by Brian Lumley
The last time: that had been fifteen months ago when we’d agreed on the boundaries. But to continue at that point would be to leave out what happened in between. And I needed to fill it in, if only to fix my mind on something and so occupy my time for the rest of the journey. It isn’t good for your nerves, to drive down a mid-morning road in near darkness, through a tunnel of living, frothing, cancerous flesh.
A month after I’d seen Smiler on the beach, Big ‘C’ broke out. Except that’s not exactly how it was. I mean, it wasn’t how you’d expect. What happened was this:
Back in 2002, when we went through a sticky patch with the USSR and there were several (as yet still unsolved) sabotage attempts on some of our missile and space research sites, a number of mobile ICBM and MIRV networks were quickly commissioned and established across the entire USA. Most of these had been quietly decommissioned or mothballed only a year or two later, but not the one covering the Okeechobee region of Florida. That one still existed, with its principal base or railhead at La Belle and arms reaching out as far as Fort Myers in the west, Fort Drum north of the Lake, and Canal Point right on the Lake’s eastern shore. Though still maintained in operational order as a deterrent, the rail network now carried ninety percent of hardware for the Space Center while its military functions were kept strictly low profile. Or they had been, until that night in late August 2024.
Smiler had a night nurse, but the first thing Big ‘C’ did when he emerged was to kill him. That’s what we later figured, anyway. The second thing that he did was derail a MIRV bogie on its way through Lakeport. I can’t supply details; I only know he did it.
Normally this wouldn’t matter much: seventy-five percent of the runs were dummies anyway. But this one was the real thing, one of the two or three times a year when the warheads were in position. And it looked like something had got broken in the derailment, because all of the alarms were going off at once!
The place was evacuated. Lakeport, Venus, Clewiston—all the towns around Lake Okeechobee—the whole shoot. Even the Okeechobee Space Center itself, though not in its entirety; a skeleton crew stayed on there; likewise at the La Belle silos. A decon team was made ready to go in and tidy things up . . . except that didn’t happen. For through all of this activity, Smiler (or rather, Big ‘C’) had somehow contrived to be forgotten and left behind. And what did happen was that Smiler got on the telephone to Okeechobee and told them to hold off. No one was to move. Nothing was to happen.
“You’d better listen and listen good,” he’d said. “Big ‘C’ has six MIRVs, each one with eight bombs aboard. And he’s got five of them lined up on Washington, London, Tokyo, Berlin, and Moscow, though not necessarily in that order. That’s forty nukes for five of the world’s greatest capitals and major cities within radii of two hundred miles. That’s a holocaust, a nuclear winter, the New Dark Age. As for the sixth MIRV: that one’s airborne right now! But it won’t hurt because he hasn’t programmed detonation instructions. It’s just a sign to let you all know that he’s not kidding and can do what he says he can do.”
The MIRV split up north of Jacksonville; bombs came down harmlessly in the sea off Wilmington, Cape Fear, Georgetown, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Cape Canaveral, and Palm Beach. After that... while no one was quite sure just exactly who Big ‘C’ was, certainly they all knew he had them by the short and curlies.
Of course, that was when the “news” broke about Smiler’s cancer, the fact that it was different. And the cancer experts from the Lakeport Center, and the space medics, too, arrived at the same conclusion: that somehow alien “radiations” or emanations had changed Smiler’s cancer into Big ‘C.’ The Lakeport doctors and scientists had intended that when it vacated Smiler they’d kill it, but now Big ‘C’ was threatening to kill us, indeed the world. It was then that I remembered how Smiler had credited the thing with intelligence, and now it appeared he’d been right.
So... maybe the problem could have been cleared up right there and then. But at what cost? Big ‘C’ had demonstrated that he knew his way around our weaponry, so if he was going to die why not take us with him? Nevertheless, it’s a fact that there were some itchy fingers among the military brass right about that time.
Naturally, we had to let Moscow, London, and all the other target areas in on it, and their reaction was about what was expected:
“For God’s sake—placate the thing! Do as it tells you—whatever it tells you!” And the Sovs said: “If you let anything come out of Florida heading for Moscow, comrades, that’s war!”
