The Lovecraft Squad

by John Llewellyn Probert

  “Or they went mad first—like Cassandra?”

  Dr. Cruttenden flashed an encouraging smile Chambers assumed she usually reserved for her students. “Precisely, Professor Chambers. Now, let’s see what the rest of this first page is about.”

  She adjusted the focus so that the blackened letters, looking more as if they had been forged in iron than with ink, stood out more boldly. She began to read through the text, mumbling to herself. At points the mumbling grew loud enough to pass for an attempt at a commentary.

  “Much of what we have here is just setup for the story to come. The individual who is telling the tale claims that he is a man of God, by which the text means that he probably held some position in the church. He is on his current journey because of the visions which plague him, and which have plagued him ‘since his inception,’ which we can presume means birth. ‘The solace of the Holy Father’ apparently wasn’t sufficient to stop the ‘voices and demons which persisted in his mind’ and so his church . . . no . . . more like a monastery actually—sorry—gave him permission to take part in this pilgrimage to . . .”

  There was silence as Dr. Cruttenden stopped and stared, open-mouthed, at the screen. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of the window-glass being rattled violently. It was as if something immense and unseen was trying to get into that room. Was it Chambers’s imagination or had it gotten darker?

  Finally, it was Karen who broke the spell.

  “Can you not read what it says?”

  Dr. Cruttenden had presumably forgotten there was anyone else in the room. She abruptly turned around while lighting a fresh cigarette and blowing out the smoke straight at the word she had been staring at on the screen.

  “No, my dear, I can read what it says perfectly. I just can’t believe it, that’s all.”

  Karen leaned forward in her chair. “Can’t believe what?”

  Dr. Cruttenden pulled herself up to her full five-foot four-inches, poked at the screen with her pointer, and said a single word.

  “Canterbury.”

  Chambers’s eyes widened. “You don’t just mean as in ‘Archbishop of,’ do you?”

  The Reader in Medieval Studies shook her head. “No, I most certainly do not. I mean as in Tales, as in Geoffrey Chaucer, as in—” she paused taking in the true possibility of the implication of the moment, “—the missing story from The Canterbury Tales.”

  Karen was busy writing it down. “Can you be sure?”

  “Of course not. But what I can say is it’s certainly worthy of further study. Which is what we are going to do right now. Let’s move onto the next slide.”

  She pressed the changer and the screen was lit up with script that was smaller and more cramped. It was no less meticulous, but seemed a little more hurried than the previous page.

  Karen leaned over to Chambers. “How did you get hold of that again?”

  He still didn’t feel confident enough to tell her the truth. Not yet, anyway. “I made up some story Malcolm had to believe about the bones possibly having some infection risk. I was convincing enough that he’s had everything sealed until I can get a translation from our friend here.”

  “You must remind me to buy you an extra glass of champagne this evening.”

  “I’m glad you said extra.”

  “If you two have quite finished chatting—” the lecturer was back and wielding the pointer, “—we can start to take a look at this second page.”

  Karen and Chambers sat quietly while Dr. Cruttenden examined this new page of the manuscript. She mumbled much more quietly this time, and when she turned around to face them once more the wind seemed to have gone out of her sails somewhat.

  “I am sorry to have to tell you that, after my initial enthusiasm, this document cannot be anything other than a hoax. A very good hoax, in fact a quite brilliant hoax, but a hoax nevertheless.”

  Karen’s shoulders sagged and she put down her pen. “Why?”

  “Because after a most promising beginning, with perfect period language and detail, whoever wrote this then goes on to have his soothsayer talk of things about which he could not possibly know.”

  Chambers frowned. “Such as?”

