An Occurrence Near Dunwich || Darkest Nightmare & Shiva the Cat

[Shiva the Cat]

When Dr. Mathis reached for Jane's book, her first instinct was to hug it possessively against her chest. She wasn't sure why; with four brothers and sisters, she had hardly grown up with being expected to share everything sweets to dresses. If she'd been more romantically inclined she might have assumed it was because Jack had been the one to give it to her, but when she glanced over at her companion she could hardly claim any feelings more serious than friendship and perhaps pity for the fellow. No, it was something about the book itself she didn't want to share, but without being able to name what exactly that impulse was, she had no excuse not to pass it over to the professor's outstretched arms.

"I haven't had a chance to look at it much," she said with a strong hint in her voice, her eyes making it equally clear she wanted the book back sooner rather than later. "Jack just gave it to me a little while ago, after we arrived. He's the one who got a hold of it. You really ought to talk to him about--"

“By golly, you’ve noticed it too, then?” Mathis exclaimed, turning to stare at Jane intensely.

Noticed what? she wanted to ask, but thankfully the fast-talking professor was already holding up the map of the dig site before Jane could embarrass herself by opening her mouth. "Oh, you mean the nexus of the trade routes?" she asked, trying to sound as casual and offhand as possible. "Yes, I did get a look at that. But I'd imagine anyone with intimate knowledge of the excavations in this region would have caught onto it by now. Jack, you must have looked through the book before you gave it to me, didn't you?" Jane continued, turning back towards her friend. "That's why you invited me up here, isn't it?"

Well, if it wasn't, he could hardly say so in front of his aunt and a professional colleague who might have an impact on his academic career down the line. Jane suddenly realized she was grateful that Moody couldn't claim any more serious relationship on her, considering that lovely animated light that had crept into Dr. Mathis' eyes as he spoke about the discoveries he was making. The young woman couldn't help but smile and think how much the professor resembled a kid at Christmas, and how nice his voice was and the way the late afternoon sun played off his shining dark hair. Suddenly she found herself wishing she'd applied to more undergraduate programs than just Miskatonic.

Regardless though, she still wanted her book back, and was on the verge of asking for it when suddenly Mathis' hands dove into his bag and pulled out a strange slab of what at first glance resembled sandstone. Brows knitting together in curiosity, Jane reached out with one gloved hand (already slightly soiled due to her adventures with the twins in the passageways) and gingerly took the artifact from the professor. Something in the curved and whirling lines made the pit of her stomach drop, and all of a sudden she could picture her room upstairs clearly in her mind, almost sensing a presence in it. Always with the nautical themes back East she told herself with the shake of her head, tracing one of the lines with her finger as she looked back to Dr. Mathis.

"It's quite remarkable," she agreed, though she was still hesitant to give up her book so quickly. His promise of getting a look at his thesis and being allowed to work on the dig was finally enough to convince her, and she was just about to voice her acceptance when suddenly she felt a small burst of air behind her, as if from someone running quickly by.

"Jiminy Christmas, Moody!" Jane gasped, realizing her colleague hadn't run past at all, but rather had fallen to the ground in a heap. Pausing just long enough to carefully set aside the sandstone tablet, she knelt down beside the young man and began to gently pat at his white cheeks. His glasses had been knocked askew and she quickly removed them, just in case they might be broken. Glancing helplessly up at the others, she searched for the nearest servant and made an impatient gesture. "Water, we need some water!" she insisted, then looked back towards Margaret.

"Does he often do this? It's not that hot in here, it can't be heatstroke or anything like that...should we call a doctor?"

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

Mathis’ interest had quickly focused on Jane as soon as he’d seen the book she held. Even her attempts to deflect attention back to Jack, trying to give him credit for acquiring the Pocumtuc treatise, had fallen on deaf ears. The book was apparently linked to Jane in the Professor's mind and it was to her alone, that he felt some strange connection for reuniting him with a copy of it.

“Nexus?” Mathis repeated, brow furrowing. His finger on the page traced the outline of the Octopus shape she had seen earlier, clearing emphasizing the vertical strokes that were the hanging tentacles below its head. Mathis' eyes darted around at the people surrounding Jane and he leaned slightly closer. Pitching his voice low, though Jack could hear as well as George most likely, his next words were uttered plainly for just Jane’s ears. “I mean the picture you’ve drawn here, with the center being Whitney Mansion… this is your annotation, isn’t it? Well, we can discuss later.”

Jack’s collapse caused an explosion of activity, include shrieks of alarm from the twins, who’s cries of “Jackie-boo” showed true concern for their cousin. Everyone seemed to crowd in at once, giving conflicting advice loudly, with Margaret, the twins, George, and Jane all talking over each other in their urgency to help the poor boy. Mathis, shouldered his way through the group, lifting Jack’s head gently and rolling him over onto his back. The boy was out cold, with his eyes closed, and Mathis felt for a pulse at Jack’s neck with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Please, everyone, CALM DOWN!” the Professor barked out at last, his voice cutting through the din with a surprising authority. In the stunned silence that followed, Mathis continued in a calm and firm tone, full of command. “I AM a doctor, a medical doctor that is, in addition to my Ph.D. Bring some water, as Jane suggested.” Mathis paused his orders to give her a smile of approval for her suggestion. “And stand back, all of you. He is breathing, but needs air. Take a step back please!”

“He’s never passed out from heat before,” tittered Penny, or was it Olivia. “Even that time when we locked him in the cupboard on a hot day!”

“He doesn’t like heights though,” added her sister. “They make him dizzy!”

“He will be alright, won’t he James?” asked Margaret. She looked particularly pale, suddenly speechless and visibly worried. “Tell me he will be fine.”

“Yes, I think he just fainted,” explained Mathis, giving the woman a reassuring smile. He turned to Jane and gestured with his head towards his shoulder bag, which lay on the ground near her. “Now, Jane, please go into my bag and find the vial labeled ‘smelling salts’. It should be clear, with a cork stopper.”

Suddenly, Jack twitched and his body stiffened. His eyes opened, but they were rolled back and only showing white. His began to talk, but only gibberish spewed from his mouth, along with spittle and froth. The words he uttered made no sense, like no human language Jane had ever heard, but he chanted them with a desperate urgency, his soft voice strangely guttural and deep.

“Iä! Iä! Xululu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nfah Xululu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! Tekeli-li!Tekeli-li!” Jack tried to sit up, his eyes still unseeing, and Mathis wrestled with him to keep him down. “Y'AI 'NG'NGAH, YOG-SOTHOTH—”

Mathis muzzled Jack’s mouth, an alarmed look on his face. He turned to Jane and barked, “Jane, PLEASE, the smelling salts!”

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Jane couldn't help but be impressed at how easily Mathis seemed to lift up Jack's limp body. At this closer proximity, she thought she caught a hint of muscle beneath his dusty shirt sleeves, and she wondered why none of the other academics she knew back in Arkham had all been blessed with more wiry, slender frames (not excluding Moody himself). This was hardly the time to be musing over the doctor's physical prowess though, and at the sharp tone in his voice the student was immediately inclined to rise obediently to her feet and take several steps back to grant him the air her friend so desperately needed.

And he's a medical doctor too! Wouldn't Mama be impressed with that! The young woman blushed in response to Mathis' smile in her direction, although with each passing moment she was more and more inclined to smack each of the twins on their stupid useless faces before they put the whole room into hysterics. At least Margaret seemed to be keeping her head to some degree, considering the situation, but Jane's sharp ears did not miss the casual use of his first name. James. Sophisticated and sexy all at once, the name of a man who could probably entertain her mother and sisters at afternoon tea, while also keeping up with her daddy and grandpa at the bottle of whiskey--

“Now, Jane, please go into my bag and find the vial labeled ‘smelling salts’. It should be clear, with a cork stopper,” the professor's voice remarked, jerking the young woman out of her reverie.

"Oh yes, of course!" she responded with the slightest nervous crack in her voice, eyes scanning the room for any sign of the bag. She was about to ask where it was, when suddenly the movement of Jack's body out of the corner of her eye quickly drew her attention again.

One of her brother Bobby's little friend back home had unfortunately suffered a bad case of epilepsy, and it wasn't unusual for the neighbors to witness the boy's fits of shaking and spasms that had sent the poor kid to the hospital on more than one occasion. At first glance, that's what Jane thought her colleague was experiencing as his body began to thrash against the floor, and she was about to voice the question about epilepsy in the family (it wouldn't shock her at this point, considering all the other hereditary oddities that were apparent in the family), but then came the strange voice that spoke with Moody's mouth, but definitely was not Moody.

Gone were the thoughts of the neighbor boy, and instead Jane remembered the time she and her older brother had ridden out to a revivalist church group that had set up camp on the edge of their grandfather's land (much to Big Bill's raging chagrin). They'd been forbidden by their parents of course, the Houghtons being good Methodists, and at first the teenagers had laughed at the raving preacher and his swaying flock. Of course, Jane had felt bad for those truly suffering in the tent, desperate for any help the Lord could provide them, but she was educated enough even then to know that nothing outside of science and medicine could heal the ailments of this world.

But then the preacher had brought up the girl "possessed by demons," whom the rest of the neighborhood had just assumed suffered from a sad but relatively harmless mental defect. Jane had seen the girl a few times before, always in a wheelchair and staring silently into space, but on the preacher's stage the child had begun to twitch...and then to scream. And finally, she began to rant and rave in a language Jane couldn't even recognize, let alone understand. She'd almost forgotten the incident until now, but as she heard the guttural growls tearing through the body of sweet and soft-spoken Jack, the memory filled her mind to the point she wanted to do the same thing now as she did then: run as fast as she could until she reached the safety of her grandfather's house.

There was only one thing that kept her grounded enough to remain standing, and that was Dr. Mathis' firm, commanding voice. “Jane, PLEASE, the smelling salts!”

"Sorry!" she yelped, and as if guided by his words she finally caught sight of the leather bag too large and beat-up to belong to any of the women in the room. Scrambling towards it, Jane yanked open the top and began to rifle through the belongings, looking for any sign of the glass vial. As it turned out, there were several to choose from, but each had been carefully labeled: Morphine. Sodium...cyanide? Chloroform?

Eyes widening, the young woman couldn't help but look back towards the doctor, who thankfully had his back turned to her in her current position. Morphine she could understand, but why in the world would he carry other poisons with him? Not only that, but as her fingers continued digging deeper into the bag, they brushed against the cool metal of an object Jane didn't even need to see to recognize: a pistol. Shaking her head a little, she glanced downward and recognized it as Colt, not unlike the ones her grandfather's farmhands carried. She might not have been surprised to see the doctor was armed if he hadn't had the other vials as well--after all, she often found herself wishing she'd brought one of her own pieces back east with her--but in conjunction with the other articles in the bag it gave her a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Finally, at the very bottom of the bag, she found the vial labeled "ammonium carbonate." You didn't grow up the daughter of someone as delicate as Julia Houghton without recognizing what that was, and pushing aside a few folded paper that looked like various maps and charts, Jane withdrew the bottle of salts and immediately returned to Jack's side.

"Here," she said, holding the vial out to the doctor, but taking care to avoid his eyes. Instead she focused her attention on Jack, whose face had twisted and flexed to the point he was hardly recognizable, and Jane realized with grim discomfort that the most timid boy on campus barely looked human anymore.

"Come on, Moody," the young woman murmured under her breath as she reached for one of his hands. "Snap out of it..."

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

Jack was spasming and twitching, eyes still rolled back, his appearance almost like having a seizure save for his jaws that worked furiously under the palm that muzzled his mouth, as the boy seemed fixated on spewing out more gibberish. There was an intensity and purpose to that attempt to speak that was at odds with the chaotic and random twitching one might expect from the victim of an ordinary epileptic attack.

Mathis took the vial from Jane without a glance at her, unstopping the cork with his teeth. The pungent smell of ammonia filled the air, causing the crowd, which had been creeping in slowly, to take a further unasked for step back. Mathis lifted his hand from Jack's mouth and waved the potent vial under his nose, with near instantaneous effect. The boy let out a long groan before his breathing quickened, turning to rapid, hyperventilating gasps. His eyes closed and a final series of convulsions shook him, before he abruptly sat up and opened his eyes, this time for real, and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Ugh... that is foul," Jack said, running his tongue against his teeth in distaste as if to scrape the offending odor out of his mouth. He coughed, and then spat involuntarily, before wiping his chin and looking in confusion at the drool he found. Then, and only then, did he give a wide-eyed circle of the crowd of faces staring intently at him and realize he was sitting on the floor. "W-what is going on? Why are you all staring at me? And what am I doing on the GROUND!?"

His hand went up to rub his forehead, where a sizable lump was already developing from striking the floor.

"It's okay Jack, you are fine," said Mathis, raising a hand to prevent Margaret, who had crouched down next to Jack, from reaching out to embrace him. "You just fainted is all. How are you feeling now?"

"I'm alright, I guess. I feel a little... tired. My head hurts. I had this horrible vision..." said Jack at last, looking around the room again in bewilderment. His eyes met Jane's and he flushed slightly, some needed color returning to his wan face. "I'm terribly sorry for the trouble..."