And then, of course, there was Smiler himself. Big ‘C’ had Smiler in there—a hero, and one of the greatest of all time. So the hotheads cooled down pretty quickly, and for some little time there was a lot of hard, cold, calculated thinking going on as the odds were weighed. But always it came out in Big ‘C’ ‘s favour. Oh, Smiler and his offspring were only a small percentage of life on Earth, right enough, and we could stand their loss ... but what if we attacked and this monstrous growth actually did press the button before we nailed him? Could he, for instance, monitor incoming hardware from space? No, for he was at Lakeport and the radar and satellite monitoring equipment was at La Belle. So maybe we could get him in a preemptive strike! A lot of fingernails were chewed. But:
Smiler’s next message came out of La Belle, before anybody could make any silly decisions. “Forget it,” he warned us. “He’s several jumps ahead of you. He made me drive him down here, to La Belle. And this is the deal: Big ‘C’ doesn’t want to harm anyone— but neither does he want to be harmed. Here at La Belle he’s got the whole world laid out on his screens—his screens, have you got that? The La Belle ground staff—that brave handful of guys who stayed on—they’re ... finished. They opposed him. So don’t go making the same mistake. All of this is Big ‘C’ ‘s now. He’s watching everything from space, on radar... all the skills we had in those areas are now his. And he’s nervous because he knows we kill things that frighten us, and he supposes that he frightens us. So the minute our defense satellites stop cooperating—the very minute he stops receiving information from his radar or pictures from space—he presses the button. And you’d better believe there’s stuff here at La Belle that makes that derailed junk at Lakeport look like Chinese firecrackers!” And of course we knew there was.
So that was it: stalemate, a Mexican standoff. And there were even groups who got together and declared that Big ‘C’ had a right to live. If the Israelis had been given Israel (they argued), the Palestinians Beirut, and the Aborigines Alice Springs all the way out to Simpson Desert, then why shouldn’t Big ‘C’ have Lake Okeechobee? After all, he was a sentient being, wasn’t he? And all he wanted was to live—wasn’t it?
Well, that was something of what he wanted, anyway. Moisture from the lake, and air to breathe. And Smiler, of course.
And territory. A lot more territory.
Big ‘C’ grew fast. Very fast. The word big itself took on soaring new dimensions. In a few years Big ‘C’ was into all the lakeside towns and spreading outwards. He seemed to live on anything, ate everything, and thrived on it. And it was about then that we decided we really ought to negotiate boundaries. Except “negotiate” isn’t the right word.
Smiler asked to see me; I went in; through Smiler, Big ‘C’ told me what he wanted by way of land. And he got it. You don’t argue with something that can reduce your planet to radioactive ashes. And now that Big ‘C’ was into all the towns and villages on the Lake, he’d moved his nukes in with him. He hadn’t liked the idea of having all his eggs in one basket, as it were.
But between Big ‘C’s emergence from Smiler and my negotiating the boundaries, Christ knows we tried to get him! Frogmen had gone up the Miami, Hillsboro, and St. Lucie canals to poison the lake—and hadn’t come down again. A man-made anthrax variant had been sown in the fields and swamps where he was calculated to be spreading—and he’d just spread right on over it. A fire had started “accidentally” in the long hot summer of 20
19, in the dried-out Okaloacoochee Slough, and warmed Big ‘C’ ‘s hide all the way to the Lake before it died down. But that had been something he couldn’t ignore.
“You must be crazy!” Smiler told us that time. “He’s launched an ICBM to teach you a lesson. At ten megs its the smallest thing he’s got—but still big enough!”
It was big enough for Hawaii, anyway. And so for a while we’d stopped trying to kill him, but we never stopped thinking about it. And someone thought:
If Big ‘C’ ‘s brain is where Smiler is, and if we can get to that brain . . . will that stop the whole thing dead?
It was a nice thought. We needed somebody on the inside, but all we had was Smiler. Which brings me back to that time fifteen months ago when I went in to negotiate the new boundaries.
