Atomic-Age Cthulhu: Tales of Mythos Terror in the 1950s

by Robert Price

  “You get all that, Berman?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “Don’t believe, be sure.” Walter folded back the page on the pad and continued to write.

  “You don’t need to jot down our advice, Berman, just everything else.” Walter nodded and flipped to a new page in the pad. The pack of scientists and assistants continued down the hallway while Walter scribbled everything down in shorthand, stopped to catch up and then jog-stepped to keep up. The lot of them stopped at the swinging door to the laboratory.

  “Get that all deciphered, Berman. Type it up and I want it on my lab station in the morning.” Walter nodded and looked at Doctor Putnam. “We’ll need you in the library tomorrow morning first thing. There’ll be a load of books to pick up.” Putnam buttoned up his white lab coat; his eyes seemed to glaze with a flash of color. Putnam ran his fingers through his salt and pepper hair and pushed through the door of the lab. The others followed behind.

  Walter took a deep breath and pushed up his glasses. There was a trail of black scuffs on the floor behind him. Looking at the scribbles on the pad, Walter headed back to the office, following the scuffs like a trail of breadcrumbs.

  Walter stood in the library; Putnam had thrust a handful of requisition forms at him before his coat was off. His desk tray was stuffed with papers and folders, from a quick glance most of them looked to be hand-written.

  “Fetch those books, Berman,” was all Putnam said before charging off.

  Walter tried for an itch with the tip of his shoe. A stern-looking woman came towards Walter wearing white cloth gloves, a clipboard held tight to her chest. She had a large mole on her jaw line, and when Walter looked at it, he swore the thick black hairs stirred and danced in an unknown breeze. She handed him the clipboard.

  “Sign these forms, in triplicate.” She turned her back while Walter scanned the form. With a shrug he signed and dated each page. The librarian wore a plain black skirt and plainer blue blouse. Thick heels clumped on the floor with each step.

  From an unseen pocket she pulled a ring of keys and opened a locked cabinet. From inside she lifted an ancient book. She turned and cleared her throat. Walter placed the clipboard on top of the case and she rolled her eyes.

  “There’s a briefcase on the desk. Be a good boy, and go get it.” He moved past and retrieved the case, opened it, the lid blocking his view of the book. Walter still hadn’t seen a name or author printed on it. He felt the tome’s weight as it was gently laid in and the lid was closed, the case locked.

  “Twenty four hours, no more, no less.” She picked up the clipboard and inspected the forms signed and dated in triplicate. “You tell Putnam, twenty four hours or we’ll be after him.” Walter stared, transfixed by the mole. The hairs weaved like snakes. The briefcase was warm in his hands, getting warmer.

  Walter hurried back towards the lab. There was something sinister in the case, he sensed it, and he didn’t want it near him any longer than needed.

  Walter browsed over the paperwork. His wax-paper-wrapped sandwich sat untouched on the desk. Walter smiled and dropped another stack of papers into the trash bin. His fingers flew across the keys, punching them in a fevered pace. Slapping the carriage return, pretending the ding was his mother’s pained cries. He didn’t hear the footsteps coming up from behind.

  The next batch of papers was hand-scrawled and barely discernible. The markings seemed to move on the paper, the blue ink morphing into new shapes. Walter took off his glasses and pressed his palms into his eyes until he saw stars. There were pictures, drawn in charcoal pencil. Strange beasts that looked like alien roaches. Walter shivered and almost shrieked when his shoulder was tapped. He closed the manila folder and saw the radiation symbol on the cover amongst the scribbles.

  “Berman,” Putnam said. “Bring the books back.” He placed the locked case on the floor near Walter’s desk; he felt the heat coming off it.

  “You still have time left, Doctor. Lots of it.” Putnam crossed his arms and stared at the wrapped sandwich.

  “Take a break, Berman. Go to the quad, eat your lunch.” He all but spat out the last word. “Bring the books back. You signed for them. You don’t want the librarian to collect it.” Walter pulled on his coat. The rolled-up copy of Analog slipped out and bounced on the floor. Walter stuffed it and his sandwich in his pocket. “You’re a good worker, Berman.” Putnam seemed uncomfortable speaking the compliment.

  Walter eased himself from the office, walked to the building’s cafeteria, and bought a bottle of Coca-Cola and potato chips. In the quad, students lounged on blankets on the neat grass, radios played Elvis and Walter sat alone on a bench reading his magazine and eating. He almost felt good, in the fresh salt air and the sun. Not too far off he heard the waves. And deeper beyond all that, Walter felt the thrum of the reactor and the image of the crab thing fill his mind.