"You will be perfectly fine," said Mathis, offering Jack a glass of water that one of the servants had brought. "Let's just get you in bed so you can rest. Dinner in your room tonight is the Doctor's order. Can we get some help, please?" Mathis snapped his fingers and pointed at two of the male servants who were soon lifting Jack and supporting him as the boy protested that he could walk. They led him out of the room, with an anxious Margaret trailing them and barraging Jack with questions about whether he was okay to be moved.

Mathis handed the stoppered vial back to Jane, clearly assuming she'd return it to his bag, and then called for a whiskey from the remaining server as he let out a deep exhale of relief. He picked up the Gallagher book and started to flip through it idly as the twins and George looked at each other, clearly uncertain what was going to happen next with dinner and this cocktail hour.

"George, George!" came a cry from the entryway. A slightly muddy man in boots stood at the door, clearly a groom or some other field laborer. "There's a fire... down by the encampment at the dig!"

Mathis rushed in horror to the bay window of the parlor, which had a good view towards a prominent round hillock a couple miles West of the mansion. It was dusk now, the sun down, but the stars not out and the sky still showing traces of red behind the distant hills. It was difficult to make out, but clearly at the base of the small rise that Mathis peered there was a bright red spark, as if a bonfire was lit with flames rising high enough to be seen at this distance.

"Great Scott!" the Professor exclaimed. He turned and peered the other direction, towards the nearly full and reddish moon that had just risen. "This doesn't make sense... it's not until tomorrow..." He spun, eyes searching for George. "We need to ride there immediately! Get the horses!"

 

[Shiva the Cat]

If Jane had been an only child, she might not have trained her reflexes enough to avoid the glob of spittle that nearly soiled her shoe. While other girls might have been outright disgusted at Jack for the action, the student was only glad that his eyes were rolling forward again and he seemed to be coming back to himself. He certainly seemed more than a little distraught at all the attention he was receiving, and the young woman thought she might lighten the mood a bit with a smile and an outreached hand.

"Guess your aunt's lemonade was stronger than we thought," she chuckled, although there was still a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. "No need to apologize, I've seen worse-looking fellows on Greek Row on a Friday night. But you probably should lay down."

Pausing a moment, she looked back towards Dr. Mathis as a new thought occurred to her. "Shouldn't someone stay with him? In case he has a concussion?" Not that she was volunteering for the job, but then again...well, maybe she should. If Jane really was Jack's girlfriend of course it would have been expected, but with their relationship unclear as it was (at least to the inhabitants of the house) she wasn't sure if she ought to be the one to keep an eye on him. Margaret would probably be best, all things considered, but she did have her guests to think of. Penny and Olivia would probably be useless, of course. It seemed a shame to send poor Jack off with nothing but servants for company, yet it looked like that would be the case as a couple of them began to carry him off between them.

"Um...I should probably go with him," Jane said apologetically, looking back towards the professor. She didn't move though, beyond taking back the sealed bottle of smelling salts. With the excitement over, Dr. Mathis had relaxed and settled into the nearest chair, no more concerned with his patient's condition than the painted faces hanging on the wall. No wonder he's an archaeologist the young woman thought drily, noting that for all his good points his bedside manner was severely lacking. "Dr. Mathis, I was wondering..." she began, ready to press him further about what should be done for her friend when a new stranger arrived, breathing hard and covered in what she could only pray was mud.

"George, George! There's a fire... down by the encampment at the dig!"

And just like that, the professor was on his feet again, even before the groundskeeper could open his mouth to respond. The book was tossed rather heavily on a side table as Dr. Mathis raced to the window, and while Jane's initial instinct was to follow him, instead she sidled over towards the chair and gingerly picked up the volume, concealing it behind her back. At the mention of horses, the young woman locked eyes with George, and for a moment she considered volunteering to join them. God only knew she wanted to get a look at the excavation as soon as possible, especially before the fire could spread, but without Jack, it just didn't seem right.

"I uh...I'd better go let Margaret know," she stammered lightly, although neither man seemed to notice her. Still gripping her book and the smelling salts, Jane stepped lightly through the doors she'd seen the other vanish through, and with little trouble she managed to find her way back up to Jack's bedroom, where she found his aunt still fussing over him. "Mrs. Whitney? You'd better go downstairs. Sounds like there's been a fire out by the excavation." Setting aside the bottle but keeping a firm grip on her book, she glanced over in her friend's direction. "I can keep Moody company in the meantime. Would it be too troublesome to send my supper up with his?"

The servants didn't seem to think so, and were quick to scamper off in search of sustenance for the guests. Once they were alone, Jane sat down in a chair beside the bed, offering Jack a gentler smile than she had downstairs.

"Well, you certainly know how to show a girl a good time, don't you Moody?" she teased, dropping her gaze and opening her book in her lap again.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

To say Jack was embarrassed would be an understatement. He felt absolutely mortified, no horrified, at his loss of control in front of his family, and most of all, his dear, sweet Jane. Would he ever live this down with her? Who would want to date a boy prone to epileptic seizures, or whatever had happened to him! As he came back to consciousness and realize what she’d witnessed, he felt like he was in his worst nightmare and wished the ground would swallow him up so he could disappear quietly and without a fuss.

You've really done it now, Jack. You've blown it completely with Jane!

The whole episode had been surreal. The last thing he remembered was the stone with the curious petroglyph carved on it. He’d looked at it over Jane’s shoulder and that’s when everything started to get fuzzy. The last image image in his mind was that Octopus carving glowing, almost popping out of the tablet. Its tentacles were moving in a mesmerizing waving pattern, swirling together in a great whorl that grew faster and more intense, until it filled his entire field of view. Then had come the vision, but just the thought of that horrible feverish hallucination made him shudder.

Best not to remember that.

“No need to apologize, I've seen worse-looking fellows on Greek Row on a Friday night. But you probably should lay down.”

Jane’s words had the opposite effect of making him feel better, instead he felt a stab of anxiety as what looked like pity was in her eyes. He clearly wasn’t one of those popular fellows on Greek Row to begin with, and this was no alcohol induced episode from a night of socializing that one could brag about while hungover the next day. He struggled again to rise, annoyed that Professor Mathis was holding him down with surprising strength. At least he was able to push away the glass of water that the Professor was trying to pour into his mouth.

“I’m fine… I feel much better!” he reiterated to deaf ears. Why did no one seem to believe him! He did, in fact, feel quite good now, likely from all the adrenaline that was surging through his body. His forehead hurt, but it was just a bump, and more than anything he wanted to show Jane that he wasn’t somehow permanently damaged, or even broken, from whatever had just happened. “Please… l can walk by myself."

The two servants had their orders, and Jack couldn’t shake them free as they took him under the armpits and tried to carry him from the room against his wishes. Aunt Margaret was at his ear, barraging him with more questions about his wellbeing and just like that, he was being half-dragged to his room. He was able to shake off the servants by the stairway, but Margaret insisted she hold his arm as she escorted him upstairs.

“There, there, Jack,” she soothed as she led him to his bed, ignoring his continued protests. “Just take it easy tonight, we don’t want a repeat of that ever again. Here, let me help you out of your clothes…”

“Aunt Margaret!”

“Shush, dear, I’m your Aunt and you are like a son to me, come now, let’s get this shirt off—”

“Please, stop! I can do it myself!” exclaimed Jack, pushing her away firmly. She might look like his mother, but the idea of her undressing him like a toddler was unthinkable, at least while he had any strength left in his body to stop her. To appease her, at least, he stripped to his undershirt and boxers and got in the bed as she fretted and felt his forehead, giving him a pack of ice the servants had brought up. “Aunt Margaret, I truly feel fine. I can go down to dinner…”

“Jack,” Margaret said, touching his forehead again to check his temperature. She turned away, as if nervous, then gathered her resolve to face him again. “I’m worried because this isn’t the first time this has happened… when you were just a dear boy, very young, there was an incident. You didn’t remember, and well, given some complications with our family traditions, we decided it was best if we kept you in the dark about—”

Margaret turned as she realized Jane was standing at the door. Jack had been so engrossed in whatever secret his Aunt was about to reveal, and about him no less, that he hadn’t noticed his friend’s entrance either. How much had she heard of Margaret’s cut-off revelation?

“Oh, Jane!” said Margaret, rising smoothly and looking non-plussed at the interruption. She gave a meaningful glance towards Jack. “I’ll finish later, dear.”

The news Jane shared with her about the fire sent Margaret into a flurry of worry, and begging the pardon of Jane and Jack, she hurried out after telling the servants waiting in the corridor to bring up dinner for the two students.

“I’m completely fine,” Jack said sourly, still upset at being forced into his bed. He was, however, extremely thrilled that Jane had decided to come up to stay with him. HIs romantic hopes, so thoroughly razed minutes ago, began a phoenix like rebirth from their ashes. “I only got in bed to shut up my Aunt. I don’t have to stay in here, really. I don’t know what happened, but it was the strangest thing… Did I do anything odd? I had this queer vision, like nothing I’d ever seen before, and in it I—” He suddenly smiled. “Hey, is that the book I gave you! You got it back from the Professor!"

A look of worry crossed his face.

"Do you still have the… uhm, stone?”

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Despite his insistence that he was completely fine, Jane couldn't help but raise a single eyebrow in doubt. "If you say so. But you might as well relax either way. They're sending dinner up and I'm absolutely starving, so I don't see any point in going anywhere until then. Besides, with all the panic about the fire, we'd probably just get in everyone's way. So just sit back and take it easy, all right? You'll have plenty of time to socialize with Harum and Scarum later." A wicked grin quirked the young woman's mouth at her nicknames for the twins.

"Speaking of which, don't forget to help me block off any passages they might use to spy on us. I don't fancy getting scared out of my mind in the middle of the night," Jane added as she began to turn through the pages of her book. When Jack noticed it, she had to smile a little brighter and slipped him a wink. "Dr. Mathis seemed to have other things on his mind at the moment. I don't think he'll miss it. Besides, I've been trying to read at least a page for about two hours now, and it seems like every time I finish a damn line some other interruption comes along and stops me from going any further."

She tried not to sound too annoyed, but realized she might have given her friend the wrong idea; that he was even now causing trouble for her. "Of course, you bought it after all. If anyone has the right to look it over first, it should be you. Would you like to?" Jane asked, closing the book and holding it out in offering to the young man in the bed. At the mention of the stone though, she had to shake her head. "No, I left it downstairs. It was interesting-looking I guess, but I don't know enough geology to be able to figure out what it's made of, and I think I'd really need to cross reference the symbols on it with the Gallagher in order to make any real sense of it. That can wait until tomorrow though."

Frowning, she narrowed her eyes a little as she took a closer look at Jack's face. "You really did give us a scare back there, Moody. It looked like you were having a seizure, and you were foaming at the mouth and speaking gibberish. That vision you had...do you mind if I ask what it was?" She leaned in a little closer to keep him from having to speak too loudly, and for some reason she could feel her heart beginning to pick up its pace. It was like she could sense something terrible, just ahead and out of sight, and yet her curiosity forced her to press the question.

Before her friend could answer though, a sharp knock came on the door and made her jump, all color draining from her face. "Miss?" called the voice of one of the servants from earlier. "I have dinner here, for you and Mr. Moody."

Letting out an embarrassed laugh, Jane rose to her feet and opened the door, admitting the young man with a cart laden with steaming platters. "Oh wow, this all looks lovely!" she complimented as they began to set a table near the wall. Once everything had been set out and the servant had excused himself, the young woman was about to sit down to the meal when it occurred to her that since Jack was already in his undershirt, he probably wasn't wearing any proper trousers under the blanket as well. Blushing a little, she quickly turned to face one of the paintings on the wall.

"Sorry, you probably want to put on a robe or something, huh?" she asked without turning around. "Do you want me to step out and come back, or...?"

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

Jack grimaced while thinking of his twin cousins after Jane’s comment. They’d likely never let him live this down, but at least Jane seemed to think they were as annoying as Jack did. Would they ever grow up? Harum and Scarum? That was a more fitting nickname than Jane even realized.

“Well, how can I turn down a dinner date with you?” Jack replied, his heart racing a bit at his rather forward joke. It wasn’t really a joke in his mind, but he had to act like it was a joke, so he gave her a chuckle at the end. “And I will gladly plug any hidden passages you might have in your bedroom later tonight!” That didn’t come out quite, right, but perhaps Jane’s mind wasn’t as naughty as Jack's tended to be when it came to those kinds of innuendos. Just to be sure, he added, “In your walls.. passages in your walls, I mean."

Then she asked about the vision, and Jack scowled as that disturbing hallucination came flooding back to him. He was about to try to describe it to her, if even possible using human language, when suddenly the food arrived. His stomach rumbled enthusiastically at the smells coming from the cart, and he was half out of the bed before he realized he was only in his boxers! Jane had quickly turned around, offering to give him privacy, and Jack flushed furiously. Well, boxers weren’t as embarrassing as the bulge she’d seen earlier, at least!

