The air shimmered in front of him, like a curtain hanging across the passageway. He held out his hand. His fingertips touched the wall of distortion and passed through it. The air swirled around his fingertips as if it was a sheet of floating oil.

He pulled his hand back, looking at his fingers, rubbing them together – there was nothing on them. Matt leaned forward, pushing his face into the swirling wall – beyond he saw a watery landscape with a twilight atmosphere. He pulled back, shaking his head.

“In there is not, ah, here any more.” He stepped back. “In there is not really our world at all. It is some other place. Perhaps another dimension entirely.” He stared at the shimmering barrier, but his vision was turned inward as his mind worked. “I think this is why these things can exist below the earth, but not be found. That world, their world, is beyond the physical, and maybe partway between here and some sort of metaphysical existence – what some would call the beyond.” He turned. “And what others would call Hell.”

“You mean it’s always been here, below this building?” Abrams asked

“No, no. I think this place that Cthulhu comes from has always been in the same place, but the entrance is different. This time it’s America; last time it was the Middle East. It might even open below the ocean.”

“It’s the planetary lineup, the convergence, isn’t it?” Abrams asked.

“Yes; this place only exists in our imagination, or race memory, until it wants to be seen.” Matt nodded. “The convergence is the catalyst, like a chronological lock and key that lines up a maze so we can enter.”

“So the gateway only exists while the convergence is taking place. What happens when this convergence, the planetary lineup, starts to break away?”

Matt smiled without humor. “Then I think whatever happens, we need to be in and out before the convergence concludes or we could be trapped in there forever.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Adira stepped through.

Matt grinned and shook his head at the woman. “Sure, after you, Shrinking Violet.”

Abrams was next through the shimmering curtain. Matt briefly looked over his shoulder and then followed.

*

Matt almost fell to his knees from the heat. While it had been extremely warm and humid as they descended the pit, beyond the shimmering border it was like an oven.

“Oh god.” Matt pushed his hair back of his face. “It’s got to be one-twenty degrees in here.”

Together they stood on the shore of a dark beach under a sky of blackness. It was impossible to tell whether there was a cavern roof overhead or if they had instead crossed over into another dimension that had a starless sky stretching away into infinity.

There was a body of water before them; its far edges were hidden in darkness so any other landfall could not be made out.

Abrams stood with his hands on his hips. “Lake or ocean?”