by Byron Craft
Alas, Lieutenant Derek Koch’s response had not been quick enough to save the President. Because next to the dark puddle of glop was the severed hand of Judith Hampton. The only part of her that escaped digestion.
Chapter 12:
On the Road to Minot
Via I-94 W
ETA 5 hours 26 minutes
“ETA five hours and twenty-six minutes Lucky Mitchem shouted down through the tank’s hatch. Doucette was more than happy to have him back in the pilot seat. Doctor Betty Baker had tended to the shoggoth wound on the bottom of Mitchem’s foot, and in no time, he was rough and ready for duty. Sergeant Doucette sat with his back against a rounded bulkhead. Across from him was Betty Baker. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. She’s a good lookin’ woman, he decided. Doucette had a fondness for redheads. “You did a great job on Mitchem’s foot, Doc. Thanks a lot.”
“Cognitive science and biology are my fields. I am not a medical doctor. That little blob had cauterized Mitchem's wound, and eventually, the nerve endings around it became numb. All I did was change the dressing.”
“Well, thanks all the same.” Doucette offered his pint of Jim Beam. “Can I interest you in a Happy Hour?”
“Most certainly. I’m running low on fuel for the brain. My anti-Cthulhu tonic.”
Doucette slid on his backside to the other side of the tank arriving next to Betty. Both appearing to enjoy the cozy moment shared the pint.
Martin and Molly shimmied down through the opening and joined the pair along with the comatose Horan Marmalado.
“Martin, I think you might find it interesting what I found on the personage of Mr. Marmalado.”
Martin requested earlier that Doucette refer to him by his first name from now on, after all, they are presently living in close quarters and became bosom drinking buddies. “I am all ears, Sir,” he replied.
“The nutcase had this stuffed in his shirt,” added Doucette while handing him the manila envelope.
Martin opened it and burst out laughing while examining the contents. “So, the crazy was telling us the truth all along. Except for his moniker. I would never have guessed.”
Martin held in his hand a driver’s license and a Southwest Airlines corporate ID card. Both displayed photos of their drugged traveling companion. Below each picture was the name, “Orville Marston.” Also, the corporate card rated him as a 757 pilot.
On the Road in the Tanker Truck
Via I-94 W
ETA 5 hours 16 minutes
Li Clarke was having the time of her life. Every kid wanted to be a fireman when they grew up, and she was living her childhood fantasy. She had just completed testing the Motorola military grade walkie-talkie Sergeant Doucette had entrusted to her for the the tanker truck to tank communication. She set it down gently on the truck's console. Len Sibbald and Norm Tyson sat next to Li enjoying the scenery. They followed behind the M1A2 Abrams. Li kept fiddling with the joystick that manipulated the water cannon. “Why do you keep twiddling that stick?” asked an annoyed Norm.
“I intend to twiddle until I can operate this thing in my sleep, Mr. Cosmologist. You can bide your time studying your ‘Big Bang’ if you like, but I’m practicing being a crack shot.” It was transparent that Norm Tyson was intimidated by a woman driving a large truck. It probably offended his male ego, concluded Li. When it came right down to it neither he or Len were capable of driving the big rig. Li was well within her comfort zone. Back home, the two were barely able to drive their Tinker Toy cars.
“Do you really think we’ll run into those creatures?” asked Len noticeably concerned.
“The Sergeant seems to think so,” replied Li still fiddling. “He learned about it from an emergency radio transmission from Minot. He said that they were as big as a house.”
The Globe, beneath Minot Air Force Base
3 hours later
“Colonel,” announced Romero. “I’m in constant touch with small pockets of humanity in other nations and the USA. Apparently these shoggoth things are coming down all over; South America; Santiago has hundreds of them. They’re outside London. They’re in Naples. We’ve got them between here and Fresno, outside Sacramento, two on Long Island.
Surprised Colonel Fielding asked, “They’re just coming down at random?”
“No, Sir. According to information from foreign sources, they’re working to some kind of a plan. What it may be isn’t clear yet. Simply because once they begin to move, no more news comes out of that area.”
