by John Shirley
Patrick stepped closer to Jacob to gloat, “Crazy, you say? It’s fucking brilliant, and—”
There was a flurry of motion to Jacob’s left where Jordan was, but he didn’t turn to look. Instead he brought a knee crashing up into Patrick’s balls. In the moment of surprise that followed, he turned and head-butted the man behind him. Smashing the IRA man’s nose flat. Jacob then pulled the knife easily from the man’s hand and rammed it three times in fast, prison-shank-style thrusts, into his gut. He turned to do the same to Patrick, but saw him hobbling backward with one hand holding his precious book, and the other his aching jewels.
“Move, damn it.” Jordan hissed to his left, and Jacob turned to see the American had disarmed his man, pulled the terrorist’s pistol from his belt, had it against the other man’s head, and was walking backwards, using his hostage as a shield. Jacob didn’t know if Jordan had spoken to him, or his trembling human barrier, but he thought moving right now was a great idea.
As he turned and ran, he heard the Irish lads start shooting, soon followed by Patrick shouting, “Don’t kill ’em, wound ’em. We need them alive for the sacrifice. And someone drag Kellen over here.”
The Irish got behind cover while two of them ran out and dragged back their stomach-stabbed comrade. Jacob saw Jordan pull the gun from his hostage’s head and return fire at the IRA, just as one of their shots hit their own man the American was hiding behind, in the chest. The sudden impact, combined with not looking where they were going, caused Jordan and his now-screaming living shield to tumble over a dead log and down into a shallow depression behind it. Jacob, seeing only thin trees around him to hide behind, also dove into the ditch for cover as bullets whistled past him.
Jordan was up against the side of the embankment, looking over its edge toward the terrorists. The man he had dragged with him lay at the bottom of the ditch, crying and coughing up blood. “See if he has any more magazines or weapons on him,” the American ordered, and Jacob obeyed without question. He found two more clips for the automatic, but nothing else of use.
An unexpected silence settled over the woods that was soon broken by hushed voices coming from the terrorists’ side of the clearing. Jacob strained to listen and heard someone say, “No, Patrick, we can’t do it. Not to one of our own,” to which the bearded man said, “Look, he’s dead already. Some good might as well come from it.” There were frantic, wet-sounding pleas, followed by Patrick saying, “Sorry, Kellen, but it’s for the cause. Now, you two, hold him down.”
“Shit.” Jordan said next to him.
“What’s going on?” Jacob said, still not wanting to poke his head out of the hole for a look and risk getting it blown off.
Jacob heard Patrick chanting in some bizarre tongue. He could not make sense of it, as it just sounded like nonsense words, gibberish, grunts and deep, throaty bellows, to him. But as Patrick chanted, Jacob saw Jordan’s face blanch, and that greatly worried him. When the American pressed the automatic into his hand, it only added to Jacob’s unease, not lessened it.
“Here, in case they try to flank us. Keep your eyes open and don’t let them stop me once I start,” Jordan said as he reached into his leather jacket and tore out the sewn-in lining. He revealed an envelope hidden within, which he opened and pulled a sheet of paper out of.
“Wait, what? And what’s that?” Jacob said, with fear giving way to confusion.
“A last-chance backup plan. Those bastards aren’t the only ones with old books.” Jordan said, as he looked around and then picked up a fist-sized rock.
Then Jacob heard a shriek come from the man he had shanked, followed by a gurgling sound and an end to Patrick’s chanting. Jacob recognized a death rattle when he heard one and he knew that poor Kellen had just been sacrificed “for the cause.”
The moment the Irishman expired, something ugly, uglier than death, started up around them. Everything seemed to freeze and hold its breath as if waiting. An electric hum filled the air, followed by a vibration that made his hair stand on end and the fillings shake in his teeth. This was what Jacob felt, as the American next to him said in a hollow whisper: “It’s coming.”
