The insides were no less surreal than the exterior I’d earlier remembered seeing. It was a place bizarre in both subtle and grandiose ways. The doors, for example, were octagonal rather than square, while the columns holding up the domed ceiling above our heads were made of an organic, stone-like coral. The chamber around us was illuminated by a mixture of diffused sunlight streaming in through bulbous windows and free-floating orbs of green crystal. I’d never seen anything like it in my two decades of exploring the Wasteland.
“Fascinating,” I could hear Jimmy say behind me.
“Yeah, if you like funhouses,” Stephens said.
“I wonder if this is a building belonging to the mythical Pre-Human Elder Things or Yithians,” Jimmy said. “It’s possible that some force, perhaps tremors from the Rising or deliberate human effort, forced this place up from the underworld where it was buried.”
“Jimmy, I love you but maybe you should stay focused,” Jessica said. “We’re hunting slavers.”
“Sorry,” Jimmy said, looking uncomfortable as he checked his heavy assault rifle. “I guess I’ve just always wanted to meet a genuinely intelligent E.B.E.—not the usual psychopathic killers we meet.”
“You already know Richard,” I said, leaning down to examine the smooth gray stone floor. There were signs of recent passage, human too, by the size and shape of the scuffmarks.
“May I say how uncomfortable I am with the fact the Captain knows a ghoul and hasn’t shot him yet?” Stephens said, raising a hand.
“Yes,” I said. “You may.”
“And if you ever tell anyone about Richard, I’d like to register your remaining life will be measured in minutes,” Jessica said, her eyes boring into Stephens. “He’s helped us a lot.”
“Be quiet, all of you. It’s not natural that no one has come out to meet us. Even if the slavers aren’t based here, there should be some sign from the inhabitants. The best-case scenario is they’re hiding; the worst …” I didn’t need to say the rest.
“Orders, Sir?” Jessica’s voice became very soft.
“We move in quietly,” I said, also lowering my tone. “Nice and quiet. No engaging of targets unless I say so. Our first objective is to establish if the missing children are here. If they are, getting them out becomes our top priority. Stick to the shadows and corners; avoid any and all places where ambushes seem likely. It’s possible the slavers saw us coming and moved farther into the temple, so we need to be cautious. Any questions?”
“No, Sir,” they all said.
“Good,” I said, waving them forward.
Moving deeper into the Black Cathedral, I was immediately struck by how much the place reminded me of a museum. The rooms we passed through were filled with treasures from across the world, most of them Pre-Apocalyptic. It must have taken the owner years to loot enough historical sites and vaults to fill this place.
As we proceeded toward the center, the treasures were gradually replaced by displays of historical sites and battles which grew darker and more perverse with each room visited. The first ones were merely chronicles of humanity’s wars but the final ones showed humanity’s slaughter by the Great Old Ones.
“Permission to make a comment, Sir,” Jessica said to me, hefting her heavy assault rifle before her.
“Granted,” I said, trying to hide my disgust.
“The man who owns this place is seriously fucked up,” Jessica said.
I had to agree, looking up. There, hanging like we were in some sort of Medieval castle, were a set of green-and-gold banners with the Elder Sign in a circle. The sideways pentagram and eye inside it filled me with a strange sense of unease.
“Take a look at what’s hanging over our heads,” I said. “Strange to see cultists using that.”
“Damned cultists,” Stephens grunted. “It’s them who brought the Great Old Ones.”
“We are pilgrims in an evil land,” Jimmy said.
“This is a lot more civilized than your typical set of Wasteland savages,” Parker said, looking around. “I mean, who collects antiques after the end of the world?”
“Maybe someone who was around before it,” Garcia said.
“Cut the chatter, we’ve got a job to do,” I said. I was feeling uneasy beyond belief. There was a sense of danger in the air. It only grew worse as we reached the central dome of the Black Cathedral, the place where we’d achieve access to the entire building.
