World War Cthulhu: A Collection of Lovecraftian War Stories

by John Shirley

  Jacob raised his hands. Jordan, keeping his cool, stepped forward to intervene. One of the bearded man’s companions grabbed him. A tussle ensued where Jordan struck the man in the face to knock him back and pulled off his mask, revealing a shaved head, brown goatee, and surprised eyes. Then like a magic trick, Jordan was pointing the business end of his .45 at the terrorist’s face.

  “Fuck you,” the man said as blood trickled from his broken nose.

  “Simon, you arsehole,” said the leader. “You let him get the drop.” The other two men now had their guns pointed at Jordan. He turned and looked from the leader to Jacob. Jacob’s hands were shaking. Jordan felt death only moments away, for him and his companion. It wasn’t the first time he had that sensation, but this could be the last.

  “This standoff, most of us die,” Jordan said, trying weigh up options with those two guns pointed at him. There weren’t many.

  “You reckon?” the leader said. “Thing is we didn’t need your guns in the first place, boy. We have just what we need already. I just kinda wanted to meet and kill this moron after he sold out a bunch of my mates.”

  “He doesn’t die; I still need him.” Jordan said, his authentic-sounding Irish accent still in play.

  “Oh, he dies,” the leader said. “You too, whoever the fuck you are.”

  Jordan pressed his gun hard to his man’s right temple. Beads of sweat were forming there. Jordan then slid around behind him, making sure his meat shield was between him and the other two shooters.

  “Please, Patrick,” Jacob said weakly.

  “How about we all just back off, consider our attempt at business a failure, and you,” Jordan looked the leader, Patrick, straight in the eye, “if you really want to murder Jacob, I’m sure your chance will come again.”

  The leader raised an eyebrow. “We all live? Sounds like a plan. But if I see you again, boy, you may not like what happens.”

  “Ditto,” Jordan said, and took a step away from the man called Simon.

  “Okay boys, back away.” The leader raised his free hand and tapped Jacob on the cheek. “Later, or maybe sooner than you think.” He took a few steps back and his men followed suit. Both sides stepped away, guns still aimed, in a choreographed retreat. Jordan didn’t start breathing easy until the IRA men were out of sight as he and Jacob had backed around a shipping container.

  “What a fucking bust,” Jacob said and rubbed his face.

  In an instant of red rage Jordan found himself pinning the man to the container with his gun leveled against his jaw.

  “Friends of yours, huh?” Jordan spat. “So what good are you to me alive?”

  To Jordan’s surprise, Jacob grinned.

  “Well, I have this for a start.” He raised his left hand and revealed a cellphone.

  ***

  He thought it a neat trick, lifting the phone from Patrick’s pocket, and the act seemed to have placated Jordan, who sat beside him in the car now, looking through the contents.

  “So,” Jacob said. “How does an American like you have the juice to get me sprung from Chapelmoor to go on this little holiday? Let me guess; you’re CIA?”

  That got the man’s attention, who stopped going through the stolen phone and looked at him with a mask of practiced indifference on his face.

  “Yeah, I thought so,” Jacob said, grinning, “That still doesn’t explain why America is here, mucking about with something that is obviously a British problem.”

  He wasn’t expecting an answer. He got one.

  Jordan went back to examining the phone. “Nationality has got nothing to do with it. It’s bigger than that. I have a friend in MI6 that does the same specialty work I do. Counter-terrorism against a kind of threat I’m not at liberty to disclose. He uncovered a cell of idealistic Irish hardliners with tangential links to the IRA, headed up by some of your old friends.”

  “Patrick.”

  Jordan nodded. “They got their hands on a certain rare book; you could call it a guide to creating biological weapons, and so he called me in take care of it.”

  Is that what Patrick meant when he said he didn’t need guns anymore? Are they crazy enough to go messing around with killer germs and stuff? “So you came all the way from the US to do this? If he’s MI6, why can’t he handle it?”

  “My friend is bedridden with cancer, and I owe him to see this through. Not everything that kills you in this line of work is a bullet or … something else.”

