World War Cthulhu: A Collection of Lovecraftian War Stories

by John Shirley

  Later, when the noise had stopped, Peaslee and the others had ventured out into the morning light, or what passed for it in the transformed town. They had found the bodies, dismembered. Their guns had been left behind, the barrels bent beyond repair. The bodies and the guns had turned yellow.

  It left the team with Romanova’s Kalashnikov, her sidearm, and Romero’s as well. Peaslee wasn’t comfortable with their lack of firepower and suggested that they rectify the situation by raiding the local police station.

  “What about our team, Colonel,” Peel blurted out, “when will they get here?”

  Romero and Romanova stared at Peaslee, waiting for an answer and an explanation. The old man sighed and glared at Peel. “Millward, McCoy and Peterson penetrated the quarantine zone several hours before we ourselves arrived. If they were still alive they would have made contact by now.”

  Romero was suddenly outraged. “You disappoint me, Colonel Peaslee. Yes, I am disappointed, but I am not surprised. We trusted you and you betray that trust. You bring armed Americans into our country without telling us, and then you wonder why we ally ourselves with the Soviets?”

  “Calm yourself, Romero,” suggested Romanova. “It is typical American imperialism. Their greed blinds them, makes them think they can do whatever they wish.” There was a knowing smile across her face. “Is that what happened here? Did one of your attempts to meddle backfire? Did you do this, Colonel Peaslee?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Romanova chuckled. “No, Colonel, I suppose at this point it doesn’t.”

  It took an hour for the four of them to make it to the police station, but the place had been ransacked already. The guns were gone; all that remained were a few batons and some canisters of tear gas. The radio was gone, but the connection to the antenna remained. Romero unpacked the radio from the backpack and began hooking it up.

  Peaslee went to stop him, but Romanova shook her head. “The time for radio silence is over, Colonel. We need to know what is going on. We need to know what our governments are thinking. We need orders.”

  Peaslee started to protest but thought better of it, and then, simply nodded. He and Peel watched as Romero worked and coaxed the machine to life. It sputtered static, and Romero swiped at the volume knob, before playing with the frequency. There was a screeching pulse that burned their ears for an instant as Romero dialed through it. He settled on a station with an official-sounding voice that was doing its best to hide the fear that was trying to break through. The accent was heavy, and even Romanova was straining to understand what was being said, until a familiar voice—President Kennedy’s voice—was suddenly speaking.

  All ships of any kind bound for Cuba, from whatever nation or port, will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers.

  Peaslee looked at his watch and cursed. “We’ve lost more time. That speech was scheduled for the evening of the twenty-second, and only if we had failed. Things are escalating.”

  “My government won’t tolerate the situation much longer.” Romanova was stating the obvious, and creating an impasse.

  Peel stepped in and moved toward Romero. “Let me try something.” He turned the volume down as far as it would go, and then dialed the frequency back to the frequency with the pulse that burned; the one which he knew was carrying the Yellow Sine. The all-too-familiar wave form jumped to life on the oscilloscope. The strength of the signal was immense, almost unbelievable, and from what Peel could tell, incredibly close. “Can we use this to find the source of the signal?”

  Romanova dug through the bag and pulled out a coil of metal and electronics. There were plugs that attached the contraption to the radio. “This should work,” she said and then gasped suddenly and pulled back from Romero. His hands had begun to turn yellow.

  He stared at them in horror, holding them out for all to see. “You did this,” he spat at Peaslee. “You find a way to fix it.” He brought out his sidearm. Romanova reached for hers but then relaxed as he laid the weapon on the table. “You’ll need this more than I will.” He took off running and was out of the door before anyone could stop him. Peel started after him, but Peaslee grabbed him and pulled him back.

  “You can’t go out there, son!”

  “Let me go!”

  Romanova shut the door and threw the bolt. The city had appeared on the far shore, and the moon had risen from the bay. Soon the children would be coming.