Damn it all to hell; a voice raged in the Colonel’s skull. I’m cooped up in this damn ball, and there is nothing I can do. The security monitors revealed over a dozen of the slimy beasts still crawling over the tarmac. “Cthu ...” he stopped and corrected himself from almost saying the forbidden word. “The anomaly, Romero, rose up out the tundra like the Fortress of Solitude and conquered the planet in less time it took the Nazis to topple Paris.”
“I’m not familiar with that analogy, Sir,” offered Romero.
Of course, thought Fielding, the kid couldn’t be more than twenty-five years old. He did appear to like my Fortress of Solitude comparison. Probably thought the old fart never read a comic book. “The joint operation of the leader nations hit it with everything they had. There was enough force exerted to rock our planet off its axis, and it did not affect the thing!”
“There is a theory, Sir, which is being bandied about.”
“From where?”
“Mostly on shortwave, chit chats; they’re using a term “his herald form.”
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a thing that precedes or comes before. In this case, it would be almost like a holographic image; a projection of something forthcoming. That was when all that mind roasting started all over the place, Sir. The reason, maybe, it was invulnerable. I think what we are witnessing now is Cthulhu’s physical shape.” Romero slapped a hand over his mouth. He had committed a Freudian slip and uttered the forbidden word. Only the Colonel didn’t seem to notice. “He or it has risen.”
“Is it still advancing?”
“Still heading north, Sir, straight as an arrow!”
Fielding turned and watched the marauding shoggoths once more on the security monitors. Where are my reinforcements?
The road to Minot
US-52 W
142.1 miles to destination
Martin Storch lifted his plastic cup of vodka in Molly’s direction. “I should have had enough foresight to nab some vermouth and olives before leaving on our trek. Even though gin is the accepted booze as the main ingredient for a martini I, for one, prefer vodka in the makings. Back home I use to make one helluva vodka martini. Grey Goose poured over crushed ice in a shaker and then quickly drained off. Next, I would pass my glass under a painting of Antonio Carpano.”
“Who is that?” asked Molly giggling, sipping vodka from her cup.
“Why the inventor of dry vermouth, my dear.”
Molly laughed, some of her drink spilled onto the tank’s deck.
Doucette and Baker, overhearing the conversation could not help from laughing as well.
“It’s an old joke. I picked it up from a Congressman I once knew, Neville Stream. Never liked the S.O.B. but he did tell some whoppers. Martin had stocked up on a few more things besides liquor for their trip. He knew that supply lines were going to be running short and essential’s such as food would soon become scarce. The MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat) that Mitchum and Doucette had stashed away would not be enough to feed their hapless companions. Martin and Molly had raided the shelves of Maisie’s Liquors (but forgot the olives, damn it) and an abandoned Walmart Supercenter. They took only canned goods, but the hoard was plentiful and would be enough for all. Martin was proud of their accomplishment and tipped his glass, actually a plastic drinking cup, in the direction of the new twosome, Francis Doucette and Betty Baker. The cozy couple returned the gesture.
That was when they heard the horrifying shriek. It came from above. The
tank lurched to the right and came to a crashing halt. Martin bashed his sore head against the tank’s interior but managed to snag Molly before she could slam into the wall. Doucette and Baker followed, and the four of them piled up together. Martin rubbed his sore noodle and exclaimed, “Damn, not again!”
Lucky Mitchum was not lucky this time. He had been standing in the tank’s open hatch driving the war machine along route US-52W when it happened.