  The man’s words were cryptic, but Jacob didn’t press further as Jordan looked up from the phone with something approaching excitement in his usually cold eyes.

  “I might have something here. A text. ‘Loughton, Epping, Dark Young, Rush Hour—Monday.’ Loughton? Epping? Do you know those names, Jacob?” Jordan passed him the phone and he read the screen message.

  Jacob thought for a moment then replied. “Epping is probably Epping Forest; Loughton I don’t know, but it could well be somewhere near there. But what on earth is a ‘Dark Young’?

  ***

  A living, moving, and very angry bio-weapon, Jordan thought, and in the middle of London? That would be quite the terrorist attack. If the ultimate goal of terrorism was to spread fear, Jordan could think of few things more horrifying than that. “I have no idea,” he lied, “but since tomorrow is Monday, we had better find out fast.”

  He removed his own cellphone from his jacket pocket and tried a web search for the name ‘Loughton.’ Lots of hits came up, too many, so he retried along with the words ‘London’ and ‘Epping.’

  Loughton Tube Station. Paydirt.

  “All right, there’s a subway station called Loughton. Whatever your friends are planning, I’m betting that’s part of it.”

  “One, they’re not my friends, as you now no doubt know, and two, what do you think they’re going to do? A gas attack like what happened in Tokyo back in ’95, but with a virus or something?”

  “No; something worse.”

  “Well, okay then, it seems like you know where they’ll be and at what time, so I take it we’ll be parting company, yeah?” the Brit asked with saccharin hopefulness in his voice.

  “Wrong,” Jordan said as he put the car into gear. “I’ll let you know when I no longer need you. You’re mine until then.”

  “Shit. What can I help you with when it comes to diseases or whatever the hell ‘something worse’ is? Call the government, let them send in the SAS, and have done with it.”

  Jordan stepped on the brake and looked at the man across from him. “The SAS, or anyone else for that matter, wouldn’t know how to deal with this threat.”

  “That is complete and utter shit. I knew some SAS killers from back in my army days. They’re all hard men with—”

  “And I’ve trained with them,” Jordan interrupted. His mask of calm reserve slipping the slightest bit. “They are first-rate soldiers, but sending them into this, unprepared for what might happen, would just get them killed. Only a handful of people in the world have had experience in dealing with this kind of threat, and I’m the only one here that’s not slowly dying from cancer.”

  “Then why the hell are you dragging me into this?” Jacob shouted, his face going red as his hands balled into fists.

  “Those madmen are planning on killing lord knows how many innocent people. Your people, by the way. Women, children; they don’t care. Hell, for them women and kids are prime targets. The more terror they can create, the better. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Well, yes … maybe … I suppose. But I’m just a onetime poor excuse for a soldier, now prisoner. What the hell can I do?” Jacob fumed.

  “If worse comes to worse, I might need you, that’s all, so you’re coming with me. End of discussion.”

  Jordan was well-trained to read a person and anticipate their actions before they made them. He saw that the convict was weighing his options between making a run for it, attacking him, or biding his time for a better opportunity to present itself later. Jordan tri
ed to remain outwardly calm, but he readied a punch to Jacob’s throat should the man twitch either toward him or the car door. The strike was sure to disable, and only had the off chance of killing the man. What Jordan had said was true: he still needed the former British soldier alive and with him. For now.

  Jacob looked to have picked Option C and bide his time as he un-balled his fists, turned to look out of the front windshield, and said, “Anything for Queen and country and all that.”

  “Good man.” Jordan said as he took his foot off the brake and had to consciously remind himself to stay on the left side of the road. “We’ll go back to the motel and get a few hours of shuteye, as we could both use it and might need it tomorrow.” Plus I’ve got to gather a few things I’m afraid I may need, he thought.

  “How do you know I won’t make a run for it while you’re tucked up in bed?” Jacob asked.

  “My buddies from MI6 who still think of you as a terrorist-loving traitor. I asked them to keep an eye on both of us, and they would stop you. Of course, only after they kicked your face in.” Jordan looked over at the other man and smiled a shit-eating grin. Often the best way to sell a lie was cockiness. “What, do you honestly think I’d have you on the outside with just myself to keep tabs on you? Come on; you’re too smart for that.”

