Atomic-Age Cthulhu: Tales of Mythos Terror in the 1950s

by Robert Price

  Walter woke with a start. He was home, in his bed, covers splayed across his legs. He reached for the bedside table and his glasses. His fingers brushed across the warm surfaces of the books before touching his lenses. He fumbled with the thick black frames before slipping them into place. Walter cringed first at the books, then at the pounding on the door.

  “Are you awake yet? You lazy piece of…” his mother’s voice trailed off and he heard soft shuffles headed for the stairs. He slid the first book over and held it tight to his chest, smiling and rocking, just a little. The faint sigh of a siren getting louder drifted in through the window. Walter’s eyes snapped open as sleep oozed its way from his brain. He crawled from under the covers, still clutching the book.

  From somewhere in the house came Johnny Mathis crooning chances are, your chances are awfully good. Walter stepped into his slippers and headed downstairs, he didn’t seem to notice the book was in his arms.

  “I told you, Mother, I was working late.”

  “That’s no reason not to call. I worry.”

  “You don’t worry; you just want someone home to gossip to and insult.”

  “That fancy new job is making you brave.” She lit a Chesterfield and blew the smoke at him. Walter moved on the couch, the plastic cover crinkling with each inch. Beyond the house a police car raced by, sirens blaring. His mother reached out a hand and switched off the radio. Walter stood without thinking and after laying the book down, wheeled the TV cart over.

  “What’s going on out there?” he asked as another car whizzed by.

  “You really have been out of it.” Walter retrieved the book and sat back down as the TV tube blinked to life. A concerned-looking man in a suit and slicked back hair appeared on the small screen.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, again I emphasize this. Stay in your house and lock the doors. Close the curtains and keep the lights off.”

  “Are we at war?” Walter asked. His mother hissed at him and waved her hand for him to be quiet.

  “A monstrous creature has been spotted near the harbor; it is destructive and working its way deeper into the city.” Walter reached out and switched off the TV.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “I need to go to work, Mother.”

  Walter snuck into the library. The school hallways were all but deserted of faculty and students. The few people he did see were running past him. Walter kept one eye on the hallways and the other out of the window. Putnam’s creature was out there; the glimpses of flashing red lights and blaring sirens were proof of it punctuated by the sounds of gunfire.

  Walter slipped into the library and slid the keys from the display from his pocket. The books were warm and buzzing. He didn’t attempt to fight at the visions anymore. The books had a place and until he figured it out, they would have to stay at the library. Walter locked the case and ran his fingers lovingly across the glass. A final image flashed into his brain, of fire and water erupting and reptilian wings larger than Innsmouth rising from the water.

  Walter didn’t have his lab coat or radiation badge; something told him he wouldn’t need it. The doors to the silo were open. One hung from its hinges. The front lobby was clogged with debris, and beneath it laid the bodies of security guards. Walter bit his knuckle to keep from screaming and tasted blood. He carefully stepped over the piles and went into the lab.

  The primary lab was destroyed. The metal surgical table was tipped on its side, the legs bent. All of the glass tanks smashed; nothing moved inside the shattered shells. The door to the specimen room was blown off the hinges; the smaller room was barely recognizable. A lab coat-clad arm stuck out of the debris, blood dripping from the fingers.

  “Dr. Putnam? Is that you?” Walter whispered, inching forward. He leaned on the overturned table to get past a large pile of rubble. Walter picked up a piece of wood and poked the arm; it rolled and fell out of the pile of debris, missing its body. Walter let loose with a horror movie scream and back pedaled, stumbling over broken glass and chunks of cinderblock. He ran out of the lab towards the harbor—he had to see what he had helped unleash. And all of the shorthand notes in the world weren’t going to stop it.

  The police set up temporary barricades and blocked off the streets with their cars. The black and white Chevrolet Bel Airs were big and bulky, and stopped other vehicles from getting past. Not people though. The policemen were nowhere to seen. Walter followed the path of destruction past the grocery store, where he used to wait outside while mother bought cigarettes. The entire front of the building was smashed in. Walter did his best to walk slow and steady and keep from sight in case any police came by. He had to see Putnam’s monster.