  ***

  “Why the children?” Peel asked as he held the radio and tried to find a stronger signal. “Why aren’t they dead like everyone else?”

  It was Romanova who spoke up. “The human mind is like clay, Mister Peel. It must be molded, taught, indoctrinated. This not only applies to languages and culture, but to the laws of the universe as well. There have been events, inexplicable cases like this one, that suggest that the rules of the universe may vary from place to place. That matter, time, gravity may be different, may actually change. The adult mind rebels at these changes, crumbles, shatters. It is too well-trained and set in its view of the universe to accept any changes. The mind of a child isn’t so rigid; it learns, and can change when it needs too. If properly stimulated it can see the universe in ways that adults cannot. There are documented cases in the West. The Paradine children. That village in Winshire. There are other cases we could discuss. I am surprised that you do not know these. Colonel Peaslee, do you not properly educate your agents in JACK?”

  But Peaslee wasn’t listening; he was staring at his hands. His fingertips were yellow, and he was shaking.

  Peel grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him forward. “If we find the source, maybe we can reverse the effects.”

  They wandered through the town, picking their way through the sickly yellow wreckage and the dead. Peel thought that there should have been a smell, a stench of rot, but there wasn’t, and as far as he could tell there were no animals either. No dogs, no cats, or birds. He hadn’t seen a rat or a roach or a spider. The bodies did not draw flies. They just sat there waiting, as if they had been painted into place as scenery.

  “You’re good with that thing,” said Romanova, talking about the radio.

  Peel nodded. “My younger brother is an electrician in Sydney. When we were kids he was always building things like this. Radios, metal detectors, electric eyes.”

  She nodded. “That is respectable work.”

  He looked at her and made a decision. “My name is Mitchell. My friends call me Mitch.”

  Her eyes were full of suspicion, but only for an instant. It was the first time they had spoken of something that didn’t concern the mission. “Tanya; they call me Tanya.”

  “And my name is Wingate. I don’t have any friends, but my employees call me TOM.” He marched passed them. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m dying here.” The yellow had engulfed his forearms, and there was a patch of something that was working its way through his hair.

  “You need to stop, Colonel,” said Peel.

  “We don’t have time to stop. I don’t have time. The world doesn’t have time. We have to find the transmitter.”

  “No, Colonel, you don’t understand. The transmitter is here; we’ve found it.”

  The three looked up at the cathedral that loomed over them, casting a dark shadow in a landscape of endless yellow. The windows were boarded shut, and the doors chained. Some of the glass was broken and there were pockmarks in the stone walls, tell-tale signs of gunfire. Romanova shrugged. “The revolution was not bloodless.”

  They worked their way around the back and found a door that had been pried open. They crawled inside. They had thought the place would have been dark, but it wasn’t. There was light everywhere, electric lights being driven by a generator that had been set up in a hallway. They followed the cables into a small room and approached what they found there with caution.

  There was a man—or what had once been a man. He was y
ellow, and where his head had once been there was an empty space, a void of yellow nothingness that seemed to pulse and seethe. He was slumped in a chair in front of a radio transmitter, with the microphone nearly embedded into the mass of yellow where his head once was. The transmitter was still on, and Peel could see the Yellow Sine as it danced on the oscilloscope. All around him there were pages from a book. The ink had gone yellow, as had the pages.

  Peel reached for a random page, but a single touch from Peaslee stopped him. He nodded, realizing the danger, but then suddenly chuckled. “All because of this. All these people dead. Three nations on the brink of war. Soldiers mobilizing, ships with guns pointed at each other, missiles ready to launch. It’s a strange new world we’ve built for ourselves. War used to be about men being commanded on the battlefield. Now it’s come to this. Oh, there are still forces to manipulate, but the real battles of the future will be fought by just a few men who know what buttons to press and what knobs to turn.” He reached out and clicked the transmitter off. “And just like that, the crisis is averted.”