  Jordan could see doubt in Jacob’s eyes, and he hoped that doubt would continue to keep the man in check.

  5

  Woods dark and deep

  From the outside, the Loughton Tube Station was less than impressive. Jordan had seen bigger public bathrooms. A square brown brick building with a large half-circle-shaped window above its entrance, it had a hair salon on one side and a florist on the other. Seemed hardly the place for hardened men to meet up and plan the murder of innocents. Then again, he was here, and that was exactly what Jordan had on his mind, minus the innocent part.

  He turned to Jacob. The man was asleep, or at least doing a passable job of faking it. “Hey, Jacob? Hey?” He said as he shook his companion.

  “What?” the Englishman said, sitting up, alert.

  “Over there.”

  Jacob looked to where Jordan indicated. Beneath the red circled ‘Underground’ sign to the right of the station, stood a man they both recognized. Shaved head, goatee, and now with tape on a broken nose. Simon, he was called. He stood there, well-wrapped in a long black coat and scarf, blowing into gloved hands. He wore a large rucksack over his shoulders.

  “He been there long?” Jacob asked.

  “A few minutes,” Jordan said absently. “A cab dropped him off.”

  “Any sign of the rest?”

  “Not yet—wait, look.” Jordan said as a man he didn’t recognize walked up to where Simon stood. The two looked at each other briefly and tried not to acknowledge one another. The pair weren’t very good at being covert. Gun thugs, nothing more.

  “They’re arriving separately. Smart.” Jacob said.

  Jordan reached around to the car’s back seat and picked up a leather attaché case to check its contents. Inside was an H&K MP5 submachine gun with attached suppressor and green laser sight. Two extra magazines, a trio of flashbangs, and a pair of M67 fragmentation grenades, for those just-in-case moments, completed the gear.

  “I guess I’m still not getting a weapon, then?” Jacob asked.

  “You guessed right.”

  Jacob cursed under his breath loud enough to make sure that Jordan heard him and sat back in brooding silence. They both watched out the windshield until two more men appeared, one of them being the leader of the group, the bearded Patrick. The four men then began walking together, heading toward the northeast, where Epping Forest was located.

  “OK, out of the car. It’s easier to shadow someone on foot,” Jordan said as he stepped out of the rental, his attaché case in hand.

  “I’ve never done anything like that before. I was just a humble squaddie in the army, so I’ll wait here, yeah?”

  Jordan said nothing, he just turned and looked at Jacob with a withering stare.

  “I didn’t think so, but it was worth a shot. Oh and don’t you go blaming me if they see us, then.”

  “Stick close to me and do what I do; you’ll be fine.” Jordan said.

  The pair followed the quartet of terrorists from the Loughton Tube Station for a few miles to the border of the forest, and the transition was startling to Jordan. One minute there was the gray concrete and red bricks of the city all around them, and the next moment there was a wall of trees dressed in yellow, orange, and red as autumn settled in over London. A road and a footpath led into the forest, but the IRA men didn’t take it. Instead they walked for another quarter of a mile before cutting into the woods, and after a brief wait, Jordan and Jacob did likewise.

  The forest was thick with the scent of rotting leaves. A dampness clung to a chilly breeze, and the rest of the world seemed to melt away as the American and the Englishman followed their Irish quarry deeper into the ancient trees. Epping had been a Royal forest for centuries before Queen Victoria declared it “The People’s Forest” in the 1880s. It contained thousands of acres of woodland, grassland, rivers, bogs, and ponds. It was as primal as anything found on this old island. The raw beauty and power of nature seemed to make the very air within it hum with potent power.

  As a boy growing up in Michigan who learned to hunt in and love the woods found there, the man called Jordan admired and respected the old forest. But never once did he take his eyes off of the group of killers he followed.

  The IRA diehards stopped in a little clearing near a small pile of stones and fallen trees. They began to talk to each other in low voices. Jordan started to circle around to their flank to get a good firing position, when he heard a twig snap behind him and Jacob. His heart sank when he heard someone say “Don’t you fuckers move” in a thick Irish brogue.

