World War Cthulhu: A Collection of Lovecraftian War Stories

by John Shirley

  Chilton wasn’t a drinking man, but he wanted very much to taste this cider today. A warm bloom of past life while all in the present was cold and dark and mutely watching him instead of groping for his neck.

  “Finish that and be on your way.”

  Chilton opened his eyes, not realizing they were closed, and looked at the barkeep, who glared at him, eying the Indian war club at his waist. Gad Richardson was his name. Little Gaddy, all grown up and bulging his success over imported purple trousers, filling up a bit larger every day inside the walls of the Broken Pony. The walls Chilton had helped him build. They’d known each other since they were lads, running the untamed forests and creek beds around New London, looking for arrowheads and fighting imaginary skirmishes against the savages. They always played the British then, swaddling themselves in red fabric and brandishing muskets of birch. Today, and ever after, they were strangers. Battle makes heroes, and it makes goats. It all depends on who survives.

  “I’ll be moving on presently,” Chilton said, gazing into the golden fluid, drawn to the dance of sediments arranging themselves in curious patterns at the bottom of the glass.

  Richardson wiped down the bar, moving past Chilton. “A good Christian never turns away a thirsty man,” he said quietly. “But I don’t think all my customers are so charitable in their adherence to Holy Scripture.”

  Chilton followed the jut of his chin to the patrons clustered in small groups and huddled over their mugs at tables throughout the room. No one spoke, and every eye watched him with varying levels of hatred and disgust. He nodded, finished his applejack in one pained gulp, and headed for the door, shouldering his pack and donning his black felt hat as he exhaled fire, blinking his eyes quickly to reorient the fading room. Gad spiked his cider with grain alcohol, which kept his tables full and the neighborhood pillory well populated.

  “Ger damn ’em bloodybacks what left ye alive.”

  He recognized the voice, but couldn’t find the face in his mind. Everyone was the mob now, every word the jeering chorus. Chilton’s hand pawed at the door latch. It clicked and gave but the hinges stuck tight, frozen over from the icy brine outside, forcing him to put his shoulder into the wood. He banged a few time before the door finally creaked open, framing a very ungraceful exit for the famed New England privateer, Captain Mark James Chilton.

  ***

  Chilton stepped outside and clenched every muscle in his body, as much against the bracing cold as the bullet he assumed would pierce him like sackcloth through the back—a leaden spine-check to make sure he still had one, or ever had. Chilton was curious himself, and almost hoped for the hot stab of whistling death to put his suspicions to rest.

  At any rate, his nerves were shot, and his gait now unsteady. He couldn’t well remember the days just before the incident, although they were only a few months prior. The midnight missions up the coast, the sinking of the British frigate after a vicious battle that cost him most of his men and a good portion of his foremast. The Caesar’s welcome the survivors received upon limping back to dock, battered but triumphant. Captain Chilton, slayer of the Tories, subject of song and pamphlet churned out to raise morale amongst the rebels, which it did. They now felt like adventure stories written about someone else, read in his mother’s voice when only just a lad, and therefore fuzzy around the edges. But the looks inside the Broken Pony assured him that they were just as real as his last raid on that uncharted Nova Scotia cove. The legacy of the past made the present fall from grace all the more jarring, and the once-proud locals all the more vicious. When times are bad and sustenance dwindling, the starving eat their heroes first.

  Chilton never wanted any of it, but providence finds those that it needs, regardless of cost. Indeed, Mark James, eldest child of native son Elias Chilton and exiled Ulster aristocrat Ms. Charlotte Flannery Fitzpatrick, was hailed as the bravest lad ever sired in New London, who grew into the bravest man to ever join the Connecticut militia. On a dare, or even without one, he’d climb the tallest tree to fetch a swarming honeycomb, take on a rogue bear with nothing but a patch knife, or drop his shirt and prizefight for a half-plug of tobacco. He wasn’t much of a shot with a musket, but loved a tussle more than anyone around. A natural-born pugilist with a chin made of granite. Old-timers would just sit back and shake their head with a smile, wondering if he was dropped on his noggin when he was born, or just too naturally muddleheaded to consider consequences. Or too Irish. But Chilton was that sneaky kind of smart that made him a good soldier, and an even better ally, and your worst enemy if you crossed him, which fewer and fewer people did as he added years and the city dug deeper into the forest.