The place was almost completely empty, not a soul in sight, which screamed trap. Nevertheless, as if supernaturally pulled in a certain direction, we proceeded into the center of the room—ignoring my earlier advice as if all military discipline couldn’t hold us back from taking in the sights around us.
The walls depicted a freshly painted mural of particular insanity, showing in blasphemous glory the fall of mankind to the Great Old Ones. It was just one of the hundreds of things on display as the room had artifacts of the various E.B.E. species spread throughout the acre-sized chamber. The centerpiece of the room, however, dwarfed them all. There, one of humanity’s greatest foes had been put on display as a trophy.
In the heart of the room, propped up like a skeletal Tyrannosaurus rex, was a collection of bones unlike any other I’d ever seen. Topped with a fish’s skull, it was the shape of a man but at least twenty feet tall. An aura of power encircled it, even as it was propped up with wires from the ceiling. At the foot of the great beast was a display stand covered in a little gold plaque reading, HERE LIES DAGON, LEAST OF THE GREAT OLD ONES.
Stephens shook his head. “Seriously, the guy who runs this place is utterly batshit.”
“The Wasteland has driven most of humanity’s survivors mad,” I muttered. “It’s why we exist: to protect the Remnant from the rest of them.”
Honestly, given how the Council reacted to encountering other groups of survivors, I wasn’t sure we were all that much better. Several small nations had emerged on the East Coast, and the Council was determined to pretend they didn’t exist or treat them as hostiles. I’d killed almost as many humans as E.B.E.s during my two decades of service.
Jessica looked at the statue of Dagon with something approaching awe. “Do you think it’s really one of the Great Old Ones?”
“If it was one of the Great Old Ones, he wouldn’t have been able to kill it.” I said coldly, still unnerved by the sight. “It looks like nothing more than a particularly large Deep One. Chicanery, nothing more.”
“Chica what now?” Stephens asked.
“It means trickery.” Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Stephens, you could use a couple more years in Re-education.”
“I’ve got other ways to amuse myself.” Stephens chuckled, giving a lewd look towards Jessica and Parker. “If you know what I mean.”
“You could never keep up with me, Stephens,” Jessica said, surveying the landscape for possible points of entry.
Stephens looked between me and Jimmy. “Aw, I’m just kidding. You girls are like sisters to me.”
“That says more about your family than I ever desired to know,” Jessica said, snorting. “And we’re women, Stephens. Learn to tell the difference and maybe your dating life will improve.”
Parker smiled at that.
So did I.
It was weird how casual everyone was being in a potential combat zone. That was when I realized what was going on: someone was asserting a psychic influence over us—forcing us to relax. Martha had tried it during a few arguments over the years, only managing to piss me off more whenever she did it.
“Everyone, shake it off,” I said, trying to warn everyone. “It’s too quiet for this not to be an ambush.”
“You just had to say it’s too quiet, didn’t you?” Jessica grunted.
“Sorry.”
That was when a dozen secret doors opened and a hundred armed Cthulhu cultists poured out.
Chapter Two
The Cthulhu cultists were a motley band of half-deranged psychotics, but Earth had never seen more fearless w
arriors. Armed with meat cleavers, baseball bats, makeshift spears, and whatever firearms they’d scavenged, the cultists were more of a mob than an army. Their clothing and armor was as eclectic as their weapons, consisting primarily of scavenged sports equipment and bits of scrap metal sewn together.
There were no tactics or strategy to their assault, only sheer numbers driven by mindless ferocity. I had heard legends the cults of Cthulhu used a combination of drugs and ecstatic rituals to drive all fear of death from their warriors. Seeing the way they whooped, hallowed, and rushed eagerly into the jaws of death, I believed it.
“Humans forever!” Stephens shouted one of the traditional battle cries of the R&E Rangers, cutting down several cultists with his heavy assault rifle as we sought cover. Overturning museum cases and knocking down the statue of Dagon, we brought the full force of our weapons to bear.