  The movie theater was in ruins, the billboard broken, lying in front of the doors, still proclaiming ‘Double Feature Saturday, Bridge over the River Kwai and Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock.’ Walter skirted past to the corner and stopped. He could see the docks; the monstrosity seemed to be headed for the water, maybe following instincts to safety.

  Police swarmed around it like angry bees firing revolvers and rifles, which had no effect at all on the armored exterior. The giant black pincers snapped and cracked at the attackers. The only good thing seemed to be that it was slow, still growing from the looks of it. Walter took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. More images flashed into his mind, lit like gunfire; like he was connected to the books in the library. He grabbed his head and screamed, realizing too late that the noise was bad.

  He heard shouting, then footsteps running towards him. Two strong hands grabbed his shoulders and shook him, the cure-all for all forms of hysteria.

  “Are you okay, buddy?” The cop asked. He towered over Walter by a good six inches. “You shouldn’t be here, it’s dangerous; didn’t you watch the news?”

  “I need to go to the University.” Walter stammered. The cop stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  “I got a nut over here.” More footsteps. Walter fought against the one-handed grasp, and failed. The more he struggled, the more the cop tightened his grip. “You need to settle down, buddy. What’s your name?”

  “What’s going on, George?”

  “Got a smart guy here, wants to go to the school.”

  “Put him in the car, lock him in.” The second policeman took off his hat and wiped at his forehead with a meaty hand. “I wasn’t made for all this running.” They each grabbed an arm and started walking Walter back towards the police cars.

  “Please you don’t understand. Dr. Putnam and I…”

  “Putnam? The loon from the school?”

  “Yes, I’m his assistant.” Walter spat.

  “We found what was left of Putnam in three chunks near the docks.”

  “I need to…”

  “You need nothing, pal. Now stop fighting, they’re evacuating Innsmouth, calling in the army.” The second cop said with a smile. “You know, George, I hear they might drop the bomb on that thing.”

  “They can’t drop the bomb. My mother is home.” Walter broke free and took off at a full-out run. He heard the police shouting behind him, followed by their footsteps, trying to catch up. Walter was never good at sports, but was always able to run fast, away from bullies, away from his brothers and today from the police.

  Tears welled and spilled from Walter’s eyes as he pushed the heavy wooden desk to block the door. There was no way those two policemen were going to get him. There was no way he would allow anyone to bomb Innsmouth and harm his mother, despite her nagging and pressuring.

  Walter swept an arm across the desk, sending a small calendar, cat photo and a cactus crashing to the floor. He eased the books from his shirt and laid them on the desk. He was bleeding from the cut on his arm. The hole near the elbow of the sleeve showed ragged skin peppered with splinters of broken glass from the display case.

  The blood oozed from the wounds, dribbling out of his sleeve onto the desk. He opened the first book, the cover alive and buzzing beneath his touch. Walter slid his clean ha
nd among the pages, a whimper of fear and anger escaping his lips. The pages were all blank. He clenched a bloody fist and slammed it onto the page out of frustration. The blood spattered across the aged paper. Then it moved and changed, formed words and illustrations. Whatever formed soon faded.

  Walter ripped the sleeve of his shirt, exposing the ragged flesh. He grimaced for a second, knowing what he had to do. He located the biggest piece of glass in his arm and pulled it free. A cascade of blood poured out onto the book. The blood was instantly absorbed and transformed into text and images. He flipped through the pages looking for the familiar text and runes he’d seen doodled on Putnam’s papers.

  The text started to fade; Walter grabbed the next piece of glass and, with a groan, tore it free. This one was deep. He dropped the glass onto the desk. More blood poured and pooled, but only for an instant. Walter pulled up the only chair, wooden, hard and straight-backed with no cushion. He was feeling faint from the wound, the loss of blood and the books blooming to life, fed by his blood in front of him.