The colored leaves that still clung to life on the trees around them all fell at once in brown, shriveling clouds. They didn’t reach the ground, but flew in a storm of movement as howling winds picked up around them. This was disturbing enough; worse was the sinister creaking issuing from one of the trees behind Jacob. He shared a look with Jordan, and turned. One of the larger trees, with a thick trunk and an even thicker tangle of dry, brown branches, shifted unnaturally.
Jacob gasped, someone in Patrick’s group shrieked, and the branches twisted. Bark flaked off in huge chunks to reveal glistening red, raw flesh. Boles exploded with black ichor, revealing gaping maws of rotted brown teeth that gnashed. Jacob fought hard not to scream, as the things that had been branches broke free of earthly wood to become squirming, snaking tentacles. Mouths spat and gibbered, and lapping, vein-filled blue tongues drooled out between bleeding lips. What once was a tree lumbered from the cracked base of a trunk on three huge, tumor-covered, elephantine legs terminating in yellow, scabby hooves bigger than dustbins.
Jacob stared at the obscenity, and found himself swatting absently at a dried leaf stuck to his face.
“Trees are bastards,” he said, and fought back an insane giggle.
A smack to the face from Jordan brought him back from the brink of madness, if only temporarily. “Snap out of it!” the man barked at him. “And keep those bastards away from me until I finish, or else we’re both dead.”
Jacob, not understanding, nodded and looked over the edge of the embankment toward the terrorist side. He saw one of the IRA toughs stand up and run screaming into the woods in the opposite direction of the huge horror that shambled toward them. He then heard a bang and saw the curly-haired redhead kid fall out from behind a tree. The barrel of his revolver was still in his mouth and blood poured out of his nose like a faucet. Mixed in with all that, there was Patrick’s maniacal laughter and shouts of “Isn’t it amazing? Isn’t it so damn beautiful! Iä! Iä! the Mother of the Death and Rebirth, she who sows and reaps.”
In the ditch, Jordan began to chant his own insane words as he crouched low, next to where the terrorist was shuddering and bleeding out. At once, the giant, tree-like abomination stopped its march toward the Irish. Instead the behemoth swayed and let out ghastly keening sounds from all of its many mouths.
“What? No! Stop him! Stop that son of a bitch!” Jacob heard Patrick scream, then saw the man stand up from behind a large rock. Jacob fired a shot at him, missed, and struck the boulder, but it caused Patrick to crouch back down.
“Go on, damn it. Get them. Kill them!” Patrick shouted.
One IRA gunman still had some wits about him, so he made a dash from tree to tree, looking to close the distance between himself and their hollow. Jacob fired at the man as he went, ignoring the return fire from Patrick, and on his fourth shot, hit his target, sending the man sprawling with a yelp.
“Damn it!” Patrick howled and once again stood up and ran forward.
Jacob fired once, missed, then the automatic’s slide came back and locked into place, telling him that it was empty. He hit the button on the side of the grip to eject the empty magazine while reaching for another, then stopped in his tracks as he looked over at Jordan.
The American’s chant had reached a chaotic crescendo as Jordan raised the hand holding the rock over the bleeding terrorist. The IRA man raised a hand of feeble protection and was trying to stammer out a plea, but Jordan brought the rock crashing into the side of the wounded man’s head. Again and again, Jordan bludgeoned the man as he chanted, cracking the Irishman’s skull open, spilling blood and exposing brain. The memory of Patrick’s voice came to Jacob’s mind as he watched the American bludgeon the helpless man to death: The old ways were bloody ways, and the Old Gods always demanded sacrifice.
Then Jordan stood up in the trench, extended
a hand at where Patrick now sat slumped and weeping in defeat. “Kill him. Kill them all,” the American said with his own mad gleam in his eye.
The monstrosity reacted at once. It thundered toward the terrorist leader, trumpeting like an elephant and roaring like a lion. One of its many tentacles snapped up Patrick, who was now shrieking uncontrollably, and shoved him head-first into one of its drooling mouths. When the tentacle drew back, it still held what was left of the IRA true believer, but everything from his chest on up was missing. In three more bites, nothing was left of Patrick but a bad memory.
However, the horror was not done.