  But it wasn’t.

  Nothing had changed. The oscilloscope on the handheld radio they had used to find their way here was still showing the Yellow Sine marching across its screen.

  Peel’s eyes grew wide. He pulled the plug on the transmitter, and then threw the machine to the floor. The plastic and bits of metal shattered, but the world didn’t change. He took his gun and fired into the headless body, but with no response.

  “We’re too late,” whispered Tanya. “The reaction is self-sustaining. It can’t be stopped.”

  Peaslee grabbed the handheld radio and spun the dial, searching for a particular frequency. “Maybe, but maybe not. Perhaps now that we have cut off the origin signal the manifestation is vulnerable.”

  “What?” said both Peel and Romanova.

  “Perhaps we can change the wave form now. But we’re going to need a very large explosion.” He found the frequency he was looking for and grabbed the microphone. “Aquatone actual to Oilstone unit, respond. Aquatone actual to Oilstone unit, repond. This is a pi utility command. Over.”

  There was a static filled pause, and then the radio burst to life. “Oilstone to Aquatone, acknowledged. Awaiting orders.”

  Peaslee was smiling. “Oilstone, you are to proceed to the following coordinates.” He grabbed the map and found a position just west of Banes. “You are to then proceed low over the city until you reach the bay. In the bay you will see a large yellow sphere. That is a target. Do you understand?”

  The radio crackled back. “Acknowledged, Aquatone. Please confirm that you are aware that I am light. Repeat: this is an Oilstone light mission.”

  Peaslee and Romanova exchanged a glance and then he spoke once more. “Understood, Oilstone. You have your orders.”

  “We should get to the bell tower,” said Romanova. “We should be able to see from there.”

  They were running, and then climbing the stairs. Romanova first, and then Peel who had taken the radio, and then finally Peaslee. As they climbed the sun went down, and in the distance they could see the waters of the bay begin to stir. It was Romanova who first saw the plane. An ungainly black thing silhouetted against the dying sun. It was quiet in the sky above the village, but only for a moment. For as the moon bubbled up out of the cloudy depths, the children came out of hiding.

  “Is this going to work, Colonel?”

  “I hope so, son. I haven’t got anything else to try, do you?”

  Something in the church below them crashed. The front doors had given way and children were suddenly inside the church. They were breaking things, slowly working their way through the building. Heading toward the tower.

  Peel pulled on Tanya’s jacket. “The pilot said he was ‘light’: what did he mean?”

  Tanya Romanova gestured at the slowly arcing plane. “He’s a spy plane, strictly reconnaissance. Built for speed and taking pictures. He’s not armed. The only way he has to attack the target is by hitting it with the plane itself.”

  “But that’s suicide!”

  Tanya nodded and said nothing more.

  The plane had finished its arc and had become little more than a thin black line in the distance that was slowly growing larger as they watched it get closer. Below them, the children had reached the door to the tower but were having problems breaking through. Others had given up trying to get in and were busy climbing up the side of the structure, clinging to vines and loose boards. Their tiny fingers and feet seemed perfect for the task, for they were making significant progress. Tanya handed Romero’s gun to Peel and motioned toward the horde of frenzied kids that were crawling toward them.

  As he looked back, he saw Peaslee’s head suddenly shake and turn yellow. He reached out to the transforming man, but was pushed away. The Terrible Old Man lunged for the window, but Peel caught his jacket and swung him to the floor.

  The plane roared overhead. The children reached the belfrey.

  Romanova fired her handgun, covering Peel as he dragged Peaslee to the corner. The TOM was screaming in agony. Together Peel and Romanova rose up and began firing as a wave of small bodies poured through the window. They were yellow, twisted, and covered in filth. In the distance the plane flew on. Body after body fell as Romanova switched to the Kalashnikov. Blood, still yellow, sprayed through the air.