  He closed his eyes, took off his glasses and breathed deep. Just like the book told him to. He laid hands on the pages and his lips moved involuntarily, spewing words he didn’t know nor had ever heard before. The pounding on the outer door broke him from his trance.

  His hands were dry and vaguely clean. The pages were barren save a few flakes of dried blood. Walter closed the book and tried to stand, collapsing back into the chair; there was no strength left in him. Through the small window he watched the door shake and bow as it was repeatedly kicked and slammed. The furniture he slid in front of it was starting to move. They’d be in soon and then he’d be in jail.

  Summoning the reserves of his strength, Walter pushed the desk enough to squeeze past into the library proper. He heard the muffled shouts of the policemen as he moved past the doors to the windows. He sat on a comfortable bench and looked out the window towards the bay.

  Through the windows he saw the creature, grown even more immense since Walter last glimpsed it. The sun reflected off the monstrous head as the eye stalks moved and swayed, looking for the next target. Walter heard the helicopters and airplanes next, wondering if they carried missiles or ‘the bomb’ he same kind that flattened Hiroshima. He was too weak to worry.

  Only one thing mattered, staying conscious long enough to see his job done. His mind wandered to his mother, sitting home alone, seething and fuming while watching the TV and chain smoking her Chesterfields. She’d make pale tea for herself and perhaps really indulge with a few cookies. Walter smiled and the harbor exploded.

  Water and fire shot up into the sky. The water boiled and rolled; steam and smoke poured out. Putnam’s monster moved away. The docks were torn apart from below. Men and wood flew into the water. The gunfire stopped and was replaced by screaming. Something was coming. Massive tentacled tendrils slithered up from under the water, indiscriminately killing and smashing everything in their path.

  The library doors burst open, the two cops stumbling through the debris and spotting Walter. He smiled and pointed out the window. The tip of an immense wing broke the surface of the water, then the crown of a gigantic green head dotted with several hundred eyes.

  It let loose with a scream that vaporized half of the bay and most of Putnam’s abomination. Its next scream flattened the rest of the waterfront. The cops stood paralyzed and Walter tried to tighten his tie with pride at what he had done. When Walter looked outside again, it had raised a colossal hand from the depths. Its massive head swiveled and stopped, seemingly staring at Walter, knowing he had summoned the Old God.

  Walter screamed as his mind melted away into the Abyss, and all the policemen could do was stare at the low afternoon moon low in the sky, with a jagged split running its width.

  OPERATION SWITCH

  BY PETE RAWLIK

  December 8, 1953

  The Bridge of No Return

  It was cold, the air was crisp, and a thick fog had rolled in and settled in the gully and around the bridge that spanned it. There was a scent in the air, smoke tinged with gunpowder and exhaust. To the north the enemy, North Koreans, were scurrying about, posturing, flexing military muscles, making sure that the American troops to the south knew what they were capable of. The Americans were doing much the same, though in a slightly more organized and better equipped manner. It was a scene the man on the hill had watched time and time before, only the players had changed. At the designated hour, trucks, one from each side, began unloading their human cargo, prisoners of war. The man on the hill, whom his subordinates thought of as the Old Man, and occasionally referred to as the TOM, or Terrible Old Man, lit a cigarette, picked up his field glasses and watched as the prisoners moved from either side and across the bridge.