It uprooted a nearby tree to expose broken-nosed Simon crouching behind it, hands over his eyes like a child trying to hide from the nightmare he had helped unleash. Simon was not devoured like his friend; instead, he was trampled to death under the thing’s massive hooves. Another man stood up out of the brush and fired six shots into the monster as it came toward him, but none of the bullets seem to have an effect on the creature. Before the thing could reach him, the man put the barrel of his pistol under his chin and pulled the trigger. This seemed to enrage the horrible thing, as it next went for the runner Jacob had wounded. That poor soul was grasped on opposite ends by two of the thing’s mighty tentacles, and then slowly pulled apart like a well-cooked chicken.
When the monster went crashing through the trees in the direction of where the last IRA man had fled, Jordan yelled out, “Stop!” and the beast, much to Jacob’s stunned disbelief, halted in its tracks.
“Go, return whence you came.” Jordan said, and Jacob saw the American shudder sway on his feet, and that a trickle of blood was running from his nose.
The abomination roared in protest, but Jordan repeated the command, and the beast almost seemed to sulk back into the thicker woods behind it. For several long minutes, Jacob heard the huge thing crashing through the forest as it stomped away and then … nothing. All sounds of its passage ceased. It was gone.
Then Jordan collapsed to his knees, vomited, fell over on his side, and curled up in a foetal position.
Jacob remembered the empty gun in his hand. He looked at the trembling American, the man who was sure to put him back into prison, and loaded a fresh clip into the weapon.
“So what was all that crazy shit, then?” Jacob asked as he walked over to Jordan and looked down at him.
“I … bound the … Dark … Young.” The man wheezed out.
“What?”
“They summoned it … but I … I bound it before they could, so it was mine to command.”
“You had that, what, spell ready from the beginning? You just needed to find out where they were doing their thing to take control of it, right?”
“No, I wanted to stop them. This … this was a last ditch effort. Too … too damn costly.” Jordan coughed and shook.
“Yeah, I guess so, but not just for you, huh? You caved that man’s skull in, for a sacrifice, right? There’s always got to be a sacrifice. Well what if you hadn’t grabbed that guy? What would you have done then?”
Jordan stopped trembling, looked up, and the two men locked eyes. “I thought one less con in the world would be a small price to pay to stop that thing.”
Jacob’s fingers flexed open and close on the pistol’s grip. His jaw clenched. He then pocketed the automatic, turned, and walked away.
“Hey,” Jordan yelled out behind him, “there is no chip in your ankle. I lied. And there are no MI6 Agents watching, either.”
Jacob shook his head, smiled despite himself, whispered, “Bastard,” and continued walking into the growing gloom of approaching night.
COLD WAR, YELLOW FEVER
BY PETE RAWLIK
October 18, 1962
For the last few days Mitchell Peel had not slept well, Guantanamo Base was on high alert and the activity associated with such a state included roving search lights, planes coming and going, and the constant sound of men and equipment moving about. The food had been surprisingly good, as was the coffee. He hadn’t yet finished his first cup of the morning when word came that he was wanted for a briefing. Peel hated Cuba. It wasn’t that it was too hot or humid; he was used to that. The real problem was the mosquitos, which were the size of small bees. There was a stiff breeze coming off the ocean, but that didn’t help at all. He hated the island, and resented that his vacation had been interrupted. Still, being flexible was one of the things that the Joint Advisory Committee on Korea paid him for. The fact that he hadn’t ever been to Korea—and that the war was ostensibly over—wasn’t really important. He worked for JACK; they paid well, and if it was one thing he had learned was that he should always expect the unexpected. If that meant being called during your vacation to an island military base surrounded by soldiers intent on killing you, so be it.
There had been security at the door, but one look at his identification, and they parted like the Red Sea, even escorted him to a seat. His boss sat at the head of the table. Actually, Peaslee wasn’t his boss; if he remembered the chain of command correctly, there were five layers of management between the two of them. Peel had only seen the TOM once before, at a program realignment meeting. Officially he was Colonel Doctor Wingate Peaslee, but everyone in JACK called him the TOM, the Terrible Old Man. He had a reputation: mostly for being ruthlessly efficient, but also for getting the job done no matter what the cost. God help you if you were in his way or even just standing nearby. Collateral damage was not only acceptable, but expected; Peel’s own equations suggested that it was at times even necessary.