  Dr. Cruttenden slumped into a worn but comfortable-looking armchair upholstered in red velveteen. She took a long drag from her cigarette before continuing. “Most scholars believe The Canterbury Tales to have been written sometime around 1380. Chaucer himself disappears from the historical record around 1400. It would therefore be the act of only the most supremely ignorant and stupid of individuals to include historical events such as ‘crook-backed Richard III lying in defeat’ which must refer to the Battle of Bosworth Field. That took place in 1485—pretty much a hundred years later. But then there’s worse—we get talk of a ‘Great Fire’ that decimates London. That didn’t happen until 1666. And as for the ‘Worlde War to Ende all Wars’ . . .”

  She was already lighting another cigarette, despite the current one being only half-smoked.

  Chambers was trying to keep up.

  “So you’re saying that this is a manuscript that is perfect in its language, in its font, and in its presentation.”

  Dr. Cruttenden nodded. Smoke billowed from her nostrils as she spoke. “To be honest, it’s absolutely marvelous. Usually I can spot the fakes, but this one looks perfect in every way. I would have to look at the original manuscripts of course, and get some dating done on the paper this is written on, but otherwise it’s quite remarkable.”

  “And it’s called ‘The Soothsayer’s Tale’?”

  Dr. Cruttenden laughed out loud now, most likely to cover her obvious disappointment. “It is, isn’t it? I should have seen that coming, shouldn’t I? Serves me right. Even when you’ve been in this business as long as I have you can still be taken in.”

  Chambers shook his head. “That’s not what I’m getting at. Look, I’m a scientist in my own field as you are in yours. I can vouch that the bones that were found wrapped around that manuscript were easily six hundred years old, and possibly older.”

  Dr. Cruttenden shrugged but Karen was catching on.

  “Doesn’t it seem a bit weird that someone would go to all those lengths for a forgery, right down to finding some very old bones to help verify the story? Where the hell would they find old bones, anyway? And to go to such lengths just to write something that would get their overly elaborate plan dismissed by the first person who reads it?”

  The lecturer gave them both a quizzical look. “I have no idea what either of you are trying to get at.”

  Chambers and Karen exchanged looks.

  “Is it not possible,” said Chambers carefully, “that what we’ve stumbled on here is a document from the fourteenth century that really does predict events that took place hundreds of years later?”

  “You must think I’m an idiot, Dr. Chambers.”

  Chambers shook his head. “No, believe me, I don’t at all, and I agree with you entirely that we need to verify the actual manuscript before we can start to draw any formal conclusions, but it is something to consider isn’t it? Just as an outside possibility?”

  “A frankly ludicrous possibility.”

  “But improbable rather than impossible?”

  “I suppose that depends on how much daytime television you watch.”

  “He’s right, Dr. Cruttenden.” It was Karen’s turn. “I know you won’t listen to me because I’m just a journalist, but if Bob says those bones are six hundred years old then I believe him. Surely that hugely increases the odds of this being the real thing rather than someone somehow being able to fake it?”

  There was a pause as Dr. Cruttenden blew more smoke heavenward. “If I thought you were wasting my time I would have already asked you to leave,” she said. “However I do now feel that any more time that we expend on this could be better spent on other projects.”

  Chambers got to his feet and grabbed the remote for the slide projector. His finger hovered over the ADVANCE button that would bring
up the third and final slide. “Could you please at least tell us what the end of the manuscript says? It might actually be important.”

  Dr. Cruttenden refused to shift her gaze from the ceiling.

  “Please,” said Karen. “We promise we won’t bother you any more after this, and we certainly won’t mention your name in connection with any of it.”

  “As I hope I have already made clear,” Dr. Cruttenden still appeared to be addressing the roof, “I no longer wish to be a part of this charade. I hope you understand that if you were to mention my involvement, the subsequent lawsuit would definitely find in my favor. Now, are you happy to see yourselves out or do I need to call security?”

  Karen was on the verge of getting out of her chair, but Chambers wasn’t finished yet.

  “Well I want to see what it says even if you don’t,” he said.

  His thumb came down on the button.

  And all hell broke loose.