* * *
Li Clarke couldn’t believe her eyes. The thing was truly as big as a house. As rapid as lightning strikes the earth the shoggoth had plucked Mitchum from the M1A2 Abrams Heavy Battle Tank. Driverless, the M1 careened off the highway crashing through the guardrail striking the opposing bank of a drainage ditch. Nose down and the engine still running the treads of the war machine threw clumps of sod and dirt into the air as if the tank was attempting to bury itself in the ground. Li was quick to respond though, however, not as quickly as the shoggoth. Mitchum was already enveloped in the acidic goo when she triggered the water cannon. The saline solution had the desired effect. The high-pressured salt water peeled back the active mucus driving the creature to the asphalt while dissolving it to gunk. Another shoggoth came from Li’s left and assaulted the firetruck. The windows were rolled up and by then the tanker truck had been covered in a salt water backwash. The shoggoth repelled from the touch of the brackish residue. In a heartbeat Li Clarke swiveled the water cannon into place and “let the thing have it.” It too was gone and turned into scum on the pavement.
The tank’s motor ceased running. Someone must have switched it off from the inside, Li guessed. It became very still in the firetruck, quiet. Norm Tyson and Len Sibbald were speechless and just stared at the remnants of the short-lived battle. Li could hear the water dripping off the cab of the truck. From her position, she observed someone exiting the tank. It was Sergeant Doucette pulling himself up and through the opened hatch. The Sergeant climbed onto the rear of the M1 where their luggage had been stowed looking forlorn and surveyed the area.
Li exited the tanker truck cab while her two traveling companions chose to stay put. Doucette joined up with the young Asian scientist. In the middle of the roadway was the corpse of Lucky Mitchum. His epidermis and the deeper subcutaneous tissue had been peeled away leaving a crimson parody of the soldier. Muscle, organs, and bones were all that was left.
Sergeant Francis Doucette wept. “I’ll get a shovel,” he sobbed.
Chapter 13:
The Battle of Minot
US-52 W
Night
The way was clear. The Shoggoths were dead or dissolved or whatever the hell they were when you killed them. Li helped Doucette bury the remains of Lucky Mitchum alongside the freeway. Molly and Betty fashioned a marker out of pieces of the busted guardrail. “A kind of, sort of cross,” Martin had critiqued. After that, he remained quiet for a while. He wasn’t crazy about the hateful stares the Sergeant gave everyone in their group. Martin wasn’t sure if it was anger at them or the alien creature that had killed Doucette’s best bud. Nevertheless, he gave Staff Sergeant Francis Doucette a wide berth, as wide as one could in the confines of an M1A2 Abrams Tank.
* * *
Doucette kept his eyes glued to the forward and aft camera monitors as he drove the battle tank. “We are keeping the hatch and gun portal secured from now on,” he declared in a somber tone. “Operation and movement control will be handled through the forward and aft monitors.”
The air vents had been sealed off as well. The slime driven things might find their way in through them. The tank was equipped with a high-tech air quality control protection system to safeguard the interior of the Abrams from poisonous gases and other toxins. An advanced closed-circuit rebreather apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide from exhaled breathing to permit the recycling of unused oxygen with filtered oxygen from outside added to replenish the amount metabolized by the users.
Li Clarke offered to hose down the Abrams with saline solution as a protective barrier against future shoggoth attacks, but the idea was nixed by the Sergeant knowing that his precautions had made the tank impregnable and he wanted to preserve as much of their saltwater ammunition as possible.
The directional cameras were also equipped with infrared, and the Sergeant was determined to drive all night to reach their destination. Backing the M1A2 Abrams out of the drainage ditch was a “piece of cake.” All he had to do was restart the engine and put it into “reverse.” An hour and a half after the internment they were back on the road. Betty Baker stood behind Doucette, her arm around his waist attempting to lend comfort. They were traveling north, northwest on US-52 W when it started to rain.
Doucette appreciated Betty’s support, but he was a soldier and knew that sometimes that meant taking an ass-kicking. However, the loss of Lucky Mitchum was more than he could take at the moment. The hole it left and the pain that filled it. He wanted to lash out at everyone. Blame anyone for Lucky’s death but himself. Then again command rested squarely on his shoulders. That was where the buck stopped. Maybe if they hadn’t been ordered to Minot Air Force Base Mitch would still be alive.