There were three others in the room, men about his age, but in significantly better shape. Rough men, dangerous men, capable men; they all carried side arms. Peel suspected that they weren’t analysts, and that his years of study in Sydney and Tokyo would be less than impressive to this company. He thought of making small talk, but then decided against it.
Peaslee took a drink and then spoke in the thick New England accent he was famous for, “Mitchell Peel, twenty-six, born and raised in Sydney, Australia. You have degrees in Mathematics and Statistical Theory. Last month you had a breakthrough on some equations associated with the Yellow Sine. You have Omega Blue clearance.” His voice was firm and direct, like an instructor at some private school. Peel tried to speak but the TOM cut him off. “As of right now your clearance level is Pi White. Do you understand what that means?”
“It means that I can be terminated without cause. I’ll place a letter of resignation in my file.”
“Son, that is not what we mean by ‘terminate.’”
Peel’s eyes grew wide as he realized he had made a terrible mistake.
“It means that if I think you’ve been compromised, if I think it’s necessary, I can shoot you in the head. No questions asked.” Peaslee wasn’t smiling, and that made Peel nervous. “Relax, son. Major Millward will attest that I’ve never shot anyone.”
The largest man, whose uniform bore no insignia, smiled and in a deep Texan drawl confirmed what Peaslee had said. “The Colonel doesn’t shoot people.” Peel let out a breath. “He has me do it for him. Eight times in the last two years.”
As the young statistician choked, one of the other men laughed. “Welcome to the big leagues, Mr. Peel.” The others, excepting Peaslee joined in.
Once the laughter subsided, Peaslee rose and began the briefing. “Following the debacle of the Bay of Pigs, the CIA inserted several dozen operatives into Cuba to carry out a variety of sabotage and terrorist acts in the hope of undermining Fidel Castro. This project was known as Operation Mongoose. Amongst the operatives deployed was this man,” he raised a grainy photo of a bearded man with glasses and a scar across his left eye. “Esteban Zamarano, a fervent member of the anti-Castro movement. His family had extensive holdings in the city of Banes, in the Northeast area of the island. It was to this area that Zamarano was deployed in the hopes that he could enlist family connections.” Peaslee paused and took a drink. “The Zamarano family of Banes was on the JACK watch list
in 1958. According to the sales records of Pent and Serenade, they bought six volumes from the sale of the Church of the Starry Wisdom Library, including what appears to be a Spanish-language edition of The King in Yellow. How this bit of information was overlooked during his recruitment process is being investigated, but is not a subject of our mission. For three weeks Zamarano kept to all required schedules. However, his last daily report is now nine hours overdue. This in itself is not unusual, but two other operatives sent to Banes have also failed to report. A third, Joseph Gamboa reported reaching Banes and sent a brief message before we lost contact. Gamboa’s message was ‘Donde esta el signo amarillo?’ In English, ‘Where is the Yellow Sign?’”
A murmur ran through the men, who obviously knew more than Peel did. Peaslee ignored it. “We aren’t the only ones with eyes on this. Banes has gone silent, but reports from the Cuban military flights suggest that there are bodies in the streets. The Soviets are most assuredly aware of what is going on, and they have been sensitive about The King in Yellow since the Romanovs. Analysis suggests that the Kremlin would be willing to neutralize the situation with a first strike. Washington does not want to see another Gizhinsk, particularly so close to the US borders. Thankfully, the Soviet missiles already in place are not yet armed. This gives us a window of opportunity to find another solution. Operation Yellow Fever will determine if this is an incursion, which given Gamboa’s message seems likely, find the cause, and neutralize it as best we can. Any questions?” Peel started but then stopped himself. “I have copies of these files for all of you. Remember our motto.”