The first part of the battle, if you could call it a battle, was little more than a slaughter. No matter how brave a warrior, how skilled, he was nothing more than a target for even a moderately skilled soldier armed with automatic weapons. We did not indiscriminately fire into their ranks but selected our targets.
It was a slight delay, one many commanders wouldn’t have encouraged their troopers to make, but one I’d drilled my team for often. This method, nicknamed “crowd control” by Stephens, guaranteed a kill every time. It slowed down the enemies’ charge and filled the room with corpses.
The tide of Cthulhu cultists managed to use weight of numbers to their advantage, however, getting close enough to engage us in hand-to-hand combat. Despite their reckless courage, this too failed them. Each of my team was more than a match for any five of the barbarians surrounding us. The trick was only engaging that many at a time, an increasing prospect as they came after us in ever-greater numbers.
“For the glory of great Cthul—” one tomahawk-wielding, punk-haired lunatic shouted, wearing an amulet which caused bullets to bounce right off of him like raindrops. He managed to charge right up to Jessica and swing at her head. She promptly clocked him across the face with the butt of her gun before shooting him on the ground and returning to fire into the crowd.
I was impressed.
“These guys are idiots!” Parker shouted so everyone could hear her over all the automatic gunfire.
Jessica pulled close to cover me. “How you handling yourself, Captain?”
“I’ve been better!” I shouted, cutting down more of the enemy combatants trying to swarm us. When one got close enough to stab me, I smashed his face in with the butt of my gun and shot him with the last rounds of my magazine. Reloading, I brought to bear my weapon to mow down an additional five charging me.
“Fair enough!” Jessica laughed before slamming her machete’s edge square into one of the cultists’ heads before blasting another in the chest. Some might have called it psychotic glee, but I called it excellent soldiery.
In the Wasteland, you had to train your men to enjoy combat—to love it—in order to survive. I often wondered whether it was the right thing to do, but it was too late to change anything now. I, too, had been trained to get a thrill from battle.
Parker and Garcia covered each other and the two of them made sure none of the Cthulhu cultists got anywhere near as close as the one Jessica had to take down. Their style of fighting was different than the others as they focused on three-round bursts. Stephens and Jimmy fought side by side, the two ignoring their usual belligerence to concentrate on the enemy. By the end of five bloody minutes, both men had saved each other’s life a dozen times.
Our caution in bringing so much equipment proved well justified, as the extra ammunition proved the difference between life and death. Corpses were strewn across the ground by the dozens, some of them having fallen in piles as the horde kept coming over their own dead.
The battle was wearing but, exhausted as we might be, we emerged victorious in that particular struggle. Not a single Cthulhu cultist chose to flee but we’d annihilated them nevertheless, all without a single casualty. Even by Ranger standards, it had been a tremendous victory.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Jimmy said, kicking a cultist’s corpse. “They just ran to their deaths.”
“Another triumph for New Arkham, freedom, and superior firepower,” Stephens said, giving his rifle a kiss.
“Do you think it’s over?” Jessica stared across the battlefield, looking at the corpses of well over a hundred slavers littering the ground. She visibly winced at the battle damage done to several of the display cases, the artifacts inside having been destroyed by gunfire or grenades.
“No,” I said under my breath. “No I don’t.”
The assault by the Cthulhu cultists had been too crude for the mastermind we were investigating. He or she had plotted the removal of hundreds of children from dozens of settlements. His or her minions had done so in an efficient, methodical, and thoroughly well-planned manner. This, by contrast, was the work of someone with no thought whatsoever of strategy.
“Even if we’ve destroyed the bulk of their fighting force, several hundred children were reported missing. They have to be here somewhere,” I said, looking around the room. The place had been devastated by our battle, symbolized by Dagon's bones being scattered about like so much refuse. “It’s our duty as members of the United States Remnant to secure their release.”