“Oh, yes, good point, sorry,” Jack mumbled, turning to walk towards his closet. "A robe..."

Right at that moment the door was flung open, and his cousins burst in. They slammed the door shut and locked it behind them.

“Jackie!” shouted Olivia, her look of shock turning quickly to a mischievous grin. “Oh good, you are feeling better! I was hoping you’d be up and about again. Sorry to disturb whatever you two were doing-- you don’t have to explain what it was Jack, we’re your cousins after all-- but we have very little time!”

“Mother went with the Professor and George to ride to the fire,” continued Penny, brandishing an old metal keyring with a collection of half-rusted ancient keys on it. “So, we grabbed the old keys from the study and now's our chance!”

Jack was more concerned about his odd state of dress, or rather undress, than the twins’ crazy plan. He stood frozen in the middle of the room, surrounded by the three girls, with nowhere to hide. Every option for cover, the bed, his closet, or that blanket, seemed too far away. Still, their strange announcement puzzled him. Was he missing something?

“Chance…?” he asked, completely clueless. “Chance for what?!”

“To sneak into the West Hall!” replied Olivia, looking at him like he was dense. “Well, Jane at least knows, but the Professor has locked it all down to store artifacts in secret. To think he's trying to hide what are really our artifacts in our house! Penny remembered a way we can get inside, but we have go down into the sewers. That’s if you are up for it, Jack, and if you aren’t too scared…”

Penny reached down and pulled her short flapper style dress up and off her body, much to Jack’s surprise and embarrassment. She wore a mid-thigh chemise underneath, with some sort of bandeau style brassiere top peeking out below that to cover her breasts, although her slim figure hardly needed much strapping up top to achieve the boyish look that was in fashion. While the chemise covered nearly the same amount of skin as her dress had, Jack was still appalled as she was essentially in her underwear in front of him! And for that matter, he was in his underwear as well in front of all of the girls.

And to think he thought his embarrassment for the night would have peaked with the seizure.

“Come on, Jack, and don’t look at me like that! We’re going to get filthy, and wet, so we can’t wear our nice clothes,” Olivia explained, before she joined her sister in stripping off her dress as well. “We’re leaving through the hidden door by your fireplace. It’s the most direct route down to the basement. Jane… are you coming or not? This may be your only chance to see the Professor’s secret hoard of treasure!”

Jack looked at Jane curiously. As crazy as the twins' idea was, it was tempting if the Professor had dig artifacts sequestered downstairs. Part of him resented the too handsome and charming man anyway, particularly the attention he’d given Jane tonight. And, as much as the twins tortured him in these expeditions, they were always an adventure, the kind of act during which he could show Jane how brave and rebellious he could be. Particularly after the seizure incident, the idea of proving that he wasn't some kind of frail, sickly scholar was appealing. The decision was surprisingly easy, as if his mind had been made up for him.

“I’m in, Jane. Let’s see what he’s hiding.”

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Jane was about to make a scolding comment about Jack's childish innuendos (why was it every time she was starting to think he was better than the other boys he had to go and say something stupid?), but a sudden burst of thunder sent the thought flying right out of her head. With one hand pressed against her heart, the young woman turned back towards the sound, and despite what her mother would have thought she downright scowled at the faces of the two girls standing in the doorway.

"You know, where I come from, people knock before entering a room," she said hotly, crossing her arms over her chest and glancing over at Jack out of the corner of her eye. The unfortunate fellow looked like a deer caught in the headlights, although she had to admit he had surprisingly nice legs, and an admiral behind that had been positively invisible in those poorly-tailored trousers he always wore. This was neither the time nor place to consider that though, and out of regard for the young man she quickly placed herself between him and his cousins. "A-Anyway," Jane stammered, trying to appear as tall and amazonian as possible in her dusty pink sundress. "What do you two want? We were just about to sit down to a quiet dinner..."

If anything could have distracted the student's growling stomach though, it was the idea of filling her starving mind. After all, if no one was going to leave her in peace long enough to actually read the Gallagher, then it did seem worthwhile to at least get a look at some of the artifacts. Sure, it might have been a little dishonorable to go about it this way, rather than asking Dr. Mathis for permission, but the twins did live here. Their mother might have been the one to sign the items over to the professor, but it was their inheritance, so didn't that mean they got a say in what happened to it? And it wasn't like they were planning to steal anything, they just wanted to take a look--

While all this reasoning was bouncing around Jane's head, it didn't occur to her the twins were undressing. Before she knew it, the female scholar was the only one in the room not in her undergarments, which seemed both bizarre and embarrassing at the same time. Either Olivia or Penny was pressuring her to change right in front of them, and for a moment she almost considered it. "I suppose but...oh! One moment!" she recalled, reaching for the door that led to her room only to remember she'd locked it from her side. With a frustrated little huff, she darted back out to the hallway and disappeared into her room.

In a remarkably short amount of time she reappeared, dressed not in her undergarments, but in a loose white men's shirt and dusty trousers, badly frayed around the cuffs. "I wasn't planning on wearing this until tomorrow," she explained, mostly to Jack. After all, what kind of field researcher only packed formal dresses when going on an expedition? She'd even put on a pair of "shit-kickers" as her brothers called them, grime-stained boots that went all the way up to her knees and would no doubt keep out most of the sewage they'd be wading through. The only thing that ruined the effect of a student prepared for a day of digging in the mud was the makeup on her face.

"All right, I'm ready," Jane remarked, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small electric flashlight. "I thought this might come in handy this time. You know, against monstrous crocodiles or whatever might be lurking down there." She chuckled a little as she switched it on, following the twins towards the door that had opened in the wall. The light did about as much good as a single match in a vast cavern, but all the same it gave her a small sense of comfort. Taking a deep breath and looking uncertainly towards Jack, she stepped into the passage, clutching the little metal cylinder like a cross.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

"I don't understand, can't I at least put my pants on?" argued Jack, but the twins had cornered him by the fireplace and weren't letting him get by. He'd put on his shoes at least, but his undershirt and boxers felt quite flimsy for adventuring, and although it'd been a warm day, he was sure the lower depths of the mansion were going to be much cooler. Jane's return, fully dressed in what was the most improbable outfit Jack could have imagined on her, momentarily distracted him. "Oh, Jane! Wow, you actually brought clothes for... well, you own that?"

Her explanation made sense, and Jack realized that he'd brought nothing but his normal slightly formal dress for this trip. Having never been on a dig before, he'd frankly hadn't even thought that he'd need rougher clothing. Then again, Jane had grown up in Colorado, and despite her pretty dresses at University, he suspected she was a bit tougher than most of the East Coast girls he knew.

"Jack, if we are in our underwear, you have to be as well," said Olivia definitively, before she pulled a decorative candle sconce and opened a half-height panel by the fireplace. A small passage was exposed, one they'd have to stoop down to squat walk into.

"A flashlight?"asked Penny, looking surprised. "That's a great idea! Olivia and I know these passages so well, but Jack's always bumping into things or falling into pits. We should have let him have one years ago. You stay with him, then, and shine a light before him."

"Now, let's get going. I'll lead, then Jack and Jane, and Penny can bring up the rear. Stay close!"

As soon as they were inside, Penny closed the door behind them. They would have been in near total darkness, save for the yellowish circle of Jane's flashlight. Dust rose up from their footsteps, floating in the beam of her flashlight along with remnants of cobwebs. The cramped passage quickly opened up into a narrow, but tall corridor that ran down one of the walls in Jack's room. A pinhole of light came from what appeared to be a peephole that peered into his room. That was new, to Jack's knowledge, as he'd been in this secret passage before and never noticed that someone could spy into his room!

"It's like they can see in the dark," mumbled Jack as he took Olivia's hand and let her lead him forward. Tentatively, he reached back towards Jane to offer his hand, but touched something soft instead that made him instantly stammer out an apology. "I meant to take your hand! I didn't feel anything!"

The corridor ended in a T-Junction, and evidently another hidden corridor ran along the interior walls of Jane's bedroom as well. Sure enough, as they shuffled by her room, which was on the other side of Jack's fireplace, another pinhole of light appeared.

"Were these spy holes always in the walls?" asked Jack, a little alarmed.

"Yes, I thought you knew you someone might be spying on you?" said Olivia, a hint of mischief in her voice. "Every room has them, but they can be blocked, so I suppose someone's just been peeking in on you two recently and left them open."

"S-someone?" Jack's anger was evident, but he was also mortified as he didn't dare think of what his cousins might have seen over the years when he'd believed he'd had some privacy! "Who would do that? Wait, did you two ever--"

"It could be anyone, all the servants know about these corridors, but don't fret Jack, just put a picture in front of the hole or something, that's what we do in our room," answered Penny. "And don't be so angry Jack, do you reallly think we would ever spy on you?"

"Yes, in fact, YES I DO!"

"Oh Jackie-boo."

The corridor suddenly opened to the left and a narrow and quite steep wooden staircase was visible. Olivia was already headed down, even before the flashlight could illuminate the rickety steps. She led them down two long flights, skipping a landing on the first floor. The walls turned to stone around them as they entered the basement level, while the air grew noticeably cooler. They exited through a stone veneered hidden door in what appeared to be a disused cellar. Boxes, bits of old furniture, tarp covered objects, and hundreds of empty wine bottles were strewn about, with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs coating everything. There were no windows, so Jane's little flashlight was the only source of illumination and it cast long shadows that moved eerily as it was swung around the room.

"Okay, the sewer entrance is over here..." said Olivia, leading them to a corner. A large, person sized metal grate was on the floor. Strangely, it lacked any dust on it and the ground leading from it was also cleared, as if someone had been using it fairly frequently. Jack was enlisted to lift the grate, which was quite heavy and required the twins to help guide to one side. Below, a set of rusty rungs descended into darkness far beyond what the flashlight could penetrate. A distant gurgling could be heard, as if a stream was flowing down below. "Right, well, I hope everyone's ready to get wet! Jane, are you good? It's not as scary as it looks... trust us."

The twins' faces in the yellow light of the flashlight cast dramatic shadows, their eerie identical features made even more creepy by their heavy makeup, which still was quite visible in the dark lighting. They smiled encouragingly simultaneously, like two mechanical dolls.

"Who's first?"

 

[Shiva the Cat]

With the comforting scent of dinner fading behind them, Jane pointed her flashlight straight ahead, illuminating the graceful back of Olivia, blushing as she realized the outline of the girl's expensive-looking undergarments were clearly visible through the thin fabric of her slip. She could understand how one could be comfortable around family members, but this was scandalous even to her relaxed Western sensibilities. For what seemed like the thousandth time since she'd arrived at the mantion, the young woman found herself wondering, what in the world would Mama think if she knew what her middle child had gotten herself into?

If the rest of the group's state of undress wasn't bad enough, the feeling of a large hand brushing against her breast was enough to almost make her drop the flashlight into the filth at her feet. "Jack! What the devil?" she hissed, tightening her grip on the torch as she whirled towards him. The light under her chin made her look much more frightening than she'd probably intended to come off, and judging by the look on Moody's face he'd be keeping his hands to himself for the foreseeable future. Sighing, Jane pointed the flashlight forward again, but not before seizing onto the young man's wrist. "Try it again and I'll leave you to them," she whispered, jerking her head towards Olivia in warning.

The talk of peepholes did little to calm the scholar's tightening nerves, and she reminded herself to search her room thoroughly as soon as she returned to her own room (though she couldn't help but wonder if anyone had seen her change from her dress into her field clothes, and the idea made her shudder). "It seems kind of immature to me, to go around spying on people like that," Jane scoffed, trying to hide her unease behind bravado and doing a less-than-satisfactory job of it. "What'll the two of you do when you go to college next year? Mischief like that is likely to get your eyes scratched out, or worse. I'd break the habit if I were you." Of course, that was excluding the idea that someone besides the twins was doing the spying.

They were moving downward again, the air growing cooler with every step. Jane found herself wishing she'd grabbed a sweater to wear against the dampness, and thanks to Jack's "accidental" touch earlier her breasts felt more sensitive to the cold than ever, her nipples tenting through the thin fabric of her shirt. Thankfully with the flashlight pointed well ahead she could conceal her silhouette in the shadows, and if that weren't enough the passageway was becoming more crowded with distracting debris along the way. A pungent smell was beginning to linger in the air as well, though not the one she had expected. Instead of human refuse, the scent smelled more like naked earth after a rainstorm, heavy and wet and primal.

As the grate lifted, the smell only seemed to grow stronger, and for a moment Jane felt compelled to turn back. She'd be damned though if two ninnies like the twins and a coward like Jack went on bravely while her own courage failed. Tucking the flashlight into her pocket for a moment so she could tighten the chignon at the back of her head, the young woman took it back with fresh nerve and strode forward, hearing her boots sloshing into a few inches of dark, cold water. A few steps down the tunnel though she finally had to pause and look back, just to make sure they hadn't sent her on alone.