  “You’re so late, every night.” Agnes Berman said. “I hardly have anyone to talk to anymore.” She tapped her Chesterfield ash into a full tray near the edge of the table.

  “Go to Aunt Helen’s; play cards.” Walter answered.

  “Helen is boring.” She crushed out the cigarette and tapped out a fresh one. “You’re doing this to me. I smoke all the time now because there’s no one here to talk to.” Walter pushed at the chicken wing on his plate with his fork. He loathed dinner time, but he had a responsibility to be the man of the house since his father died. His mother did put him through college.

  “I can drive you to the harbor side, you can shop, eat at some nice restaurants.”

  “I suppose I can go look in on your father’s grave, too.”

  “If you want, Mother.”

  “If you want, Mother,” she answered back, mocking. Walter took the cloth napkin off his leg, wiped his mouth and stood up.

  “Let me know before bed. I’ll…”

  “Be in your room.” She finished his sentence. Agnes crushed out her new cigarette in the tray near her elbow and threw her arms in the air, dismissing her son.

  Walter shrugged off his coat and hung it over the back of the chair. The office was empty; it was always empty. It seemed like everyone avoided this section of the university. As for the Marine division, the closest thing he’d done and seen related to the sea was the crab thing Putnam had been sketching. Or was it a roach? His mother had locked herself in her room, didn’t answer his questions, never responded. Through the closed door he smelled the cigarette smoke, so at least he knew she wasn’t dead. So much for her day out.

  “Berman,” Putnam barked. “You get those books back?”

  “Yes, Doctor, right after I talked to you yesterday.”

  “Very good,” he said nodding. Putnam handed Walter a brown-paper-wrapped package, tied with string. “Open it.” Walter tore into the paper like a kid on Christmas, ignoring the string. Deep in the folds of the brown paper was a white lab coat and on top was a radiation badge.

  “Thank you.” Walter said.

  “I need you at the silo today. You’ll need the button.” Putnam picked it up and clipped it to his collar. “Green is good, yellow you should think about leaving, red means you’ll be in isolation at the hospital. You keep the coat on at all times when you’re over there.” Walter slid it on to test the size.

  “What are we doing over there, sir?” Putnam walked around Berman’s lonely desk. There were no windows in the office. The windows in the hallway overlooked the back half of the campus.

  “We’re going to test radiation levels and its effects on marine life. Specifically crabs. I want to see what happens if they’re exposed to radiation should there ever be a leak at the silo. It’s all water cooled, you know.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’ll be there all day. I’ll have lunch called in.” Walter looked at the stack of paper in the desk tray. “Ever get lonely in here, Berman?” Putnam asked.

  “I prefer it.”

  “What do you want for lunch, then?”

  “Anything will
do,” Walter answered. “My mother isn’t talking to me and I didn’t make anything today.” Putnam rolled his eyes.

  “Get your pads and pencils and follow me. We’re going to be there all day, and I like to talk when I walk, helps me work out things.” Walter pulled a handful of pencils out of the desk and a fresh pad. “Better bring more than one, Berman. Might want to call home, too. If you have a telephone and if its party line, call someone else.”

  Walter followed Putnam around the lab. His mind wandered to trying to get his elderly neighbor off the party line so he could get through to his mother, but it wasn’t happening. He scribbled on the pad, watching over Putnam’s shoulder, trying to see what was going on. On the exam table, Putnam had several dead crabs in various stages of dissection, which he poked and prodded with a scalpel and tweezers.

  Walter didn’t understand a word, but he jotted down everything the man said and did his best to document his studies on the table. The lab was cold; one wall devoted to aquarium tanks, some with insects, others with fish, and the last bank was crabs in different phases of radiation exposure. Some looked healthy, scrabbling along the sandy bottom of the tanks, others had drooping eye stalks, diseased pincers, others missing legs.

  Walter found himself drawn to the insects, watching them burrow in sawdust and converge on twitching bodies as they fed; ants, roaches, crickets and spiders. Berman smiled, thinking of his mother screaming in her bed as a spider skittered over her face or seizing as she put her feet into a slipper packed with roaches.

  He shook his head, already a few paces behind Putnam, and caught up in his note taking. Putnam never slowed or stopped to look over his shoulder. Walter wondered why he didn’t have a reel to reel to record his words. Maybe he wanted a witness to his big breakthrough, or someone to pull him back should he go too far.

  Walter stopped and gasped, looking at the last dissection tray on the cold metal table. It had a spotlight beaming down on it. On the tray was a hideous creature. Walter rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. Whatever it was looked like something that had crawled from the pages of his science fiction magazines. A small smile curled at Putnam’s lips.