  Within a split-second of the words appearing on the screen, there was a thunder crack outside the building as loud as that in Chambers’s dream, followed by a gust of wind so violent that it drove the rain against the windows like bullets.

  But only for a second.

  Because then the windows exploded inwards.

  The drawn curtains did little to dampen the howling hurricane that followed. Instead, they flapped and billowed from the onslaught as if a pair of caped fiends was standing either side of the windows, presiding with glee over the ensuing chaos. Books fell from shelves, were flipped open, and had their pages torn from them by unseen hands. Other documents joined the defiled paper in the building tornado inside Dr. Cruttenden’s study. The uncapped fountain pen on her desk rattled against the leather, was lifted into the air, and flew straight at her, narrowly missing its target and embedding itself in the upholstery as the lecturer dived to her right and covered her head with her hands.

  A vase on the mantelpiece exploded, scattering lilies that were scooped up by the whirlwind. Other items adjacent to it followed—a glass bowl shattered, the door of a gilt carriage clock was torn off its hinges and the dial hands bent out of shape. A belch of flame erupted from the fireplace where no fire burned. It disappeared almost as quickly. Dust and crumbs of plaster began to fall from the ceiling as the building was shaken as if by a giant.

  But that was not the worst of it.

  The three of them crouched on the floor, arms over their heads as debris rained down upon them, as rain lashed at them, as objects were thrown at them. But such physical protection did not extend to their minds, and it was their minds that were the main object of attack.

  The visions were terrible.

  They were images of the events described on the final page of the document. Images of horror and despair, of disease and of chaos. They saw the thing that lived within the church, high on its hill beneath a crimson firmament. They saw it give life to things that should not live. But it was not real life, vivid and active, productive and colorful. This was the opposite—an un-life, a living death. The creatures that were vomited forth from the church were worse than diseased, more terrifying than pestilence, for they were not mere random, aggressive vectors of a terrible kind of death. They could think. They could reason. And they had a purpose.

  There was a crash as the slide projector fell to the floor. It stayed switched on, the words now at an angle and displayed against the collapsing bookshelves, words of chaos causing actual chaos.

  Chambers felt pain in his right hand. He looked at it and could scarcely believe that the rain was now hammering so hard and so viciously that the tiny razor-sharp droplets were capable of drawing blood.

  Then he realized it wasn’t the rain that was causing it at all.

  Other things were now being swept into the room with the force of a hurricane. Thousands of them, in fact.

  Maggots.

  As a snowstorm of curling white dots they came, blasting across the room and coming to lie on the carpet, on the shelves, on the clothes of the three individuals crouched helplessly on the floor. They formed writhing heaps that quickly collapsed and added to the shifting sea that was beginning to build around them, an ocean of unending, voracious, wriggling hunger.

  Chambers reached out and, ignoring the hundred tiny mouths biting into the skin on the back of his hand, grabbed the projector’s electrical cord and yanked it with all his might.

  It refused to budge.

  He reached out with both hands, trying to ignore the fact that both were now streaming with blood, and tried again.

  And again.

  One last try, he thought, blinking away the crawling things that were trying to get to his eyes and spitting them from his mouth. One last try and then we run for it.

  The cord came free.

  There was an ear-splitting pop and flash from the toppled machine, and then the projector lamp dimmed.

  Bob Chambers, Karen Shepworth, and Rosalie Cruttenden suddenly found themselves crouched on a perfectly normal carpet in the middle of a perfectly normal study. Outside, the storm had calmed.

  The projector, however, was beyond repair. All that remained of it was a carapace of blackened plastic and some exposed wiring. The slides were gone.

  Good thing too, was Chambers’s first thought as he surveyed the damage and the scorched area surrounding it.

  Karen was getting to her feet, while Dr. Cruttenden was still brushing frantically at her hair.

  “It’s all right,” Karen said, laying a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. “They’re gone. It’s all gone.” She flashed a glance at Chambers. “Whatever it was.”