"There's no turns or anything I need to watch for, is there?" she asked, shining her light over each of the three faces and watching closely for any sign of trickery or betrayal.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

"Jane, I never would do that... not without asking! Not that I want to ask, of course. I mean, of course, if I wanted to ask, I would ask you, I wouldn't just do it... I don't grab girl's breasts in the dark! And not your breasts.. unless you wanted me to, not that I think you would..."

Olivia bit back a laugh ahead of him, giving his hand a hard squeeze with her own to get him to shut up before he dug himself any deeper.

Thank God for darkness to hide his flush, but then again Jack's face felt hot enough that he was surprised it wasn't glowing on its own. He'd never touched one before, so he hadn't been completely sure, but Jane's reaction definitely confirmed that he'd made solid contact with one of her breasts. It was a terrible, awkward mistake, but a little grin crept to his face as they continued onward. He was thankful that Jane was behind him, as the grin was soon a huge smile. The sweet memory of that accidental touch, her mound so delightfully soft with apparently nothing covering it but the loose men's shirt she wore, was going to be seared into his memory for quite some time.

I've actually touched Jane Houghton's breast!

"Trust me, there isn't much novelty left in peeping around the house," answered Penny when Jane brought up the spy holes. "Our mother has said the same thing, numerous times, but it's quite odd how she put the Professor in the one guest room that has peepholes in both the bedroom AND the bathroom, isn't it?"

"Penny!" shouted back Olivia, once again annoyed at her twins' innuendos.

Jack followed Jane down the iron rungs and into the tunnel, the twins landing next to him with their own wet splashes. He'd been down here once before, and found it as creepy as ever. The stonework was otherworldly, massive blocks of dark gray rock that looked difficult to quarry and set back in the 1700's, or whenever this was likely built. Looking at it now, with a more trained eye from his studies, it looked really old. The stonework curved overhead with a claustrophobic ominousness, and his mind recoiled from the idea that the large blocks and unseen weight of the earth could possibly be supported in that primitive arch. The water on his legs was chilly, but bearable, and he sniffed at the earthy and humid scent, as if hundreds of years of earth odor had seeped into the tunnel through the gaps in the stone walls.

The tunnel stretched in two directions, and Jane began to head upstream by instinct, which Jack believed was correct. Olivia quickly waded ahead of Jane, letting her shine the light, which now was reflected by the running water into a kaleidoscope of blue tinged ripples on the walls. As they moved, the stream was definitely getting deeper and the tunnel tightening.

"These were never used as sewers, Nana has told us," explained Olivia. "From the beginning it directed the flow of the powerful natural spring that feeds the house well. She used to take us down here as young girls and we'd launch hundreds of paper boats. The tunnel turns into a natural cave further down, and comes out at the edge of our property. We'd ride our ponies down to the exit and watch the boats emerge into the river Dun, which then feeds down to the Miskatonic."

"She always said the boats would go all the way down to Kingsport and into the ocean, and that you could swim from the ocean to our house if so inclined, as the Dun river is quite deep as well," Penny added.

A wrought iron fence appeared ahead, the old metal bars rusted, but thick and still quite sturdy. It blocked the tunnel from floor to ceiling, with an access gate in the middle. On the gate was a rusted sign, the word "Immortalitatis" written in cursive across it.

"That's odd," said Olivia, waving off Penny's offer of the keyring. Olivia's hands went to the chain that hung from the gate. The old, rusted padlock was still intact, but the chain had been snapped and hung in two halves, meaning the gate could be swung open freely. Some of the bars near the chain appeared bent as well, rust flaked off the to reveal fresh iron below. "This is always locked. We haven't been down here since we returned from school, but I've never seen it broken before." She turned, her brows furrowed in worry, and peered back the way the four of them had come. "I wonder if the other gate, by end of the tunnel is broken as well? Why would someone do this... and who?"

"Do you think..." Penny began, then her question trailed off as if she didn't want to ask it in front of Jack and Jane. She glanced behind them, into the pure darkness as well. "Olivia.. should we not?"

The rushing sound of the water at their feet seemed unusually loud in the ensuing silence.

Jack felt a strange sense of unease. He'd never seen the twins look nervous, or even uncomfortable before, in all their explorations of the mansion. They'd teased him at times, and told him scary stories to frighten him, but they'd had such aplomb and confidence in the darkest and spookiest corners of their house that he'd always felt assured that they knew what they were doing and that he was perfectly safe. Tonight, however, they looked very uncertain and stared each other for what felt like minutes, before Olivia gave a shrug and stepped through the gate.

Just past the gate, the tunnel widened into what appeared to be a fairly large room, the far side unseen. The depth of the water was uncertain, but its surface was mirror still and certainly appeared much deeper than the overflow stream they had just sloshed through.

"Well, we're going to have to swim a bit for this next part. Jane, you better hold the flashlight up and out of the water, " said Olivia, wading in up to her waist. She reached down to take her shoes off, and then promptly dived into the pool of water, proving its depth. Penny brushed by Jack and Jane and followed her sister a second later, her shoes in hand. Their heads both emerged a second later, giggling as they treaded water.

"It's not that deep, you can almost stand, but a little chilly, perhaps," said one of the twins.

Jack considered how willing he was to join them, and whether he should just go back at this point. He looked at Jane.

"Did you feel that...?" said one of the twins to the other.

Suddenly, Olivia, or maybe Penny, gave a cry, her eyes going round before she disappeared under the water, almost violently. Her sister gave a shriek of alarm, and then was tugged under herself with a cut-off cry of terror. Within seconds, the bubbles were gone and the water was still again. The room was quiet save for the gurgle of the stream at their feet.

"Not again," said Jack, scowling. He looked at Jane, but there was no fear on his face, only annoyance. "They used to do this to me at the pond all the time. They'll come up, eventually."

Seconds turned to minutes, and the pool remained completely undisturbed.

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Jane had never been to Paris before, but she had read Les Miserablés, and the tunnels underneath the Whitney Mansion reminded her of the painfully boring essays about the sewer system in that fine city. Maybe if she'd had a proper tour guide, not a pair of mischievous girls in their underwear, she might have found some interest in the rather impressive construction and lack of deterioration of the walls and arched ceiling. She was skeptical at Penny's claim that the sewers were never actually used for that purpose; after all, why else would someone have gone through the trouble of building them if not for health and convenience purposes?

At the mention of boats though, a curious idea occurred to her. "Jack..." she began looking at him with a new note of appreciation her voice. "Were your ancestors smugglers? Is that how they made their fortune?" The student had noticed that despite the long history of the Whitney clan that the twins had provided, neither one ever made it clear how the family had made enough money to build such an extravagant house on a prime spread of land. A shady criminal past suddenly helped her see them all in a new light, and she began to examine the walls with more interested eyes, looking for any signs of code or evidence of previous buccaneers that might have traveled this path.

Alas, if there was anything interesting to be seen, her flashlight had avoided it entirely. The only thing of note that caught her attention was the faint bit of Latin written on the grate that blocked their path, but that resembled graffiti more than anything else. If Jane had suspected either Olivia or Penny knew one lick of the language, she might have suspected they'd written it there themselves. The surprised expression on their faces didn't convince her either.

Coming up behind them, Jane reached out one finger to trace along the lettering. "This isn't usually here?" she asked, looking at the girls on either side of her before shrugging and dropping her hands. "Maybe it's just some local kids sneaking around. People write things on the landmarks in Arkham all the time. They usually get caught and fined by the police within a few days. And of course, their mummies and daddies always bail them out and chalk it up to 'boys being boys'..." She finished with a giggle, but it didn't seem to ease anyone's mind.

"Look, you don't have any dangerous types hanging about the neighborhood, do you?" Jane continued, taking on a more serious tone. "Nobody who likes to mix whiskey and shotguns, right? Nobody who talks to people that aren't there, or thinks they're Napoleon or anything?" As far as she had seen upstairs, there was no one in the house who came off as really dangerous, and even back at the service station that afternoon the locals had seemed more grumpy than outwardly hostile. But if there was a local loony wandering around the place, even unarmed, she didn't fancy encountering them in a place like this.

But when the twins found their courage, the student's pride rose up and insisted on following them further (never mind the idea of heading back down the tunnel on her own seemed utterly terrifying at this point). Still, she couldn't help but grimace as she felt the water rising first high enough to pour into her boots, then enough to drench her trousers entirely. Her heart began to beat a little bit faster. Technically Jane did know how to swim; there was a resort near her parents' summer home in Glenwood Springs where all the children had learned to doggy paddle in a private thermally-warmed swimming pool. But the memory of the incident on Cape Cod last year was growing stronger in her mind, and this time there was no Billy to save her from the depths.

"Is it shallower around the edges?" she asked hopefully, trying to avoid following the twins through the exact middle of the pool. "I'm not sure I can swim and hold the flashlight at the same time..."

Before she could get her answer, one of the twins had disappeared beneath the surface of the water. Jane let out a shriek of alarm, and was about to push towards them--flashlight or no--but when another one went under she immediately froze in place, her mind jumping to riptides and invisible currents that could have dragged her down after them. Looking helplessly towards Jack, she was perplexed to see he was utterly unfazed at the twins' disappearance, although after his explanation she did allow herself to relax somewhat. From what she'd seen of the girls' character, it seemed completely believable that they would play such a stupid joke.

But as the minutes passed and there was no sign of them, her unease began to grow again. "Jack...do you really think they can hold their breath that long?" she asked hesitantly, sweeping the beam of her flashlight over the area where she believed they had gone down. The water was black and murky, and it was impossible to see anything beneath the surface, although she thought she saw some ripples near the edge of the circle of light.

A moment of later, something brushed against her lower back, making Jane scream again and jump. Well, lunge was more like it, considering the water slogging down her movements, but the movement was still sudden enough to make her lose her grip on the flashlight, sending it splashing down into the darkness. For one brief moment, she could see an orb of yellow light flickering in the blackness, and then it went out, leaving her completely blind.

Now her heart was really pounding. "Jack?" she called hopefully, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. "Jack, where are you? I dropped the light."

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

"Smugglers?" Jack shook his head. "No I think they had some sort of jewelry or gold business. The original Whitney was a Captain, who retired here with his wife. I think she was from the area and convinced him to settle down."

"The cave is too small for someone to take a boat up... you'd have to hold you breath for two hundred yards against the current to swim into it, so you really can't get into this tunnel from the river... for smuggling or anything else," added Penny. "I think Whitney made a lot of money as a merchant captain, and since then it's mostly been invested wisely. Although, obviously, new families have married in as well."

At the gate, Olivia shook her head at Jane's question.

"No the sign has been here forever, just I've never seen the gate not locked, and certainly never seen the chain broken. There are plenty of oddballs in Dunwich, and some strange things that we hear whispers about, but not vandals or robbers typically. Since you can't really enter this tunnel from the cave, as far as I know unless you have a diving bell that is, I suppose it has to be someone from in the house? Maybe mother couldn't find the keyring in the study and had a servant break it..." The idea seemed to give her confidence. "And that's the original Whitney family motto or something, there are some old crests around and some ancient China with that word written on it."

Jack had seen the twins do variations of their underwater disappearing act to him before, so many times in fact that he should be used to it. Still they'd always managed to stay under uncomfortably too long, to the point where inevitably, despite his best efforts to treat it as a joke, he got worried. And so, underground in this creepy pool room, with Jane visibly nervous next to him, Jack started to get worried. How long had it been? Two minutes, maybe three minutes? Waiting made time seem to slow and he knew that was why he always overreacted. The worst had been the last time he was up here and they'd convinced him to go skinny dipping at night down by the pond. They'd, of course, stripped and dove in before he could even see anything in the darkness, and when he'd finally splashed in afterwards, worried when they'd disappeared, they'd snuck out and stolen his clothes, leaving pieces, while withholding the important ones, in a trail back up to the mansion.

Damn them. This was no time for another prank!

Jane's scream jerked him back to reality and he watched in horror as she fumbled the flashlight. He reached out, his hands trying to catch it, but it splashed into the pool and plunged to the bottom, before winking out. It was suddenly truly dark, and Jack let out a strangled shriek of his own, his heart pounding in his ears.

"Jane!" cried out Jack, reaching blindly forward in the dark towards her. His hands, outstretched, made contact with a body and he grabbed out of reflex. A new level of horror invaded his mind as he realized the two objects he had groped, for that was what he truly did this time in his panicked attempt to reel her in, were the exact parts of her body he had sworn to avoid.

God they were delicious, so soft and full. The shirt she wore felt as thin as silk, the contours of her mounds so clear... and were those NIPPLES?

If he were to die, it was a sweet memory to have, but he let them go as if scalded and moved his hands down towards her waist to try to reel her in.

"I'm SORRY! I didn't mean to--"

"Jackie!" shrieked Olivia, or Penny, and both of the twins erupted into hysterical giggles from apparently quite close.

Jack turned, anger boiling now, and discovered his eyes were adjusting and this mysterious room had grates on the ceiling which let in filtered light from some room above. HIs twins were there, dark ghoulish heads as they treaded water next to him. And Jane was in his hands, which were in a more appropriate position now by her hips.