  The black plane grew small against the moon, and then plunged into it. The milky surface shuddered and then exploded in a geyser of color that swirled back into being. On the distant shore, the alien city wavered and then faded into nothingness. The moon that Tanya had called Demhe shrank as it vomited forth the stolen colors of the world. It collapsed in on itself until there was nothing more than a small glowing speck. Then the speck began to fade and Romanova could see the wreckage of the spy plane fall to the earth.

  The children halted their advance, and Romanova stopped shooting them. Some of them, caught by the surprise of their location, fell to their deaths. Others began to cry. Romanova took the radio and sent an all-clear message. Cuban and Soviet soldiers would be leaving the line, coming as fast as they could to help. Tanya and Peel did what they could while they waited.

  ***

  It took two days for Peel and Peaslee to be returned to Guantanamo, and another day before they were stateside. Peel was briefed, debriefed, examined, questioned, interrogated and forced to sign certain documents that suggested he could be punished very badly. He later learned that Agent Romanova returned to the Soviet Union and was promoted and reassigned. In late December he flew home to Sydney for Christmas and took a job with the Australian government.

  Colonel Doctor Wingate Peaslee stayed in a military hospital for six weeks. There was scaring on his hands and neck where the yellow was particularly bad, but the greatest damage was to his mind. The doctors diagnosed him with dementia. Security forces interviewed him extensively but found that he had no memory of his work with JACK. He was found unfit for duty and medically discharged. He was retired to a minimum security facility near Arkham, Massachusetts, where he developed a collection of rocks and glass bottles. He was prone to rages and tends to mutter incoherently to himself and his collection. On occasion he cried out before going into convulsions, during which he screamed the same word over and over again. The seizures never lasted for more than a minute. The word was “Giallo.”

  STRAGGLERS FROM CARRHAE

  BY DARRELL SCHWEITZER

  Maybe it was just madness, or the delirium of wounds—maybe the entire experience was no more than that—but when Marcus Vibius suddenly said, “I’m thinking of leaving the army,” his words seemed so strange, so impossible, that I just had to laugh, loudly, hysterically, madly and, yes, dangerously. Dangerously because it might invite the Parthians in to share the joke.

  There we were in the glorious Year of Rome Six Hundred Ninety-something-or-other, in the stinking butt-hole end of Asia minor (aka Carrhae), lying in a ditch among piles of corpses, our heads kicked in, blood on our
faces, blood pouring out of a hundred wounds as out of a hundred fountains—I exaggerate but slightly, for rhetorical effect—as the sun set and the triumphant foe settled down to dinner and a nap before resuming the slaughter of our comrades in the morning. There. Utter annihilation. The biggest upset since the days of Hannibal. Our imperious leader Crassus and his generals were all dead, the truce negotiations having turned out rather badly. The Parthians had supposedly poured molten gold down Crassus’s throat on account of his boundless avarice—for this had been a completely pointless war brought on by the richest man in the world’s desire for more loot—and then, under those circumstances, my friend said he was thinking of leaving the army.

  I caught my breath, gasping. I glanced over at the Parthian campfires, at the smoke and dust staining the darkening sky. There were no Roman formations visible. All the golden eagles had fallen.

  “I think the army is leaving us.”

  He heaved himself onto his elbows, trying to sit up, wincing. “No, seriously. I think the wisest course would be for us to just slip away. To the south, I suppose, into Arabia or one of those places. I’m sure some barbarian chief would be ready enough to hire a couple of slightly dented ex-legionary swords. We could make a good living. Become robbers if we have to.”

  I shook my head. This was still too crazy for words. “That’s desertion. You remember what Centurion Macro said about desertion.”

  “No I don’t. Tell me.” He smiled, like a child about to hear a favorite story again.

  Imitating the Centurion’s high-pitched, almost feminine voice as best I could, and his ridiculous hand-gestures, I said. “The penalty for desertion is crucifixion—and loss of pay.”