up the jagged and apparently razor sharp shard of metal from where it had fallen on the floor. He stood slowly and turned around to face Peter, causing Peter to retreat up the stairs to the viewing platform. He raced up the stairs to the top most platform until there was nowhere else to go and spun around to find the man blocking the stairs.

Peter’s arm brushed a freestanding display sign and he picked it up holding it like a baseball bat, with the heavy weighted base out. The man raised the shard and took a step toward Peter. He knew there was no pleading or reasoning with the madman who just severed his own fingers and acted like nothing had happened. Peter kept backing up to give him some time to react. He had about ten feet between himself and the madman when the man charged full tilt, shard of metal raised, poised to plunge into Peter’s body, regardless of what the man would be doing to his own hand in the process.

The man was too fast and Peter couldn’t swing in time, so instead he dodged to one side again and ran around and down the stairs to the lower platform and ran to the other end back towards Charlene. He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to watch the man jump down the entire set of stairs, landing with a loud THUD on the wooden deck. The man turned slowly to face Peter and raised the knife, charging again. This time there was more room so Peter had time to get off a swing. And he swung for the fences, catching the man on the side of the head, the force of the swing carrying the man into the wall and caving in his skull, flinging bits of bone, blood, and brain all over the wall and floor. And Peter.

Peter dropped the sign and started shaking uncontrollably as he backed away from the scene of carnage. He looked down at the man and saw a bit of brain dribble out of the man’s skull. It was too much; he twisted to the railing beside him and vomited over the side. Onto a woman who was pulling the intestines out of her struggling seven year old.

The woman stopped and looked up. When she saw Peter she tossed her dying child to the side and started to climb up the wall so she could climb over the railing. Peter sprinted blindly in the opposite direction.


All over Baltimore people were shooting each other in the streets so the rivers of rain ran red with blood and bodies. People were using bits of debris to kill each other, kitchen knives, baseball bats, tire irons, shoes, pens, phones, and even the water itself. All of Baltimore was carnage and death and those not affected by the Necronomicon, killed to defend themselves, or died at the hands of the mad.


Husam stood in a circle of burning candles praying to Leviathan from the Necronomicon. The candles flickered in a breeze that wasn’t there as the flames flared consuming the candles. He reached the end of the entry and started over speaking quickly and softly as he skimmed over the page in front of him. He finished reading through the entry for the third time as the candles burned out. He stepped outside of the perfect circle of candle wax drenched in sweat.

He wiped his brow as he walked over to the window and looked into the harbor. The sea boiled in protest of the evil within it. Husam walked over to his bag and began rifling through it for the ceremonial dagger and the chalk to draw out the symbols from the Necronomicon in the wax circle. He began drawing in the circle and a sense of purpose filled him spurring him to work faster.


Leviathan rolled in its grave. It opened an eye to take in a world it had not seen in several thousand years. Leviathans consciousness snaked out to find his summoner. He found Husam standing in the top of a tower reading from Cthulhu’s Book. He looked into the man’s blood and found the foolish human that Cthulhu had instructed to write the tome, Abdul Alhazred. It seemed that in humans, madness was hereditary. He searched the minds of the remaining humans and found few that had not been touched by Alhazreds words.

Blood flowed into the sea compelled by the storm to feed Leviathan. Leviathan soaked in the blood while draining Husams life force. Leviathans flesh began to reform where it had rotted. Leviathan sent his mind out beyond the storm to see what was happening in the rest of the world.
It found a news anchor reporting that a massive and unprecedented storm had covered the City of Baltimore and that all contact with the people in Baltimore had been lost. So, thought Leviathan, this place is now called Baltimore. These people care only for themselves, they are perfect to do my biding. Leviathan turned its focus inward to concentrate on its reconstruction.