A distant clang behind them, way down the tunnel which sounded suspiciously like the far gate the twins had referenced, silenced the tirade Jack was about to launch on his cousins, and the fresh round of apologies he had prepared for Jane.

"Quick, swim, we must hide. There is an alcove on the far side!" whispered a twin, the urgency and seriousness in her voice cut through the fresh burst of terror Jack felt at the distant noise, and he grabbed Jane's wrist to tug her after him, his grip tight, as he waded into the cold water.

 

[Shiva the Cat]

The darkness seemed impenetrable, and for a moment Jane wondered if she'd gone deaf as well as blind. Even the sound of the water seemed to grow softer and farther away, and she could have sworn something like sleep was ready to encroach on her when suddenly Jack's voice echoed through the cavern, calling out her name. A moment later, a pair of wiry arms wound around her torso, and she could feel large hands closing over her breasts. The young woman's first instinct was to shake them off, but in an ironic twist of fate, her friend's inadvertent groping earlier was enough to prove it really was him holding her so tightly.

Jane let out a little sigh of relief, and even leaned back a little, letting her head rest on Jack's shoulder. Despite his dripping skin he still felt warm and solid, and while he was certainly no Billy Cadwallader, she did feel the smallest bit safer in his arms. Of course, he had to go and ruin it by gulping and stammering like a frightened kid (which, to be fair, was understandable given the circumstances), but the young woman was quick to place one hand over one of his before he could release her entirely.

"It's okay," she whispered, just loudly enough for him alone to hear. "Just...stay close, okay? I don't want to get separated." She unwound herself from his arms but kept a firm grasp on his hand, turning around to try to find his face in the dark only to hear another shriek from behind her.

"Jackie!" shrieked Olivia, or Penny, and both of the twins erupted into hysterical giggles from apparently quite close.

She couldn't help but jump again at that, this time losing her footing entirely. Out of reflex both of Jane's arms shot outward, wrapping tightly around Jack's neck as her chest pressed firmly against his. "I'm going to kill both of them, I swear," the scholar growled through her blush, stepping back once she'd found the bottom again and quickly turning to avoid his gaze (as if he could see anything in the dark).

Jane was ready to let out a holy tirade of scold against the girls, but the giggles had already died away, replaced with...were those whimpers? She opened her mouth to speak, then immediately shut it when the sounds of splashes began to approach. Something touched my back she remembered, knowing Jack had been too far away at the time to scare her into dropping the flashlight. It might have been one of the twins, but their voices were coming from the far side of the cavern. They'd said they were going to be on the swimming team at college, but were they really that fast? In the dark?

"Quick, swim, there is an alcove on the far side!" One of them screamed, and before Jane knew what was happening, Jack was pulling her deeper into the water.

"Wait!" she gasped, feeling her feet slip out from under her again. "I can't see!" That didn't matter. He dragged her face first into the water, making her gasp and sputter as she flailed helplessly in the darkness. Every now and then her toes did touch the mucky bottom of the pool--at least, Jane hoped it was the bottom--so she felt a little more assured that she wasn't going to drown, but she didn't have the faintest idea where the other side was. The only mercy was that Jack seemed to have no trouble navigating, even while burdened with dragging her splashing body behind him, and before she knew what had happened the water level was beginning to fall away.

Shivering, Jane finally let go of Jack's hand when her fingers brushed a damp stone wall. Staggering a few steps forward, she tried looking back in the direction they'd come from, but the pool was black as ever. The alcove she remembered suddenly, recalling the twins instructions. Feeling her way along the wall, she almost walked head first into another iron grate, but a little more investigation revealed yet another open gate, not unlike the one they'd previously passed through. After passing through the portal, her fingers groped at another bit of metal against the wall--a ladder?--but a moment later someone's body collided with hers, pushing her further down the tunnel.

"What is it?" she hissed, sure that the damp form was one of her companions judging by the feel of fabric against her skin. Whoever it was had pressed her all the way against a dead-end in the corridor, effectively pinning her against the wall as the sound of splashing grew ever louder.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

Had Jane leaned back against him when he'd groped her breasts? It was dark, they were scared, and Jack couldn't quite tell, but certainly she hadn't violently shoved his hands away. And then, he'd been about to apologize, of course, but Jane hadn't sounded that angry with him. She'd almost appeared as if, well, she hadn't minded what was quite a thorough exploration of her breasts. Well, that was a thought to ponder, and relive in detail during a more private moment.

"I'm going to kill both of them, I swear."

"Not if I kill them first," whispered back Jack.

His blood was hot, heart hammering in his ears, but not from fear anymore, or even anger at the twins, it was because Jane had thrown herself against him, apparently losing her balance, but for one, sweet and delicious second, her hands were around his neck and those breasts were pressed tightly against his chest. His own forced choice of a thin undershirt meant he felt her mounds again, those pebble like nipples included, as clear as if she was pressed skin-to-skin against him. If he was to die, he was at least going to die a happy man. He was grateful now the water was a bit chilly or else he might have a more noticeable reaction, one Jane might even feel in the darkness.

Jane thankfully pulled away, as Jack would have stayed there forever. In fact, his mouth had been about ready to seek hers in the darkness, completely overcome by the moment, when she was suddenly gone. The urgency of the twins' cries forced his mind back to their predicament, and fear quickly replaced ardor as he tugged Jane deeper into the pool. Fear, and a strange sense of a need to protect Jane that gave him new determination. Fortunately, he could swim, and Jane could somewhat follow along, though he had to reach back and guide her from the hips again at times. The twins were motioning them urgently towards a shadowy recess next to what appeared to be a ladder up, and he let them pull first Jane, them himself, into the small passage.

"What are we hiding from--"

A hushed "Shhh" made Jack cut off his whisper. Inside the small alcove, so short he had to half-crouch, the twins shoved him and Jane to the back. His hand went around Jane's waist and he pulled her towards him, as the twins stood in front of them, almost as if hiding them. Their wet bodies pressed back tightly against Jack, and as scared, disoriented, and worried as he was, he found himself in a new dilemma in his underclothes with three wet and very attractive women pressing against him from almost every side! It was a dream worthy scenario in normal circumstance, with their soaked and quite thin clothing leaving none of their supple curves to his imagination.

Any fear he had about an inappropriate response faded as his ears picked up the ever louder splashing noises approaching. The gurgle of the tunnels was interrupted by the sinister sounds, an arrhythmic sequence of large splashes as if someone was stumbling along, or a handful of people were clapping out of sync. A strange fear filled his body as the sound got closer, until his eyes, now accustomed to the dark, picked out a dark shape filling the barely visible opening to the pool that they had just left. Hiding in the shelter of the alcove in the wall, Jack suddenly hoped fervently that this thing could not see them.

Whatever it was had a human shape, but suddenly leapt with shocking speed and dove into the water with hardly a splash. A second later, another creature followed, and then a third after that. The pool was eerily still and quiet again, before a hideous head emerged silently less than ten feet away from where the four youths hid.

Jack had to fight back a scream of pure terror, his heart hammering in his chest. He squeezed Jane hard against himself, as much to reassure himself as her. The twin in front of him tensed, then her lithe body pushed against him as if she was trying to shrink back as deeply as possible in the pocket of pure darkness the alcove offered.

Two more heads emerged from the pool, all the same in appearance. They were horrible, fish shaped monstrosities with large and black eyes. The dim light from the grates above hinted they were scaly, and light gray in color, with large fish lips and fluttering gills on their necks that sprayed water out as they took loud, raspy breaths with their mouths above the surface. The first fish monster climbed out of the pool, revealing a vaguely human body, but scaled and misshapen. A powerful set of legs that more resembled a frog seemed as if bolted on to the rest of its frame and made walking an awkward, shambling affair. It stood a the tunnel that exited the chamber, near the four hiding youths, and peered down it suspiciously as it opened the unlocked gate.

The second monster pointed at the ladder by the gate, then looked upwards, before speaking a question that sounded like a mix of guttural grunting and chirping clicks. The third creature half-emerged, but didn't move at first, and instead paused to look around the chamber, spending some time glancing at the darkened recess which hid Jack and the girls.

Jack felt like that creature's unblinking stare would never end, and he found himself holding his breath in dread anticipation of imminent discovery.

Finally, the leader of the trio gave a guttural command and waved for the other two to follow it through the gate. The splashing sound of their inhuman hops faded slowly, but Jack stayed pressed against Jane and the twins in mutual scared silence, all of them in unspoken agreement to not speak or even breathe loudly until many long minutes of silence indicated that the monsters were truly gone.

All that was left as proof of what they'd seen was an intense and rank fishy smell, that definitely hadn't been in the sewers before.

"We need to climb the ladder," said Olivia at last, turning to whisper her order to Jane and Jack from an inch away. "Now, before any more fish people come."

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Darkness worked to Jack's advantage. If Jane hadn't known better (and if she wasn't scared out of her mind) she might have easily mistaken his embrace for that of someone like Billy Cadwallader. She even went so far as to press her face against his chest for a moment, turning slightly so she could hear his heart pounding inside, matching pace with her own. It was hardly reassuring though to know that the only thing that stood between them and...whatever it was out there in the shadows, was a pair of vapid teenage girls who'd been more than happy to fake their own deaths just for a few cheap laughs. I should have brought my gun the young woman thought woefully, disregarding the fact there was no way she could have avoided getting it wet in the chaos so far.

They hadn't escaped the water entirely, although in the tunnel it had receded to only about knee-level or so. Either the shallower depths prevented it from getting as cold as in the big pool, or else Jane had become used to the temperature, but the biting chill of it had almost faded entirely. Instead, she was becoming aware of an odd tingling, and recalled one of the tanks in the Zoology department back in Arkham containing a pair of electric eels she'd seen during her freshman lectures. Professor Dexter had said the creatures used low-voltage electric bolts to sense their environment, and more highly-charged ones to hunt for prey. Was it possible that whatever was hunting them was using something similar?

But none of the others seemed to notice the feeling. Their fear was more blind and haphazard, each staring in a slightly different direction while Jane's gaze was fixed in the water at her feet. Something about the way it moved was off too, and she was suddenly reminded of the shower she'd taken earlier. That water hadn't flowed correctly either, flowing over her body in ways that shouldn't have been possible due to gravity; actually moving upward at one point, right into--

A soft sound between a gasp and a moan escaped her lips as she suddenly remembered what, at the time, had seemed like nothing more than a particularly arousing dream. The noise was hardly loud enough to be heard above the splashing in the water, although Jack was probably close enough to pick up on it, yet all the same, Jane was sure it had heard.

It? What was It? She couldn't be sure, but off in the darkness she had a clear sense that something had lifted its head, like a dog picking up a scent in the wind. With that one little sound she'd made, It had located her easily, and even standing there miles away (Miles? How did she know it was miles away?), Jane could sense It too. Or rather, she could sense its hunger, and more than a little malice to go with It. And It was moving.

She didn't need to be told twice when one of the twin mentioned the ladder. Jane broke out of Jack's arms immediately, pushing past him and grasping firmly onto the iron bars. Her soaked boots slipped here and there on the rungs as she began to scramble upward, but fear had given her more than enough strength to drag her waterlogged body upward. It was only when her groping hands found the roof instead of the next step that she dared pause, and even then she continued to scrabble blindly for a latch or handle on a trapdoor that must surely be there. After all, the Whitneys wouldn't have bothered to build a ladder to nowhere, would they?

Don't put it past them, Janey the woman warned herself, although she breathed out a sigh of relief as her fingers found purchase on the edge of a grate. Pushing as hard as she could, she barely managed to lift it an inch, but it did move. "Help me!" she pleaded, and a moment later one of the twins had easily shimmied up the other side of the ladder as easily as a monkey. Jane could feel either Olivia or Penny's hip pressing firmly against hers through the thin fabric of the younger girl's chemise, but she was too focused on the task at hand to think too much of it, although the other two no doubt had a good view of the curves hanging like heavy fruit at the top of the ladder.

Between the two of them, the grate finally did move aside, although it hardly admitted any additional light into the shaft. When they emerged from the tunnel Jane dragged herself onto a cold stone floor covered in a shameful amount of dust, with a heavy, unpleasant smell in the air. It smelled like something rotten, if metal could rot instead of rust, but as she looked around the room there was no apparent source of the smell in sight. Large pieces of furniture in every style and condition had been stacked along the walls, and the only light came from a crack beneath a door on the far wall, and from behind a stack of crates and chairs that might have concealed a window to the outside.

But as the rest of the group emerged from the hole in the floor and slammed the grate shut behind them, fresh relief washed over Jane's body. Whatever it was that had been after them was down there, and they were up here. Somehow that was enough to convince her that they were safe, and it almost convinced her the whole thing had just been an overreaction brought on by the darkness and cold temperatures in the tunnels. It was warmer up here, not enough to dry her clothes of course, but enough at least to ward off hypothermia and rouse her higher senses.