  The two groups that passed each other in silence couldn’t have been more different. Those moving from south to north, were all well dressed in clean uniforms, and well fed, Asian, either Chinese or Korean; the TOM could tell the difference even when his others could not. The prisoners moving in the opposite direction were in contrast a sorry lot, dressed in what was left of their filthy uniforms, which in some cases were little more than rags. They were a motley crew, some Koreans and Turks, but mostly British, Australians, and Americans, though to the untrained eye they all looked the same, tattered uniforms covering gaunt, emaciated bodies. They shuffled across the bridge, in single file, so slowly that their steps barely made a sound. The condition of the troops was a telling clue to how poorly the North Korean army was supplied, for even the soldiers that guarded the prisoners were only marginally better off. Still, amongst the waves of shuffling, downtrodden prisoners of war, there were always a few who had not succumbed to the torture, starvation, and depression that was epidemic amongst former POWs. These men always had clean uniforms, good shoes, healthy bodies; even their minds were relatively unaffected. They walked faster and stood prouder than the others coming back across the bridge. They were easy to spot, and after interviewing dozens of them the TOM suspected something, something that he hoped to confirm as the exchange of prisoners drew to a close.

  As the former POWs came to the base of the bridge they were loaded into waiting vehicles and whisked away. The Australians and the Brits were the first to leave. The TOM had no jurisdiction over these nationalities; he had to let them go. But when it came to Americans, they were his to do with as he pleased. It was a familiar position, one that he had enjoyed while working in Japan, and then after the war for the CIA in both America and Europe. His recruitment into the Joint Advisory Commission, Korea or JACK was merely a new variation on an old game, one that he had become very good at.

  He lowered the field glasses and took a drag off of his cigarette, then handed a name to his assistant. “Lieutenant Hollister, have this man collected.” Hollister nodded, and relayed his master’s instructions into his radio. A half mile below as the prisoners made their way to the waiting trucks, one oddly healthy prisoner of war was removed from the others and loaded into a waiting jeep with armed guards on either side. The TOM smiled and muttered, “Now that we have collected our gift, let us see what we have been given.”

  December 12, 1953

  JACK Base 3 Codename: Whitechapel

  The TOM watched through the one way glass as Captain Marcus Troy fidgeted at the table in the interview room. Like the rest of the room the table was white, clean, and almost sterile. A blank slate on to which anything could be written and then if need be wiped clean, and forgotten forever. It had already witnessed the confessions of Lieutenants Marquand and Hodgson, weak willed men, both pilots on reconnaissance missions who had panicked and ejected from their planes when they came under enemy fire. They both had been captured, and held in Chicom camps far to the north. They were what the Chinese called progressives, and what the members of JACK thought of as indoctrinated. It would take some rehabilitation, time and effort, but the programming could be broken, the men returned to a semblance of their former selves, at least enough to pass fo
r normal in society. Friends and relatives might have trouble; notice some behavioral issues, emotional outbursts and the like. But such symptoms could be, would be, attributed to the stress of war, and not to any shoddy psychological reconstruction work on the part of SHOP 3, the TOM’s team of interrogators and therapists. Not that anybody back in the states would even know of the existence, let alone the function of such a group.

  He watched Troy for a few more minutes, let the man sweat. It was part of the interrogation process. You leave a man alone with his thoughts for long enough and he might just tell you everything you need to know, and some things you might rather not. Give a man time, and he might give you the world without even needing to be asked. He finished his cigarette, nodded to Hollister to start the camera, picked up his equipment case and with a deep breath went into the room.

  He flashed a smile as he introduced himself, his gold teeth catching the light, “Captain Troy, my name is Peaslee, Doctor Wingate Peaslee. I am a psychologist. I am here to ask you some questions, about your time as a prisoner, nothing serious, just a debriefing. Standard procedure I assure you.”

  Troy’s response was impassionate, cold and little more than a whisper. “I understand. You have a job to do. We all have tasks we must perform.”

  Peaslee opened his equipment case to reveal a rather large array of tubes, valves, a roll of paper and some integrated pens. There was a cuff that went around Troy’s arm, and another, quite a bit smaller that went over his finger. “This is a polygraph; it detects changes in blood pressure and temperature.” He flipped the machine on and it began to hum. A bellows expanded and then collapsed with a puff, only to begin refilling once more. “We use it to detect stress, mistruths, and attempts at deceit. It’s part of a test, one developed by the Germans, but still very functional. The Kampff test was originally used to detect traitors, now we use it to detect evidence of psychological tampering.”