“Yeah, assuming any of the kids are still alive. These crazy psychos probably ate them,” Stephens muttered, rubbing the back of his head. Despite his words, I could sense the worry in his voice. Stephens wasn’t a sociopath and his disdainful treatment of our mission was a way of divorcing himself from the probable fate of those we sought to rescue. At least, that was what I believed. I had faith in him, despite our disagreements.
“Don’t even joke about that, Stephens.” Jessica looked at him with a disgusted expression on her face.
Stephens, in fact, was not looking at her. Instead, he was staring at a pile of corpses nearby. “Damn, some of those bastards are still alive.”
“That’s very … unlikely?” Jimmy started to say before turning his head to the bodies. Then I saw his head tilt in confusion. Following his gaze, I saw the corpses he was looking at were starting to move.
All of them were starting to move.
“Shit!” Parker said, stepping away from them and pointing her gun down at the corpses around her.
“God dammit, West-boys! Shoot ’em in the head!” Stephens shouted, aiming at the various corpses’ skulls and unloading with ammunition.
For once, I believed Stephens had the right idea. “Everyone, we’ve got Reanimated-class undead! I want you all to fall back into a circle with covering fire on their remains. Aim for either the head or the spine!”
“Yes, Sir!” my squadron shouted in unison, spraying the rising monsters with bullets. I just prayed it was enough.
The Reanimated, known as “West-boys” in Ranger lingo, were the single most deadly type of undead to emerge in the aftermath of the Rising. I had high enough clearance to know they were an evil the Remnant had brought down on itself. While I was too young to have participated in the fall of New Boston, I knew it had been the Remnant’s experiments which had resulted in the Reanimated becoming a self-propagating plague on humanity.
The “Herbert West Formula” created durable, semi-intelligent, and fearless creatures without any sense of morality or restraint. I’d never fought them before, but my grandfather had told me they were several times stronger than the ordinary “zombies” created by Wasteland sorcerers. There was no telling how the lunatic in charge of the Black Cathedral had gotten ahold of it.
“Captain, do we have enough ammunition to kill them all again?” Jessica asked, continuing to fire in short bursts.
“No,” I said, solemnly. “We don’t.”
All around us, the bodies of the Cthulhu cultists began to slowly pick themselves up and retrieve their weapons. Those who had been damaged in their legs moved slowly and awkwardly but the
majority moved faster than they did alive. The fact they seemed to ignore gunfire anywhere but the most vital portions of their body made them nearly unstoppable.
We managed to shoot a number of them in the skull and spine before they rose, but there were at least sixty to eighty in front of us by the time we prepared for our exit. Worse, the Reanimated were between us and the entrance, leaving us effectively pinned down.
“Switch to flamer rounds!” I called. We had only one magazine of flamer rounds each, so it was mostly a choice of when we were going to use them than if. However, fire might give us a short reprieve.
“You got it!” Jessica shouted, firing the bullets that caused the bodies of several charging Reanimated to catch fire. Jimmy and Stephens soon joined in, the flaming corpses coming at us until they collapsed from the nerve damage. The Reanimated who possessed some limited intelligence seemed to back away from the fire, even if only for a few moments. That bought us valuable seconds as I considered my options.
“How many grenades do we have left?” I asked, firing another spray of bullets into the skulls of a half-dozen Reanimated. Their bodies collapsed and caught fire as the undead behind them fell back only to eventually move around them with ruthless determination.
Jimmy and Jessica responded to my question by hurling a pair of grenades into their ranks. The resulting explosion was neither large nor spectacular but it blew several of our opponents to pieces and thinned their ranks enough to give us a little breathing room. Only a little, since the Reanimated were infinitely more dangerous foes than the cultists they’d been but minutes earlier.
“Those were the last of them, Captain!” Jessica said, right before she was bitten on the arm. “Son of a bitch!”
Parker shot the monster before the injury was anything more than a surface wound, Jessica smacking it across the chin with her rifle butt.
Cthulhu Armageddon Page 2