Getting to her feet slowly, Jane hugged herself in an attempt to warm her limbs further, then glared sharply at the twins. "And what the hell was all that about?" she asked, finally allowing her good breeding to drop in favor of bad temper. "There was something down there, wasn't there? What were you trying to do, get us killed? I should call the cops on you for a stunt like that. Do you think it's funny? Another dumb joke, 'fish people' this time?" she snarled, taking a threatening step towards the pair as her hands balled into fists.

She still had enough restraint though to keep them at her sides, although if looks could have killed both Penny and Olivia would never make it to college in the fall. "Explain," Jane demanded, completely ignoring Jack for the time being. "Now."

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

What had he just seen?

Jack wanted to run screaming from the alcove, then from this cursed mansion, and hopefully never return to this God-forsaken part of Massachusetts! This wasn't another prank by the twins, they weren't that diabolical and definitely not good enough actresses to be fake being this scared. Yet, clearly, those monsters, for that is what they were, had not been human and most certainly had not been some form of group hallucination. His scientific mind struggled with the realization that he had seen something that shouldn't exist, something that better belonged in that nightmare vision he had experienced earlier tonight.

That thought gave Jack pause. What if that vision, which he'd passed off as a hallucination, wasn't just a seizure dream? What if it was... real?!

Only the three shivering girls pressed against him forced Jack to hold himself together, and he was acutely aware that as the only man there, one literally surrounded by wet and soft feminine body parts, that he had to be brave for their benefit. The notion that they all were looking to him for their safety suddenly was a pleasing thought, and a growing awareness of the fact that he had an armful of pretty women clinging to him desperately started to take over. Suddenly, it wasn't quite damp and chilly enough to hide what was a normal male reaction in such a situation, and he was perversely thankful when Jane bolted from his arms and Penny moved her derriere away from his suddenly warm crotch.

Jane appeared terrified, or at least more eager than the rest to flee the tunnels, as she sprung forward and clambered up the slippery ladder with a burst of frantic energy. She'd made a strange moan before Olivia had spoke, part fear, but also with another kind of emotion in it that had made Jack acutely aware of her curves pressed against him. That noise had partly swelled his feelings of masculinity and the idea of her making that noise again in his arms was suddenly a new goal.

Jack felt a little nervous and exposed waiting at the bottom of the ladder as Olivia and Jane appeared to struggle opening a grate at the top, but the view he had of the twins in their short chemises was distracting enough to quench his fear. He suddenly wished it was just a bit brighter down here, as the teasing glimpses he got of their pale legs only made him more curious about what might be under the dark hem of their outfits. Then they were through, and Jack pulled himself up into a dusty room with a sigh of relief.

Everyone was drenched now, with his cousins' already skimpy outfits sticking to their bodies as if painted on, and their makeup running down their faces to make them look like ghoulish dolls in the darkened room. Jane was in a similar risqué condition, with her white shirt leaving the contours of the mounds Jack had groped earlier revealed in all their delicious glory. With a look of dismay, Jack realized he was in no better of a state, as his thin cotton boxers were stuck to his pelvis and revealed the prominent bulge that their earlier looseness had half-hidden. He'd lost his shoes as well, leaving him barefoot like his cousins.

Thoughts of hiding himself faded as Jack realized Jane was clearly pissed. He'd never seen her so angry before, and it was actually a bit of a thrill. She unloaded on his cousins, deservedly, and Jack even had to reach out and gently touch her shoulder as she seemed about ready to resort to physical violence against the shivering pair. He chimed in with his own frustration towards the end as well, adding, "No more games. Tell us what is going on!"

Olivia and Penny were contrite, the fear and unease plain in their eyes and body language as they twisted their hands and glanced away, even from each other. When they finally spoke they were rattled enough that none of their normal coordination of speech happened, instead they interrupted each other in a disjointed fashion, as if racing to tell the truth first. The "fish people" as they'd called those monsters, had been creatures they'd seen first as young children. Their Nana had assured them they weren't harmful, to the twins, but warned them to avoid them nonetheless. They'd seen them since, very infrequently and often at night, creeping in the house, in the sewers, or most often down by the pond. As absurd as it sounded, they'd never questioned what they were, or why they visited, although they had a healthy fear of them and hid whenever one appeared.

Jack asked them where the fish people were headed, and the twins didn't seem to have a good answer. Evidently the tunnel the creatures left through entered the main well used by the house, with all the plumbing pipes running into it that fed the house's faucets and tubs. From there, they recalled an overflow sluice that was another, much smaller, tunnel and connected the well to the swimming pond just down the hill from the Mansion. The pond itself had no drainage creeks, but the twins seemed to believe it had yet another underground tunnel that connected it to a smaller livestock pond miles away, one located by the dig site. All the waterways were made with the same massive stone masonry that hinted at a simultaneous construction long ago.

"So," Jack mused, thinking back to the beginning of the night in the sewer tunnels when his cousins' had explained the connection to the Dun River. "Those... things... could travel all the way from the sea and up to the Mansion, and then even as far as the dig site without leaving this tunnel system? But... why?"

It was to Jane's initial question, about something being down there, that the twins seemed most alarmed.

"Did you feel it?" asked Olivia, breathlessly. Her arm reached out to grab Jane's balled up hand, a worried expression on her face. "The haunter of the dark waters.. you felt it didn't you?"

"Tell us, if you did," continued Penny, grabbing Jane's other hand. "We think it's dangerous, very dangerous. We believe it killed one of our friends, but we can't feel it... only its future victims do. You must be careful. Where was it?"

"Has it touched you yet?" added Olivia.

From the other side of the door, the sound of music drfited. It was faint, but unmistakeably a song, as if a phonograph had reset. The singer's voice didn't carry through the door, but the tune sounded eerie and mournful.

 

[Shiva the Cat]

For once the twins resembled actual human beings, rather than brainless dolls with painted smiles on their faces. Jane couldn't help but relax her posture a little in contrition, although she was still annoyed at the prank they'd pulled. She might have even thought they were still pulling it, with all their talk of "fish people" sneaking around the house and the sewers. But something in their matching eyes told her this was no joke, at least not to them. No, it was either a delusion (which Jane wasn't ready to rule out just yet) or it was the truth.

Undecided which verdict was the most accurate, she glanced sideways towards Jack. "And you believe them?" she asked, knowing that while her friend could be on the gullible side, he was also one of the smartest boys in the archaeology program, possibly in the whole university. He could understand the value of testing hypotheses over and over again before deeming them to be true, and he had more reason than anyone to be skeptical of Penny and Olivia's claims. Besides, if there really was some new species of fauna out there, a "missing link" between humans and fish (and what would the anthropology department think of that, Jane couldn't help but wonder), surely Dr. Mathis would have come across some sign of them during his excavations, and unless he was waiting for the right time to spring the news, the entire academic world would have heard about the discovery by now.

Yes, it was seeming to be more and more likely that the Whitney line had devolved into at least some kind of mental illness in this current generation, and whatever they'd experienced down in the sewers was the result of panic brought on by too much darkness and cold water, which for all Jane knew could have been harboring some kind of hallucinatory microbe that could play tricks on all their minds. That would have explained why Jack seemed so quick to buy into the twins' explanation of the creatures, despite his colleague's raised eyebrow and skeptical gleam in her eye. Only one thing kept the student from decrying the story outright.

"Did you feel it?" asked Olivia, breathlessly.

Well, something had made her drop the flashlight, Jane wasn't going to deny that. "I...I felt something," she admitted slowly, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. "But for all I know it was a real fish, getting all riled because a bunch of idiots went storming through his living room. Or maybe it was someone playing an elaborate joke." Her dark eyes fixed on all three of their faces in turn, even Jack's. "Either way, I say we call this whole expedition a bust and go find some dry clothes. We never should have tried to break into Dr. Mathis' horde in the first place, that's obvious now. Grandaddy always did say 'what goes around comes around.' Serves us right for being sneaks."

Turning her back on them, she began to move towards the door, pausing only when she heard an odd sound on the far side. "Is that a radio?" Jane muttered incredulously, glancing over her shoulder as the warbling voice of Henry Burr began to slither through the stillness. Well, if someone on the other side of the door was sitting down to an evening of music, they'd no doubt get quite a surprise to see a bunch of half-dressed youths come staggering out of the closet, dripping wet and smelling of the sewers. I'm never getting invited back here again the thought ironically, not particularly upset at the notion as she opened the door.

To her surprise, the room on the other side was completely empty, at least as far as she could see. While Jane had expected to walk into some kind of a sitting room, or maybe a study, instead she found herself standing at the end of a cavernous hall that almost resembled a cathedral, although it had been wired with electric sconces along the walls that gave the room a dim but warm light. A floor lamp had been set up near a desk in the corner, on top of which was indeed a small Crosley, although how such a small radio could fill the room with noise was beyond her. And who had turned it on in the first place?

The rest of the room was crowded with crates and tables, and when Jane looked at the nearest one she realized with shock that the object lying on top of it was a genuine Pocumtuc handaxe, centuries old at least. So the twins hadn't led them astray after all; they really were in the treasure vault of the West Hall. Well, really the area was half-vault, half-laboratory, considering that every table seemed in the middle of evaluating some artifact or another. It was strange; it almost looked as though the room had been occupied until only recently, and Jane wondered if the other archaeologists had all been called away when the fire broke out. She might have looked out one of the huge stained-glass windows to get a peek at how that whole situation was going, except for between the darkness and the heavy drapes hung across the lower reaches of them, it was impossible to see anything besides the dark colors and bizarre geometric shapes that came together to make some hidden scene behind the dusty blankets.

Still, this was a great opportunity to get a look at some of the items that had been found, and for several minutes Jane was content to go from table to table, looking over the items and comparing them to the photos she'd seen in her own studies. Although she'd been tempted to pick up more than one and actually feel the antiquity in her hands, she still knew better than to do so without the proper protection (or at least, clean hands). Still, there was particularly interesting carving she found herself reaching for, and it was only when she happened to glance upward that her hands dropped helplessly to her sides, and her eyes widened in horror.

"What in god's name?" she whispered, unable to look away at the thing hanging from the ceiling.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

"And you believe them?"

Jack met Jane's gaze and raised his eyebrows, but after a second nodded his head. Clearly he didn't want to believe them, but after what he'd seen with his own eyes, it was hard to to not trust the twins' fantastical story of fish people and hidden water monsters.

"I don't think they are lying, and after what we saw tonight, those..." he began, before trailing off. It was hard for him to even say out loud what he had seen. "Only some form of group hallucination would explain this otherwise, which is just as crazy." He shook his head and shivered, not from the cold. "I believe now there are things out there that we don't understand. Things that have been hiding from humanity for ages. Things we don’t want to know about.”

Jane led the way into the West Hall, with Jack following after dragging a table on top of the grate for extra weighting. Those fish monsters could likely move the grate still, they looked strong, but perhaps it would slow them down or at least make some extra noise to warn the foursome.

The girls were wandering around the room, their gaze naturally drawn to the tables, but Jack paused at the doorway as he noticed the foul odor was stronger in the large hall. It was an aroma he'd never smelled before, a strange and unpleasant mix of burning metal and rotting flesh. As he wrinkled his nose in disgust, he noticed a lectern oddly placed in the middle of the room all by itself, and strangely shadowed as if something was above it. In fact, most of the tables and crates were pushed to the edges of the room, leaving the center clear for a reason. A tingle grew in his head, as if his mind unconsciously knew before his eyes lifted up that there was something terrible in the upper reaches of the nave.

Jane saw it at the same time Jack did, as did one of the twins, whose piercing scream of fright couldn’t draw any of their eyes from the horrible sight above them.

It was a nightmare creation, a shifting, amorphous mass of sickening black and foetid flesh the size of a bus. Thousands of evil eyes appeared on its oozing skin, unblinking and staring at the youths below, with some winking out and others appearing as the surface seethed with protoplasmic bubbles. As if attention gave it energy, the creature became more animated, unnatural appendages like tentacles, hands and misshapen animal parts appeared, trying to stretch towards the onlookers below, but getting thwarted for some unknown reason. Its body was pierced by a half dozen metal spikes, and thick black chains wrapped it completely, before linking up to a massive metal bar at the top of the nave. Occasional flashes of light on the metal, like electrical sparks, hinted that some unnatural force contained the monster.

"Tekeli-li, Tekeli-li" came a hissing, almost plaintive cry from the horrid beast. "Tekeli-li, Tekeli-li."

A pause in the abomination's cries left only the eerie croon of the radio song to fill the quiet room.

"Stay clear," warned Jack, although the beast was thirty feet above them. Running to Jane's side, he reached for her shoulders as he felt his cousins cluster in behind him.

"Jack, what is IT?!" asked one of the twins. "Should we go?"

His eyes went to the lectern, which held two thick leather bound books.

They should run, he knew that. Even if it meant entering the tunnels again. That creature, no that abomination, was so unnatural and evil that just looking at it felt like his mind would crack and melt. Any thought of exploring the Pocumtuc artifacts was gone, for whatever it was the Professor had found, if this monster was part of his excavation then the project was too horrible for Jack to even consider learning more.

Yet...