At that time Big ‘C’ was out as far as ten miles from the Lake and expanding rapidly on all fronts. A big round nodule of him extended to cover La Belle, tapering to a tentacle reaching as far as Alva. I’d entered him at Alva as per instructions, where Big ‘C’ had checked the car, then driven on through La Belle on my way to Lakeport, which was now his HQ. And then, as now, I’d passed through the landscape, which he opened for me, driving through his ever-expanding tissues. But I won’t go into that here, nor into my conversation with Smiler. Let it suffice to say that Smiler intimated he would like to die now and it couldn’t come quickly enough, and that before I left I’d passed him a note which read:
Smiler,
The next time someone comes in here he’ll be a volunteer, and he’ll be bringing something with him. A little something for Big ‘C’. But it’s up to you when that happens, good buddy. You’re the only one who can fix it.
Peter
And then I was out of there. But as he’d glanced at the note there had been a look on Smiler’s face that was hard to gauge. He’d told me that Big ‘C’ only used him as a mouthpiece and as his ... host. That the hideous stuff could only instruct him, not read his mind or get into his brain. But as I went to my car that time I could feel Big ‘C’ gathering himself—like a big cat bunching its muscles—and as I actually got into the car something wet, a spot of slime, splashed down on me from overhead! Jesus! It was like the bastard was drooling on me!
“Jesus,” yes. Because when I’d passed Smiler that note and he’d looked at me, and we’d come to our unspoken agreement, I hadn’t known that I would be the volunteer! But I was, and for two reasons: my life didn’t matter any more, and Smiler had asked for me—if I was willing. Now that was a funny thing in itself because it meant that he was asking me to die with him. But the thought didn’t dawn on me that maybe he knew something that he shouldn’t know. Nor would it dawn on me until I only had one more mile to go to my destination, Lakeport. When in any case there was no way I could turn back.
As for what that something was: it was the fact that I too was now dying of cancer.
It was diagnosed just a few weeks after I’d been to see him: the fast-moving sort that was spreading through me like a fire. Which was why I said: sure, I’ll come in and see you, Smiler ...
Ostensibly I was going in to negotiate the boundaries again. Big ‘C’ had already crossed the old lines and was now out from the lake about forty miles in all directions, taking him to the Atlantic coast in the east and very nearly the Gulf of Mexico in the west. Immokalee had been my starting point, just a mile southwest of where he sprawled over the Slough, and now I was up as far as Palmdale and turning right for Moore Haven and Lakeport. And up to date with my morbid memories, too.
From Palmdale to Lakeport is about twenty-five miles. I drove that narrow strip of road with flaps and hummocks of leprous dough crawling, heaving, and tossing on both sides—or clearing from the tarmac before my spinning wheels—while an opaque webbing of alien flesh pulsed and vibrated overhead. It was like driving down the funnel trap of some cosmic trapdoor spider, or crossing the dry bed of an ocean magically cleared as by Moses and his staff. Except that this sea—this ocean of slime and disease—was its own master and cleared the way itself.
And in my jacket pocket my cigarette lighter, and under its hinged cap the button. And I was dying for a cigarette but couldn’t have one, not just yet. But (or so I kept telling myself, however ridiculously) that was a good thing because they were bad for you!
The bomb was in the hollow front axle of the car, its two halves sitting near the wheels along with the propellant charges. When those charges detonated they’d drive two loads of hell into calamitous collision right there in the middle of the axle, creating critical mass and instant oblivion for anything in the immediate vicinity. I was driving a very special car: a kamikaze nuke. And ground zero was going to be Big ‘C’ ‘s brain and my old pal Smiler. And myself, of course.
The miles were passing very quickly now, seeming to speed up right along with my heartbeat. I guessed I could do it even before I got there if I wanted to, blow the bastard to hell. But I wasn’t going to give him even a split second’s warning, because it was possible that was all he needed. No, I was going to park this heap right up his nose. Almost total disintegration for a radius of three or four miles when it went. For me, for Smiler, but especially for Big ‘C.’ Instantaneous, so that he wouldn’t even have time to twitch.