  His father Elias was once a gentlemanly farmer of rye, potatoes, and apples, proudly tilling his uneven plot situated as far outside of New London as the council would allow. He wanted the challenge of taming the land, and providing room for what he hoped would be a large family. But it turned out that he was too far from town, as a raiding party of Mohegans caught him while cutting trees on the backside of his expanding property, taking off his leg with the same pit saw that had felled the acres of maple and birch. He cauterized his wound in the glowing ashes of a stump fire, dragged himself back to the family home, locked himself in his room with a dusty case of whiskey, and emerged two weeks later a different man. Freed from his cage of empty bottles, smears of dried blood, and piles of human filth, he fashioned a crude wooden leg from the last red maple tree he cut, and went right on farming without another word about the incident, or any word for his family in general. That next harvest, he sold what he needed to rear his family and dumped what was left into the smoking brass still set up in the barn after slaughtering all the animals and leaving their corpses to rot in the yard, dooming the family for fresh meat. He said the sound of them bothered him, so he brained each in turn with a bush hammer. Every day after he’d spend the daylight hours trudging across the fallow fields, combing the forest for Indians, avoiding human contact, and making rare few trips into town. At night, he’d take turns on his wife and his two children, depending on the moon and the quality of the spirits bubbling into maturity out in the darkness, telling them that it was his divine right as pater familias to sleep where he saw fit. Charlotte took exception to this, and was beaten with a length of firewood until she could no longer speak, or do much of anything aside from drool, her eyes now crossways and the light inside her gone. But she still had enough wherewithal to drown her only daughter in the horse trough, lest Elias get to her one more time. After making a dinner of stewed hare and turnips——her husband’s favorite——she hung herself from the support beam over the kitchen table that night, discovered by Mark James upon returning from town after selling off the family heirlooms for salt and flour. After taking in the scene, the son stirred the pot over the fire, sending the aroma of bubbling meat up the chimney, sat at the table, and waited.

  Mark James, who soon became just Chilton in the absence of Elias amongst the populace, killed his father slowly and carefully with the same piece of firewood that stole the life of his mother and eventually his sister, and loaded his battered remains into the still in the barn. He spiced the batch with a pot of stew and added wood to the fire. He took the wooden peg back into the house and carved it down into an Iroquois war club. That morning at dawn, he put torch to the house, mounted the family horse, and galloped into town. He left his father’s whiskey fermenting in the barn for the creatures of the forest, both human and not. Everything gets thirsty, especially those that call the wilderness home.

  New London gossip whispered about the occurrence at the Chilton farm, but no official inquiry followed. The British Magistrate was unconcerned with the disappearance of rurals, and the underground leadership committee was uniformly sympathetic to the younger Chilton to a man, while always scornful of Chilton the elder. An outbreak of yellow fever was eventually blamed, and the property shunned, but no one knew from where this story originated. Interest in this local mystery was soon eclipsed by the rumbling
s of war, as revolution was taking hold amongst the colonies. Forces were agitating in Boston, and more redcoats were sent in from across the ocean, together with new laws to strangle the unruly subjects back into airless servitude. Although Chilton cared little about discovery of those events that took place on the final night at his childhood home, or the capital repercussions, the timing of these major events moved minds away from such domestic matters. Nothing erases memories faster than war, as those within band together against those without. That both of these groups were mixed together up and down the colonies just made the growing situation all the more explosive.

