“Listen!” Adira had now backed all the way up to him.

Matt lifted his head and held his breath. There was nothing – absolutely nothing – strangely, no noise, and no movement. Everything in the underworld had stopped, and had now turned…toward the mighty gates of red granite.

Then there came a faint noise, but not from the column of glistening dark flesh that rose from the abyssal ocean. The noise came again, soft at first. There was a shifting, popping sound from behind the gates as if layers of pack ice were cracking and then breaking away.

Matt got slowly to his feet.

There was an ear-shattering boom, followed by another, and another. Footfalls of the gods, Matt thought. Another sound, louder than the first, and then unbelievably, the giant red gates began to bend outwards.

“It’s…” Matt spun to his friends “…it’s working.” He grinned at Abrams, his fists clenched.

The major made a fist and turned and grinned. “I think we –”

The huge outgrowth of flesh, the appendage of Cthulhu that the Father had become, crashed down upon Abrams, flattening him to the sand. It then retreated back to the water with the squashed body stuck to it like some sort of tongue. A trail of glistening red was left behind in the deep furrow in the sand.

“No, no, no.” Matt grabbed at his head. “Not now, please not now.”

The towering Father seemed to shiver in delight, ominously leaning over them.

“Move.” Adira turned to fire as a cacophony of screams burst through the huge cavern.

As if from a signal, every manner of beast rushed toward them – worms burst from the sand, huge scuttling beasts descended from the rock walls, and the loathsome Shoggoths were pouring down from the caves like so many bloated army ants intent on doing their master’s bidding.

Matt bumped into Adira, who had stopped running. He spun and saw why – they were trapped.

“And so, we have run out of places to go, and luck, my friend.” Adira wore a grim smile. He admired her courage and perhaps even loved her a little at that moment. There was no braver warrior than this woman who had literally fought her way into Hell for him.

She had the HK-MP5N rifle held in one arm, and in the other a revolver. She lifted the handgun, and looked at Matt, her eyes level.

“I lied; I have saved two bullets – it will be painless and far quicker than what is in store for us.”

She waited. Matt knew that one word, or even the hint of a nod, and she would put a bullet in his brain. He smiled at her, feeling a calm come over him. I’ve had a good life, he thought. He drew in a deep breath.

A sound like planets colliding physically knocked them off their feet. The giant red gates of R’lyeh cracked open. Matt turned and threw a hand up over his face, but nonetheless saw the magnificent hideousness of the city beyond those titanic barriers.