His eyes were still on the books. They held some significance, he could tell that given their central position. As nervous and often practical as Jack was, he was also quite curious, and he was a bit surprised to discover his feet were moving, almost on their own, and taking him to the lectern. The books were old, their leather covers cracked, and his fingers touched them with reverence as he strained to read the faded titles.

"Cthaat Aquadingen" murmured Jack. The second word was Latin-esque, maybe it meant water creatures, but the first seemed like gibberish. The other book, a black leather tome, felt evil to his touch, and the title, Necronomicon, he dared not say out loud.

"I... we should look at these. You know Latin, don't you?" he said to Jane.

He winced as the beast directly above them let out a strangled scream, followed by another round of "Tekeli-li" cries.

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Jane's head began to pound as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

At first glance she thought the wide, shiny black patch of matter might have been some kind of mold, perhaps due to a leaky roof or other moisture that had made its way into the medieval-feeling room. But mold didn't pulse like that.

Then she thought of birds, considering the sounds the thing was making. They were half-chirps, half-wails, with an uncomfortable hollow quality to them that made her think of pagan deities piping away on pan flutes. What bird sounded like that? And where was the flutter of wings that should have come with a flock that large?

Eyes...there are so many eyes!

Someone was screaming. Was it Jane herself, or one of the twins? She didn't think it was her, considering she felt rooted to the spot by the shifting and shuffling creature on the ceiling, hypnotized by the tentacles waving back and forth the way like an innumerable army of snakes ready to pounce on a single mouse. The longer she stared at the thing, the more her head hurt, and the more she could feel her sanity threatening to break away entirely. Only one question was generating enough confusion to keep her mind from shattering completely: why wasn't it attacking?

She could tell it was hungry, and full of rage. It was almost like the thing in the water, only much worse. "Fish people" could be defined and imagined, hideous as they must have been in her imagination. But the thing on the ceiling? It could not be named, could barely be conceived. It was a thing that shouldn't be, and yet somehow it had been contained. Something like a chandelier of made of cattle prods lit up ever time it tried to drop down too low, not only causing the thing to let out another burst of pained whistles, but filling the room with a smell that reminded her of burning tar. The air around her seemed to be getting warmer as well, and nausea began to rise in her stomach to meet the throbbing in her brain, and she might have vomited if Jack hadn't grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to tear her gaze away.

That calmed her a little, but the stench of the room was still making her feel ill, and her first instinct was to run for the door. When she touched the wrought iron handles though, she found they held fast, and remembered the chain and padlock she'd seen on the other side. "FUCK!" Jane shrieked, all propriety gone as she rattled the handles, even going so far as to kick one of her heavy boots against the wood, but all to no avail. Turning around (don't look up, don't look up) she began to scan the room for any tool that might be able to break through the door; an axe, a hammer, she'd even try a fireplace poker. But the only items she saw were just as likely to shatter against the door as break through it, which meant they might need to return to the tunnels after all.

Maybe if she screamed loud enough for someone outside to hear...

"Cthaat Aquadingen."

Jane's first thought was that the thing on the ceiling had spoken. Then she saw Jack standing at the lectern, looking over the books on it as though he were browsing through the library at MU on a leisurely Sunday afternoon. Didn't he see it? the student wondered incredulously, moving slowly to her friend's side. For one hopeful moment, she thought perhaps it had all been a hallucination, that there really wasn't anything on the ceiling except cobwebs and loose wires. But then a fresh burst of the smell came, and she was too frightened to look up.

"Jack," she said when she'd finally found her voice. "I don't think this is the time."

He was utterly unphased. "I... we should look at these. You know Latin, don't you?" Jack asked, touching the book whose title he'd read earlier. It was unfamiliar to his colleague, and frankly she couldn't have cared less if it was a Latin translation of Huckleberry Finn. Jane was ready to throw it off the lectern entirely, grab the young man by the collar, and drag him out the door if he had to. But when her eyes fell on the other book, she froze.

"The Necronomicon? No, it can't be," she whispered. Interestingly enough, it wasn't the first time she'd seen a copy, though she'd never opened or read it. She was good friends with one of the junior librarians at the university, the brilliant daughter of a country grocer who'd been desperate to earn esteem with the wealthy and popular Miss Houghton. Last autumn Penelope, as the librarian was called, had arranged for Jane and a couple of other girls in their circle to sneak into the archives after hours to poke around at some of the rarest books in the collection. Of course, the Necronomicon was kept under glass, and only the head librarian had the key, but they'd all oohed and ahed and giggled with fright as Penelope told them how the author of the book had gone mad, and how most version of the book had been banned since the eleventh century.

Without thinking, her hands reached for the cover, her fingers running along the crisp edge as if teasing the thought of opening it. Jane knew she shouldn't. She knew she needed to get out of that room as quickly as possible, out of the house, maybe even out of Massachusetts entirely. Surely if she could make it back to Colorado, this would be nothing more than a bad dream.

But how could she let this chance go?

The pages fluttered open, and Jane was surprised to see that while she had expected Arabic scrawl to fill the leaves, instead it was a painstakingly inscribed Middle English hand. "Impossible!" she whispered, recalling that Penelope had said all the English translations had been burned, and that it had never made it to print. That meant at youngest the book beneath her hand must have been at least five hundred years old, if not more. Who had transcribed it? No monk of that era would have ever been allowed to read such a blasphemous text, but who else would have been literate enough to complete it?

These questions lingered at the back of her mind, making her burn as her dark eyes scanned the thick black letters at the top of the open page:

𝕾𝖍𝖔𝖌𝖌𝖔𝖙𝖍

𝔅𝔶𝔶𝔫𝔤 𝔬𝔣 𝔞 𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔪𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰 𝔧𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔶-𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔰𝔲𝔟𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔞𝔟𝔩𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔶𝔪𝔦𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔞𝔩 𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔪𝔰, 𝔬𝔯𝔤𝔞𝔫𝔰, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔠𝔢𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔰, 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔥𝔬𝔤𝔤𝔬𝔱𝔥 𝔥𝔞𝔱𝔥 𝔳𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔰 𝔞𝔤𝔤𝔩𝔲𝔱𝔶𝔫𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔟𝔲𝔟𝔟𝔩𝔶𝔫𝔤 𝔠𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔰, 𝔞𝔭𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔵𝔦𝔪𝔞𝔱𝔢𝔩𝔶 𝔣𝔦𝔣𝔱𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔣𝔢𝔢𝔱 𝔶𝔫 𝔞 𝔰𝔭𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔞𝔩 𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔪𝔢𝔱𝔢𝔯...​

Shoggoth. Jane's eyes went to the ceiling again, watching as the little bolts of lightning exploded upon the surface of the thing's body. There was no doubt in her mind that was the its name. Her will felt torn in two, tossing between the book and the creature as the temperature of the room continued to increase, making her break into a sweat as her head began to ache again.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

Jack shouldn't have been so captivated by the books. After all, there was a nightmare abomination hanging above him, its foetid mass literally sizzling from some arcane, electrical form of containment that barely restrained it. So much had happened tonight, from his seizure and hallucination, to the fish people and water monster, and now this hopefully final horror, but instead of wanting to flee and try to pretend this was all a hallucination, his scientific mind craved answers.

He'd already conceded his view of the world had been horribly myopic, but now, he wanted to know exactly what he didn't know. Secrets, questions, and answers, those were what he sought, for he now knew there was a dark and alien reality that existed in the hidden underbelly of ordinary human existence, and his new obsession was to understand it.

"You know of that book?" asked Jack, hearing Jane's quiet exclamation. The black tome she touched so reverently still scared him, and he felt a nervous tingle of alarm as she opened it. The bookmarked page she pored over was written in a medieval script, but in English, and Jack's eyes widened as he deciphered the title word. His eyes turned to look upwards at the beast, briefly for he couldn't stand the sight of it so near. "Shoggoth?"

"Tekeli-li, Tekeli-li." came that insane cry, repeating again as a burst of motion above sent sparks flying from the chains and a new waft of strong foul odor down to Jack's nose.

He opened the book in front of him and found it to be entirely written in Latin. Like the Necronomicon, the script and aged parchment hinted that it was also Medieval in origin, so at least five hundred years old. In addition to the painstakingly hand-written text, there were abundant illustrations, and Jack's hand paused as he flipped to a crude drawing that could only be one of the fish monsters they had seen tonight, a depiction of a frog's bottom with a fish head on top and two human arms out to the side. Jack's Latin was passable, but little used at Miskatonic University, and he struggled at first to decipher the ancient script.

"Deep... Ones," he murmured, fingers tracing the picture. He tried to skim the text, but all he could glean without more study was that they lived in cities in the ocean, and were immortal, or "immortalitatis." That word, the same as the Whitney Family motto, gave him pause. He flipped through the rest of the book, finding all sorts of hideous aquatic monsters and beasts. Could all of these horrid creations be real? If the Deep Ones were, then perhaps all of the others were as well. His finger lingered on one page with a particularly nightmarish monstrosity, part octopus, part bat, and part dragon, as if someone had dreamed the most unsettling syncretic beast they could imagine. He read the name in a halting voice, the words definitely not Latin and difficult to guess the pronunciation of, yet somehow familiar. "Cthulhu R'lyeh"

As he said them, he realized he had heard them in his hallucination earlier. What did they mean? Why did they fill him with such horror...

The last section of the book was labeled "Tsathoggua" and instead of encyclopedia-like entries, it appeared to be instructions for summoning various creatures. Jack was feeling hot, and he wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead as he flipped through the pages. This couldn't be real. He couldn't have the instructions here for summoning, what was this, some sort of water elemental spirit... a Cthaati?

Magic and creatures such as this couldn't exist, yet the proof was hanging above his head.

"It's so hot," moaned Olivia. The twins had crept up behind Jane and Jack, clearly uncomfortable at their closeness to the Shoggoth, but also unwilling to stray too far from the two scholars. "I can't take it..."

The music seemed to be even louder now, the singer's eerie voice mixed with a haunting flute like accompaniment that Jack didn't remember hearing earlier. It swirled in the air around him, the melody mesmerizing and distracting. Jack felt warm everywhere, as if the heat was coming from inside his body.

Olivia reached down and pulled her chemise up and off her body, leaving her in just a small bandeau style bra and a pair of wide-cut step-in shorts. It was scandalous, and Jack's eyes finally were dragged from the book to stare aghast at his cousin. She was practically naked, the contours of her modest breasts clearly visible in the damp and nearly translucent material of her bra, her nipples like peaks at the center. Sweat, or residual water from the sewers, dotted her flushed body, running down her taut stomach in rivulets as she shook her hair.

She giggled as she saw Jack's look, then batted her eyelids coyly before reaching out to place her arms around his neck and press her body tight against him.

Jack should be shocked, or at least should pretend to be shocked with Jane standing next to him, even if he was inwardly pleased, but that comforting warmth inside him made such pretense seem unnecessary. No, it felt quite good to have his cousin pressed against him, her slender body fitted against his own so tightly that he could feel all of her curves, and a new heat began to grow in his loins as the music swirled louder around him. He found that his brain was filled with a sudden willingness to kiss the lips that were brushing insistently against his own.

There wasn't anything wrong with a friendly kiss with Olivia, was there?

Dimly, he was aware to his side that Penny had also stripped off her chemise and pulled Jane into a similar, heated embrace. That seemed strange, as Penny's sweaty body was squirming in a very improper manner against another girl. In fact, she seemed to be pulling Jane's face towards her own in what might even be a kiss.

Something odd was going on... he was aware of that, but as Olivia's tongue began to tease into his lips, he decided it was worth postponing his concerns for just a few seconds longer. The tongue he tasted with his own was so delightfully slippery and fun to play with, and he felt his brain tingle at the strange and new erotic sensation. He would surely stop in just a second, after kissing her a bit more and possibly swirling a bit deeper into her mouth. After all, it was almost too hot to think right now, particularly with that music pulsing in his brain!

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Are you lonesome tonight?


Jane was finding it harder to concentrate on the pages, even though she couldn't tear her eyes away. She turned the pages as gingerly as she had been trained in the archaeology lab, little snippets here and there wriggling into her brain like maggots infesting a lump of rotting flesh.

𝔴𝔥𝔞𝔫 𝔡𝔲𝔯𝔶𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔭𝔞𝔤𝔞𝔫 𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔢𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔰𝔭𝔯𝔶𝔫𝔤...

...𝔳𝔦𝔯𝔤𝔶𝔫 𝔪𝔞𝔦𝔡𝔢𝔫𝔰 𝔡𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔶𝔫𝔤 𝔫𝔞𝔨𝔢𝔡 𝔶𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔡 𝔠𝔩𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔶𝔫𝔤𝔰...
​

...𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔡 𝔬𝔯𝔤𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔶𝔫 𝔡𝔢𝔳𝔬𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔪𝔞𝔡 𝔤𝔬𝔡
​

She wasn't conscious of it, but her breath was beginning to come harder the more she read, and while the book did not appear to be illustrated Jane had no trouble witnessing the scenes in her mind, so vivid that at first she thought she was seeing them before her very eyes. Why, just beside her, it almost looked like Jack and Penny (unless it was Olivia) were tangled in a wild embrace, their mouths locked in a fashion that would have made the inhabitants of Greek Row proud. Her dark brown eyes blinked, then she rubbed them.