  During this upheaval in the day-to-day doldrums, Chilton found a new home on the New London docks. He’d hop any ship that was leaving harbor, often taking lower wages and sleeping on deck amid the elements, just to get away from the sweaty grip of the land behind him and learn his new life as a swab. The salted air was cleansing, at least on the outside, adding color to his cheeks and a sharpness around his round Black Irish eyes. Standing on the prow in the early morning hours while the rest of the crew slept, he sucked in as much brine as he could, hoping it would take care of what was curled up inside.

  Now a dyed-in-the-wool wharf rat, whose already sizable reputation for courage and grit only grew with each excursion upon the waves, Chilton soon netted a wife—a wispy clothier’s daughter named Agnes Warren—and set up house on Bank Street. From this close vantage point to the harbor, and the marked increase in often-late-night voyages, Chilton quickly secured ownership of a merchant vessel he re-christened the Sea Hag, which he embellished in wide, bold black lettering on the stern, making sure everyone on the docks knew the name. A local artisan painted a terrifying visage of an aged crone, horns dripping kelp, mouth running red with blood. Rumors spread that the moniker was inspired by his notoriously frosty mother-in-law Eleanor Warren, who had provided the loan to purchase the ship, most likely to keep Chilton away from her daughter. Two years on, with Chilton spending more time at sea than at home, and Agnes without child, the investment seemed to have paid off for Eleanor. Either way, both parties seemed happy, or at the very least mollified.

  After several seasons of stocking New London with rum, sugar, and what many thought were unseemly spices from the Caribbean and shadowy spots further to the southwest, the Intolerable Acts of the British finally pressed too deeply on the colonists, and the Revolution broke out in earnest, changing everything. Maritime activity turned from mercantile to martial, as all of New England, and New London, rallied to the saber-rattle of war against the British crown, at the behest of a steely Virginian named General George Washington.

  Chilton was drafted into the newly minted American Navy an hour after he declared his soldiering intentions. He was officially granted the rank of captain by the Second Continental Congress, receiving his first commission to command the Sea Hag as a privateer against the ravaging patrols of the British fleet off the coast of New England.

  Living in New London, Chilton was in prime position to raid the southeast Canadian coast and rebuff hostile moves against the heart and soul of the Revolution. It was 1776, and a year into the war, American losses were mounting, both on land and at sea, helped in no small measure by the constant flow of reinforcements from England by way of Canada. After a dozen successful incursions that inflicted notable losses on the Crown, the Royal Navy pulled back, avoiding the Sea Hag’s usual radius. Sensing a change in the tides, and eager to push the battle lines further into enemy territory, Congress issued Captain Chilton an express order to break up the supply routes and staging areas of Nova Scotia. Chilton rounded up his best veteran crew members and a gaggle of greenhorns inspired by promises of honor, spoils, and much righteous violence, refitted his vessel with new cannonry fresh from the smiths of Philadelphia, and set off up the coast to a hero’s farewell. The last sight Chilton beheld on shore was the stooped and shaking figure of Agnes. She was weeping into her hands. It was the first and last time he saw her cry.

  ***

  Chilton walked down Pequot Avenue, passing School Street and on to Thames Street Portage. The cider in his belly shot fire down his legs and into his feet, melting footprints into the lightly blown snow, leaving a steaming trail behind him.

  He avoided a look to his right toward Bank Street and the empty shell he once called his home, and all of the ghosts moaning in those empty rooms that had never been filled, no matter how many trinkets and furniture he had stuffed inside. Further out of town, the Chilton farm lay still and quiet, unmarked graves in the overgrown potato field leaching off the buried bodies of mother and daughter. He was glad they had been spared from what had happened, only wishing that his father still remained to witness what was coming. Chilton touched the club at his waist and felt a twinge of unexpected regret. Pa had died too soon, he decided, with too little horror to aid his passing.

  Crossing Thames Street brought Green Harbor into view, and the outline of the Sea Hag. He watched the gentle sway of his vessel, noting every slope and angle that was engraved into his mind like the body of an immodest lover. His ship was the only craft moored to the wharf at Green Harbor. No others wanted to be within a hundred feet of her.