* * *
Bob Nye sat cross-legged on the deck of the M1A2 Abrams sipping from a can of Mike’s Lemonade. Nothing more than hard soda for a girl to drink to get a quick buzz before she goes out. He might as well be drinking a Fuzzy Navel or Sex on the Beach, the twerp, Martin wanted to say but kept his trap shut.
Bob’s eyes were glassy and red from too many lemonades. His words were slurred, “With Mitchum gone leaves more room for us down here.”
“If I were you, I would be careful about what you say,” challenged Martin Storch.
“Why?” he said rocking with the tank’s movements. “Freedom of speech you moron; First Amendment of the US Constitution.”
“Yes, but with that freedom can come consequences.”
“Like what,” he hiccupped.
“Like the Sergeant driving this armor-plated limo ripping off your arms and legs and beating you over the head with them,” Martin shot back.
“Screw you asshole!”
Martin turned to Molly Gibson. “Ad hominem,” he professed.
“What?”
“It has been my experience that when one fails to compete in the arena of ideas, they invariably resort to personal attacks.”
5,280 feet below Raven Rock Mountain
Office of the Vice President
Midnight
Kevin Berry sat behind his desk, face down, with his head buried in his hands. He was horrified and grieved over the loss of Judith Hampton. Even though, after the ‘Event,’ she didn’t have all her oars in the water he highly respected her. He missed the President’s motherly attention toward him.
The men and women of the Underground Complex had thrown together a makeshift office for Berry. Somehow, they came up with a Vice-Presidential Seal, and it hung on the wall behind him. He was startled when Lieutenant Derek Koch entered the room and removed the symbol from the wall. Close on his heals were Colonel Aadesh (Desh) Shankaracharya and Doctor Ó’Súilleabháin carrying its replacement; the Seal of the President of the United States. Kevin watched them hang it up. When done, Derek left the office taking the V.P. Seal with him and the other two followed without saying a word.
Kevin Berry turned to observe the three of them depart and came face to face with General Jack Patterson and the Chaplain, Lieutenant Jack Leewood. The Pastor stood at attention with a bible in hand. Kevin shook his head and raised his hand into the oath-taking position.
Minot Air Force Base
Dawn
The evening rain had died down shortly after sunrise, leaving dew over the entrance to the Air Force Base. There was a refreshing light fog in the chilly spring air. It would have been the kind of day that parents rose early, getting themselves ready for work before rousing the children and preparing them for school. Only normalcy fell out of the world, and a war was facing the crew of the M1A2 Abrams.
The security gates to the Minot AFB were unattended. A slimy residue glistened covering the guard shack and barricades. “Nobody home,” observed Betty Baker peering over Sergeant Doucette’s shoulder at the forward monitor. “The defense barriers are in place. What should we do?” she asked.
“Screw them,” answered Doucette and quickly accelerated. The barricades gave way to the sixty-eight-ton force of the M1A2 Abrams tearing them to pieces like so much tissue paper. The fire engine tanker truck was close behind. Doucette drove at a steady forty miles per hour. If that was a call to action, they had received then where the hell is everybody? He and Betty kept consulting all the monitors; forward, aft, port, and starboard. There was not a sign of human life. The base was deserted. It was about then that they observed the decaying corpses of Minot Air Force’s personnel. There were bodies everywhere. Many appeared to have been heading for shelter in one of the buildings when they were struck down. Then the shoggoths struck.
It was a concerted effort. The shoggoths struck all at once as if it was a planned assault. Doucette was caught off guard, unable to see because the jelly bulk of several creatures obscured the viewing cameras. The screens displayed a bubbling translucence, mostly green with small bits of something floating in the mass. Doucette increased the magnification on the monitors and revulsion set in on all because by then every one of the tank’s occupants was peering over the Sergeant’s shoulder. Body parts were circulating in the chaos. Some were human parts others were probably parts of animals. Teeth and at one-time dentures floated into view. The clawed paw of what could have once belonged to a squirrel was suspended in the gel. Others appeared to be organs, a heart, a liver, part of an esophagus all in various degrees of dissolution.