No, it wasn't a hallucination. The cousins were necking right in front of her. "Jack!" Jane gasped, although her voice didn't sound quite like her own when she said his name. While there was the appropriate shock and scandal in it, there was also a bizarre tone of jealousy, all completely underlied by an embarrassing amount of lust. Indeed, she couldn't help but gawk at them with parted lips, feeling the heat that had been washing over her body center in between her legs and begin to grow, while her breast began to heave more noticeably with her panting breaths.

Not for long though.

Do you miss me tonight?​

Another pair of arms had snaked around Jane's waist, reaching up to take a firm hold of her breasts as a set of lips brushed across the back of her neck. The scholar couldn't help but moan aloud at that touch, shutting her eyes and tilting her head back slightly as she felt the soft, damp body of the other twin pressed against her back. Penny seemed more than pleased at the response, using one hand to turn Jane's face towards her and trap her in a kiss of her own, while the other slipped between the buttons of the older woman's shirt, tugging down the fragile lace of her bra and pinching a hardened nipple between her thumb and forefinger. The sensation made Jane jump and open her lips, which was just the chance Penny needed to slip her tongue inside.

This is so wrong...we're both girls! Jane thought in the back of her mind, although the opposition hardly stopped her from slowly turning around and wrapping her own arms around Penny's neck, her fingers tangling in the twin's wet hair as one of her leg's hitched over the girl's hip. On the other hand, if they were both girls, then technically anything they might do wouldn't count as going all the way, right? The college student prided herself on the fact that she'd managed to keep her virginity intact (in the traditional sense, at least) ever since leaving home. Of course, she'd fooled around with the odd fellow or two, but at least she'd never gotten naked with any of them, and her only real experience with a cock was an amateurish, half-hearted handjob with one of her grandfather's pretty Mexican farmhands, who'd been immediately fired after the rumors started to spread.

She had been naked around other girls though, never feeling much shame around them and even less interest in their bodies. Maybe that was because she'd never gotten close to one of them like this. Penny's kiss felt much more seductive than any man's that Jane could remember, and she knew all the right places to stroke and squeeze to make the other girl squeal and shudder against her. After a few minutes, Jane felt it would be rude not to at least try to return the favor, and besides, she was curious to see was was under that tight bandeau on the twin's chest. Her own tits were nothing to write home about, she knew that, but at least it meant she didn't need to bind her chest to achieve the fashionably flat look that was all the rage in New York. Penny wasn't so lucky, and as Jane's fingers began to play with the fastenings on the other girl's bra she was surprised to find herself cupping a silky handful of flesh, and a smile spread across the scholar's lips as she heard the other girl whimper in answer.

Jane wasn't sure which one of them had undone the buttons of her trousers and pushed them downward until they were pooled on top of her boots, but she was aware of Penny's delicate fingers undoing the rest of the ones on her shirt until she was standing there dressed in nothing but her bra and panties. As a finishing touch, the twin had removed the pins in the scholar's thick brown hair, sending it falling loose down her back and giving her a wild, almost Maenadic look. Their bodies pressed together, Penny began to trail a line of kisses down the side of Jane's throat, and as the long-haired girl turned her head slightly to give the other better access, she happened to lock eyes with the lone male in the room again.

"Jack..." she gasped again, as though he could put a stop to his cousins. As though he wanted to. Shutting her eyes, she moaned again as Penny's mouth dipped ever lower.

Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?​

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

Does your memory stray
To a bright summer day

The music was mesmerizing, particularly that raspy flute that seemed to circle the melody in dizzying runs that kept Jack’s mind from wandering too far from the moment. Not that the moment required much to keep his attention, for right now Jack was consumed with kissing Olivia as passionately and deeply as he had only dreamed about kissing a girl before.

Granted it was a bit weird, because she was his cousin, but then again, she was a beautiful girl and had teased him quite shamelessly over the years. Jack couldn’t deny that, despite her immaturity and love of twisting his buttons, he had fantasized about a moment like this many times. Well, not quite a moment like this as Jane was here with them as well and that was a whole new wrinkle. Suffice it to say that this moment was something beyond even his wildest fantasies.

And yet, it felt oddly normal, as if it was perfectly natural that Olivia was exploring the dark recesses of his mouth with her tongue, while he was using his hands to do the same to all the regions of her slender body that had eluded his gaze over the years. Her ass, the first female ass he’d ever truly felt, was surprisingly round and pleasant as he squeezed it, and her breasts, as he worked his hands up her stomach and to her bra, seemed larger than Jane’s, at least when freed from the tight wrap she had them strapped under. He began to work on that bra, before he realized he had absolutely no clue how it was attached, or more importantly, released. Fortunately, Olivia took over and shrugged it off with hardly a thought, while Jack shed his undershirt.

Now his fingers returned, finding her mounds delightfully full, and with hard pebbles of nipples that begged for attention in the form of pinches and twists. Even more delightful were the soft whimpers and groans his touch elicited, and it became a game for the young scholar to deduce which motion produced what noise, with a tug giving the loudest groan, while a gentle circle with his thumbs yielded only a soft mewl.

He couldn’t ignore the growing evidence of his own arousal, which tented his thin boxers and burst out of the opening in the front. Olivia, in her squirming against him, had managed to trap his cock between their bodies, so his length rested against her stomach. That friction was enough to trigger his own series of moans and sighs, until her hands at last discovered his manhood. He was forced to abort their kiss and throw back his head to issue a full throated growl as she stroked him with two of her hands.

“You like that, Jack?” she murmured, her pale eyes flashing with a sultry hunger that Jack had never seen before. “I want to see you explode.”

A groan from his side caught his attention, and he turned to find an even more wanton scene next to him. For a brief second, his mind tried to alert him again that something strange was happening and perhaps he should snap out of this carnal trance, but the sight of Jane, his sweet and scholarly classmate, in just her bra and panties with Penny, of all people, kissing down her neck until her mouth reached her breasts, was so overwhelming that any hope of breaking out of this glamor faded immediately. Jane looked so unlike her normal self, her hair was a disheveled mane around her face and her eyes were glazed with lust. She almost appeared to be some sort of primal priestess of a fertility cult performing some ritual to a pagan god, and for a second Jack almost thought he saw a reddish glow around her, as if some god of perversion had blessed her with his depravity.

“Jane…” Jack replied, flashing her a happy smile.

He shuffled towards Jane, with Olivia stroking his dick while non-plussed at his shift in attention, and reached for his classmate. It seemed perfectly natural now, after all his apprehension earlier, to give her the kiss he’d been dreaming about for years. And having just spent minutes practicing with Olivia, his tongue and lips seemed to have a more artful touch to their hungry union, and as a result, while he kissed her with passion, there was teasing restraint in his manner, as if he knew this was the first of many kisses and therefore there was no rush to do more than enjoy a sweet and leisurely exploration of Jane’s mouth.

When I kissed you
And called you sweetheart​

So lost was Jack in kissing Jane, both of them resting their backs against the lectern, that it took a second before he realized that Penny had freed Jane’s breasts from her bra. His cousin had been licking and suckling Jane’s mounds, but now was moving further down, her pink tongue lapping at Jane’s pale stomach. By reflex, Jack moved his hand to Jane’s breasts, happy to finally, and without regret, stroke the mounds that had magnetically attracted his hands all day.

“I’ve really wanted to touch them, even though I did it by mistake earlier,” he confided to Jane, between kisses. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”

With a little groan, Jack glance down and realized Olivia was mirroring her sister, showing their inexplicable silent communication abilities, and kissing down his stomach as well. It became clear, as he watched, what their joint targets were. In a coordinated fashion, both Jane’s underwear and Jack’s boxers were tugged down their legs, and the twins’ unusually long tongues slipped out as their heads bobbed forward. For Jack, it was a slobbering lick by Olivia down his throbbing length, and for Jane, Penny leaned forward and burrowed her tongue under that thatch of curly hair to eel into the girl’s sex, guiding the older girl with her hands to open her thighs and squat lower for better access.

“Oh, fuck,” Jack blurted out, too aroused to even be embarrassed at his vulgarity. He had a hand around Jane’s waist and he squeezed her now as he moaned loudly. He turned to give Jane a giddy smile. “This feels incredible… It's so fucking perverted, right? But I love it!”

He dropped his free hand to Olivia’s head as she took his swollen tip between her lips. Her touch felt exquisite, as if he was plunging his cock into liquid silk. She began to bob, her pale blue eyes watching him intently, and he shuddered and groaned. The waves of ecstasy she gave him were almost too much to process, and he squeezed Jane again while he swayed next to her, his head jerking at times in mindless pleasure. The rhythmic slurp of Olivia and Penny's mouths at work rose up to fill Jack's ears, a lusty counterpart to the radio's song.

“Oh, Jane…”

And still, the music played and the flute swirled in faster circles.

Do the chairs in your parlour
Seem empty and bare​

 

[Shiva the Cat]

The lust in Jack's voice sent a new fire roaring to life in Jane's belly, and for a moment she felt an instinct to push Penny off of her and throw herself at her classmate right then and there. But the short-haired girl was stronger than she looked, and she kept the brunette firmly pinned against the lectern as her tongue began tease and twist around Jane's hard pink nipple. Crying out in frustration, the student's hips began to jerk in a lewd, desperate dance, and only the feel of Jack's lips on hers began to sate her somewhat. Moaning into the kiss, one hand moved from gripping the edge of the lectern to wind around Jack's neck, while the other petted Penny's hair in appreciation as she felt the girl's tongue dipping into the small hollow of her naval.

Jack wasn't as sweet or gentle in his movements as Penny had been. She had seemed more interested in whipping Jane into a frenzy of lust (and had succeeded splendidly) while the young man was more interested in sating his own hunger. Alarm began to fight back against her own need, and while there was no denying the pleasure that jolted through her as her friend began to stroke and knead her breast, she also knew it was much more dangerous to let a man get that close than it had been for the twin. Jane had caught sight of his emerging manhood from the corner of her eye, hard and ready to take whichever of the girls in the room offered it refuge. An ironic little voice in the back of her mind was remembering the paintings in the gallery, and couldn't help but wonder if perhaps Jack and the twins weren't the first cousins in the family line to know each other so intimately. It would explain the strong features and the tendency for twins.

It was ridiculous that Jane should feel so jealous at the idea of Olivia (or Penny) getting to feel that rock-hard length buried inside her, but she felt her own sex dripping with hunger at the idea Jack might choose her instead, even though if he did that would be the absolute end of her reputation. It was bad enough to be the kind of girl who went all the way with a boy before marriage, but to go all the way with Jack Moody of all people. With his shirt off though, revealing the smooth lines of his chest and feeling surprising strength in his large hands as they continued to play with her tits, Jane thought maybe the other girls at school had been mistaken in their opinion of him. Jack might have been out of his mind with arousal, but at kissing distance there was no denying he had his attractions.

“I’ve really wanted to touch them, even though I did it by mistake earlier,” he confided to Jane, between kisses. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”

"I..." Jane gasped, the words flying out of her mind before she could get them through her mouth. "I just thought...I thought maybe you...ah!"

For a moment, she'd almost forgotten Penny. But then she felt a tongue slipping over that most sensitive little nub between her legs, making her entire body twitch as though she'd been struck with electricity. She might have fallen over right there if it weren't for Jack's strong arm around her waist and the girl's hands holding her hips, pulling them slightly forward so her tongue could slip into Jane's clenching depths. Penny seemed determined to lap every last bit of moisture out of her pussy, and while the helpless student was tempted to join Jack in his vulgar outbursts, her fright was growing with her pleasure, though she wasn't quite sure why.

"Please!" she gasped, looking at each of their faces in turn. "Please, stop! You...you're going to make me...oh fuck!" she breathed, shutting her eyes tight against the oncoming peak. Jane had experienced orgasms before, but mostly on her own. The one exception was with Billy last summer, and they'd been alone in a boathouse at a time. Now she knew Jack's gaze was on her, if not Olivia's as well. They were going to see her lose control, watch her come all over another girl's face like the wanton slut she was. Her level-headed, good girl facade would be utterly shattered, and she would be humiliated, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.

"You don't want me to stop," Penny whispered wickedly against Jane's inner thigh, reaching up to give her ass cheek a firm squeeze. Her tongue was back thrusting inside before the other woman could get even the smallest amount of relief, and it only took another minute before the inevitable moment came.

Jane let out a shriek so loud it might have even frightened the monstrosity on the ceiling. The fingers of one hand dug sharply into the skin of Jack's arm while the other forcably pressed Penny's face deeper against her cunt, letting her feel the quivering muscles and the little rush of nectar on her tongue. The waves exploded outward through her limbs, her legs finally giving up their strength as she began to slide down against the lectern, collapsing in a slow, shaking heap on the floor with a mixed look of shame and satisfaction on her face.