  The lecturer looked up at her with terrified eyes. “You saw it too?”

  Karen nodded, but Chambers wasn’t so quick to agree. “That all depends, Dr. Cruttenden,” he said, helping her up and back into her chair. “What do you think you saw?”

  She obviously wasn’t eager to revisit the images. “Horrible . . . horrible. That church, those . . . things, and then the windows burst open and—” She got up and ran to the curtains, drawing them back with a savagery that surprised him.

  Outside was an unremarkable gray Oxford day. The conifers in the quad were uniform once more, and the paving stones of the perimeter path weren’t even damp.

  Dr. Cruttenden backed away. “But it was raining!”

  “We know,” said Chambers.

  “Pouring!”

  “We felt it too,” said Karen.

  “And then the rain changed into . . . into . . .” She looked at the cracked remains of the projector. “It’s ruined. You’ve no idea how hard it is to get equipment like that for my department.”

  Karen put an arm around her and led her back to her seat. “My paper will see that you’re reimbursed, Dr. Cruttenden, don’t you worry.”

  “Will it? Oh, thank you—most kind.”

  “Well, if nothing else we’ve learned one thing today.” Chambers was pulling the curtains back fully to allow as much natural light into the room as possible. “Malcolm Turner has what might amount to a time bomb in the British Museum vaults.”

  Karen was crouched beside Dr. Cruttenden, holding the lecturer’s quivering hands. “The manuscript, you mean?”

  Chambers nodded. “Either it’s just the last page, or a cumulative effect as a result of reading all three pages in order.”

  “But we didn’t read them.” Karen squeezed the older woman’s hands. “Dr. Cruttenden did.”

  Chambers shrugged and spread his hands. “Well, we looked at it. Perhaps that’s all it takes. I’m afraid I can’t offer any scientific explanation, but then what we just witnessed wasn’t very scientific.”

  “He was a sorcerer . . .” came a quiet voice from the chair.

  They both stared at her.

  “Who was?” Karen asked as gently as she could.

  “Geoffrey Chaucer. I mean, he was a lot of other things as well, but it was rumored by the Royal Court of King Edward III—of which he was a member, I’ll have you know—tha
t one of his many activities involved the study of the arcane arts.”

  Karen raised an eyebrow. “I thought he was just a writer.”

  “So did I,” said Chambers, drawing up a chair.

  “If he had been just a writer, we would have known far less about him.” Talking about her subject seemed to be the best way of calming herself, so they let her continue. “Writers were of little interest to those who kept the historical records of the times. However, someone who studied law at the Inner Temple, someone who was appointed Comptroller of Customs for the Port of London, someone who then went on to become Clerk of the King’s Works and was responsible for various building projects including repairing Westminster Cathedral, now that is someone the historians considered worth taking note of.”

  “And Geoffrey Chaucer was all those things?” The revelation of these facts was proving as much a salve to Chambers’s nerves as it was to Dr. Cruttenden.

  “Oh, those and much more,” she said. “He was extremely well-traveled, you know. In 1374 Edward granted him ‘a gallon of wine a day for life’ for services rendered. It’s believed when Richard II came to the throne it was changed to cash but still, that would have been quite a lot of cash in those times.”

  “For services rendered?” Karen asked.

  The lecturer patted her hand. “No one really knows, but at least one major voyage abroad—in 1377—was for reasons no one to this day has been able to ascertain.”

  “Maybe that was when he wrote The Canterbury Tales?”

  She shook her head. “It’s generally accepted he started work on them in the 1380s, after that voyage but before instigating the repairs on Westminster Cathedral.”

  “And initiating other building work as well, I should imagine.” Chambers was looking thoughtful.

  “Well yes, naturally.”

  “And that would have included other churches?”

  “Yes, of course. Why?” A streak of fear crossed her face. “Oh. I see what you mean.”

  Karen looked worried. “You think the church we all saw might be a real place, then?”