  He tightened up his kerchief and continued down the street, passing the tiny Mariners’ Church that teetered on a rocky outcropping near the graving docks, between the foundry and the fish house. A set of weathered stairs led up to the doorway, which stood wide open. This let in the cold, but also kept the congregation awake, while sending the message that God closes the door on no man, no matter the transgression, either at sea or lands immediately adjacent. A resonant voice boomed from the populated darkness inside. Even though he couldn’t make out the words, he knew the sermon was coming directly to him.

  “Today’s message was first centered in the generous spirit of the Christian soul,” intoned the barrel-chested Reverend from behind the pulpit fashioned from prow and rigging. “But recent developments have moved me to speak about courage, and of cowardice.” Murmurs rippled through the crowd. “For a craven soul stands amongst us now. A shirker, a soft liver holding up a spine made of Goodie Holman’s poorly baked bread.” Mrs. Holman blushed in the front row, surrounded by a few laughs tinged with a constrained anger.

  “It is written in Second Timothy,” The Reverend continued, “that God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. We were born into fear upon receiving the knowledge of good and evil, but through God’s divine grace, and his protection, we now … fear … nothing.”

  “Nothin’ ’cept a coward!” someone called out from the back row.

  “Indeed, indeed, Goodman Pratt. For the Proverbs state that the wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.”

  The congregation rumbled their consent. Heavy boots thumped the floor.

  “And forget not the writings of the Revelation. Chapter 21, Verse 8: ‘But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.’ I say to thee, good people, that Hell awaits the fearful of all things that are not the Lord our God!”

  A laugh cut through the shouts of agreement, turning every head in every pew toward the open door at the back of the church, where Chilton stood, holding a small statue of Jesus on the cross.

  “Unhand our Christ,” the Reverend commanded.

  Chilton glanced around the room. “The last church I was in,” he said quietly, “looked nearly identical to this one.” He looked down at the occupied crucifix in his hand, absently rubbing the figure’s feet with his thumb. “Except for this.”

  He shrugged and tossed the cross to the floor, where it landed face down. Half of the room shot to their feet, gasps and curses knitting together in a seething ball of fury.

  “Blast ye!” the Reverend hissed, pointing down from his place on high. “Blast ye and burn ye.”


  “Piss on yer coward soul, Chilton,” snarled Mr. Pratt, rushing toward the lone man in the doorway.

  Chilton pulled a flintlock from his breeches and shoved the barrel into the advancing man’s mouth, stopping him cold. Chilton rattled the metal around Pratt’s teeth, knocking out a rotting molar that dripped to the floor.

  “He wouldn’t dare kill a man in church!” a woman sobbed, gripping her husband tight.

  “No, I wouldn’t kill a man in church,” Chilton said, his voice flat. “But I would kill this one right here, right now, because he be no man, and this be no church.”

  “You blaspheme!” thundered the Reverend, nearly shaking apart the pulpit under his whitening knuckles.

  “Oh, I do more than that,” Chilton said. “I speak the truth hidden beneath the blasphemy, because I surely seen it, plain as day and the stars at night. Hell be no fiery place. Hell be dark, and wet, and glitters with white gold.”

  Men rushed at Chilton, who cocked the hammer on his pistol. Urine ran down Pratt’s trouser legs, collecting in a steaming pool around his boots, creeping toward the statue.

  “Hold!” the Reverend shouted, stalking up the aisle, shoving aside tensed bodies, unsheathed knives. He stood before Chilton, holding out his worn Bible like a talisman. “Begone, yellow demon. Your reckoning awaits you, outside these doors.”

  Chilton glanced behind him. “I reckon it does.” He tipped his hat and looked down at the floor, flipping over the cross with his boot, facing Jesus to the ceiling. “He won’t be coming down to save you.” Chilton took in each pale face in the room, engaging every wide or squinted set of eyes. “Because the other ones are coming up for you first.”