And with this picture in mind I was through Moore Haven and Lakeport was up ahead, and I thought: We’ve got him! Just two or three more miles and I can let ‘er rip any time! And it’s good-bye Big ‘C. ‘ But I wouldn’t do it because I wanted to see Smiler one last time. It was him and me together. I could smile right back at him (would I be able to? God, I hoped so!) as I pressed the button.
And it was then, with only a mile to go to Lakeport, that I remembered what Smiler had said the last time he asked for a visitor. He’d said: “Someone should come and see me soon, to talk about boundaries if for nothing else. I think maybe Peter Lancing ... if he’s willing.”
The “if for nothing else” was his way of saying: “OK, bring it on in.” And the rest of it...
The way I saw it, it could be read two ways. That “if he’s willing” bit could be a warning, meaning: “Of course, this is really a job for a volunteer.” Or he could simply have been saying goodbye to me, by mentioning my name in his final communication. But... maybe it could be read a third way, too. Except that would mean that he knew I had cancer, and that therefore I probably would be willing.
And I remembered that blob of goo, that sweat or spittle of Big ‘C,’ which had splashed on me when I was last in here....
Thought processes, and while they were taking place the mile was covered and I was in. It had been made simple: Big ‘C’ had left only one road open, the one that led to the grounds of the Cancer Research Foundation. Some irony, that this should be Big ‘C’ ‘s HQ! But yes, just looking at the place I knew that it was.
It was ... wet-looking, glistening, alive. Weakened light filtered down through the layers of fretted, fretting webs of mucus and froth and foaming flesh overhead, and the Foundation complex itself looked like a gigantic, suppurating mass of decaying brick and concrete. Tentacles of filth had shattered all the windows outwards, for all the world as if the building’s brain had burst out through its eyes, ears, and nostrils. And the whole thing was connected by writhing ropes of webbing to the far greater mass which was Big ‘C’ ‘s loathsome body.
Jesus! It was gray and green and brown and blue-tinged. In spots it was even bright yellow, red, and splashed with purple. It was Cancer with a capital C—Big ‘C’ himself—and it was alive!
“What are you waiting for, Peter?” Smiler’s voice came out of my radio, and I banged my head on the car roof starting away from it. “Are you coming in, old friend ... or what?”
I didn’t have to go in there if I didn’t want to; my lighter was in my pocket; I touched it to make sure. But... I didn’t want to go out alone. I don’t mean just out, like out of the car, but out period. And so:
“I’m coming in, Smiler,” I told him.
And
somehow I made myself. In front of the main building there’d been lawn cropped close as a crew cut. Now it was just soil crumbling to sand. I walked across it and into the building, just looking straight ahead and nowhere else. Inside ... the corridors were clear at least. Big ‘C had cleared them for me. But through each door as I passed them I could see him bulking, pile upon pile of him like ... like heaped intestines. His brains? God, I hoped so!
Finally, when I was beginning to believe I couldn’t go any further on two feet and would have to crawl—and when I was fighting with myself not to throw up—I found Smiler in his “office”: just a large room with a desk which he sat behind, and a couple of chairs, telephones, radios. And also containing Big ‘C,’ of course. Which is the part I’ve always been reluctant to talk about, but now have to tell just the way it was.
Big ‘C’ was plugged into him, into Smiler. It was grotesque. Smiler sat propped up in his huge chair, and he was like a spider at the centre of his web. Except the web wasn’t of silk but of flesh, and it was attached to him. The back of his head was welded to a huge fan shape of tentacles spreading outwards like some vast ornamental headdress, or like the sprawl of an octopus’s arms, and these cancerous extensions or extrusions were themselves attached to a shuddering bulk that lay behind Smiler’s chair and grew up the walls and out of the windows. The lower part of his body was lost behind the desk, lost in bulging grey sacks and folds and yellow pipes and purplish gelatinous masses of... Christ, of whatever the filthy stuff was! Only his upper body, his arms and hands, face and shoulders were free of the stuff. He was it. It was him—physically, anyway.