  Jordan put his hands up and saw Jacob following suit while uttering another curse. Patrick obviously had more than just three men in on this plan, and not all of them were without skill in being covert.

  Turning around, Jordan saw a young and slight man with curly red hair, dull green eyes, a smile on his freckled face, and an old Webley revolver in his hand. “I got ’em,” Freckle face shouted.

  “Good; bring their arses out here.” Patrick yelled back.

  “Move,” the redhead said, motioning with his gun. Much to Jordan’s disappointment, the kid knew to keep far enough back to keep him from trying to make a go for his revolver.

  Once in the clearing, and with a sixth Irish thug that had joined them from the opposite side of the woods, Patrick took Jordan’s case and had both him and Jacob patted down for weapons. The IRA vet whistled at the attaché case’s contents, then passed it to broken-nosed Simon, who stood grinning to his left.

  “I knew you would be tailing us once I discovered my phone was missing. You looked the type to not let things go.” Patrick said. “This cowardly piece of shit,” and he nodded with his bearded chin toward Jacob, “I’m surprised to see here. But that’s fine. We’ve got two for the price of one.”

  As the terrorist leader spoke, two of his cronies moved around behind Jordan and Jacob. Both drew knives as they walked, and that made Jordan’s stomach sink. Knives were never a good sign; they usually meant things were going from showing off to deadly real, and on some primal level, he always feared blades more than bullets.

  ***

  “What’s the plan, then?” Jacob asked. He figured the longer he could keep Patrick talking, the longer he lived, and he liked that idea. “This guy won’t tell me anything, so what’s with the hike through the woods?”

  “You two really don’t know?” Patrick said and then turned a scrutinizing gaze onto the American. If Jordan knew anything, his stone-faced expression didn’t betray it to Jacob. Patrick must have thought so too, as he snorted and said, “Well, wrong place, wrong time for you two, I guess.”

  The terrorist holstered his gun in a shoulder rig, then knelt down to unzip a
rucksack at his feet and retrieved an old, leather-bound book. Standing up, one of the last of the IRA hardliners carefully held the book as if it was a newborn baby.

  “You see, boys, me and my mates have gone back to our roots. To the ancient ways of my people before invaders shat all over that and changed things. Here,” at that Patrick showed off the book like it was a treasure, “is true power. Here is ancient wisdom long forgotten by most, but not by all. Not by the true sons and daughters of Ireland. Not by those that reject the martyr on the cross and remember what came before him.”

  He’s gone completely mad, Jacob thought as he saw the gleam in Patrick’s eyes. The man turned the book back toward himself, used one hand to hold it up, and the other to open it to a marked passage. The two knife-men were now behind him and Jordan, so the redhead youth now walked around to the front to join his mates.

  Patrick continued on. “We don’t need to buy explosives or guns no more, nor run the risk of getting caught with them or blow ourselves to hell when trying to set them up, thanks to some stupid mistake. All we need is this old book, and we can take a book anywhere, over any border and through any checkpoint without raising questions. It is the ultimate, undetectable weapon.

  “Unfortunately it does require one thing to work; a sacrifice. It’s the old ways, remember? The old ways were bloody ways, and the Old Gods always demanded sacrifice. So we were gonna grab one of the homeless from the underground and lure the poor sod out here. It’s got to take place in the woods, you see? That’s where the gateways can still be found, according to this book. Then after some chanting and the cutting of a throat, boom: instant weapon of mass destruction that the fucking English pigs will never forget.”

  “You’re crazy, talking that black-magic shit.” Jacob said as the ice-cold hand of fear tightened its grip on his heart.

  “You’ll see soon, and it will be the last damn thing you do see, boy. You and this asshole here,” Patrick nodded at Jordan, “will give us two of the Shub-Niggurath’s Dark Young to let loose on London. The children of the Black Goat, She Who is Life and Death, are none too pretty, but they are mighty and they ever thirst for slaughter. And in all the chaos and death that comes from that, we’ll drop our weapons and just melt away, with nothing but an old book in our possession.”