  “This is why, Mr. Berman, I had your security checked.” Putnam poked the tray with the scalpel. “This is why we’re here. To make this corpse history. Every word, Berman.” Walter nodded absently and set pencil to paper as Putnam ran the sharp scalpel down the belly, or what he thought was the belly, of the creature.

  “Does it have a name?” Walter asked.

  “What? No of course not. Don’t disturb me again.” Putnam turned his back on Walter and, using tweezers, pulled apart the layers of hard exoskeleton. Walter gagged and struggled, breathing heavily through his mouth. “Problem?”

  “I was never any good at seeing this in school.”

  “Do you need a glass of water?”

  “No, Doctor Putnam, sorry.” Berman heard every squish of flesh and crack of shell as if magnified a thousand times. He glanced away to the tanks. One of the crabs, still blue and soft had something growing from its body. Where the pincer should be, it looked like a small tentacle. Putnam pushed the tray away and peeled off his rubber gloves. Walter put his full pad on the table and started a new one.

  Putnam moved for a small door near the back of the lab that Walter hadn’t noticed. He pulled a chain from under his coat, looped around his neck, from which a key hung. He unlocked the door and stepped in, waving Walter through as he did.

  Walter bit his knuckle and did his best not to scream. Putnam was elbow-deep in an aquarium, partially filled with water and a slope of sand. In it he was reaching for the only inhabitant. Another thing, like from the table in the exam room. Long black antennae and eye stalks waved frantically as Putnam’s hand got closer. The front of the creature had pincers like a crab; the back half was hard, dark exoskeleton and multiple legs like a cockroach.

  “No, Berman, it has no name.”

  “What are they?”

  “This is what happened when I bombarded the tanks with radiation.” Walter glanced down at the badge on his collar, still in the green but leaning towards yellow. “Don’t worry, you’re still fine.” Walter took a step back when Putnam got closer, holding his creation. “I put the crabs and roaches in the same tank and flooded it with radiation from the silo. Somehow they merged and became one.” Putnam held the creature up, struggling in his grasp to get free. “They’re terribly strong, and growing at an alarming rate.”

  Putnam pushed past Walter to the exam room. He set the insectoid down on the table and watched it scuttle away, stop, and go back to look at the dissected corpse on the tray. “Look Berman, it’s showing intelligence, and stopping to look at the body of its ‘brother.’”

  “Maybe it’s just hungry?”

  Putnam turned, raising his eyebrows, and tapped Berman on the chest with the tweezers.

  “Excellent conjecture. Maybe they’re omnivores, parts of each creature with the more powerful instincts surfacing.” As they watched, Walter scribbled shorthand onto the executive pad, while Putnam paced up and down the length of the table, poking the thing with a pen when it got close to the edge. With a strong pincer, it grabbed the plastic pen and snapped it in half.

  “Flight or fight response! Are you getting this, Berman?” Walter nodded as his hand moved methodically across the page. He was staring at the thing, his hand moving out of instinct. He stopped and pointed at the table. Putnam turned his crazed gaze back; it was growing, slowly but definitely getting bigger as they watched.

  “Should we put it back in the tank?” Walter asked with a tremor in his voice. Putnam pulled a small ruler from his pocket, took a measure and then stared at the minute hand on his watch. He looked at the bug thing and measured again.

  “One minute, one half an inch, approximately.” The whispers of Walter’s pencil filled the lab. He tried not to think of the thing on the table, to focus on the bubbling fish filters, the tanks full of ocean fish swimming peacefully. Then the scuttling of the crab-roaches took over. “At this rate it will outgrow the tank in three hours. Do I kill it and examine it? Or see how big it gets?” Putnam turned to Walter, pale and wide-eyed, staring at the table. “What do you think?”

  “Kill it. Kill it now.” Walter spat out.

  “That’s what I thought you’d say. No imagination; you have no imagination.” Putnam reached into his pocket and pulled out a library request form. “I need you to retrieve those books again from the library, the same two.” He shook the paper in Walter’s face, distracting him.

  “You don’t want me to stay and take notes?” Putnam tapped at his watch.

  “I’ve kept you long enough. Besides, I want those notes translated and typed by morning. Get the books, leave them in my office.” Walter nodded dumbly and reached for the pad on the table. The thing snapped at his fingers with its pincers. “Be careful, man. It could snap your finger off.” Walter snatched at the pad and back-stepped through the lab, not stopping until he was through the lobby.

  The security guards checked his radiation levels and then ran a Geiger counter over him. The guard nodded and unclipped the pin from his collar. Clutching the pads tight to his chest, Walter ran from the lab and stopped in the quad to catch his breath. The day was gone; night had blanketed the campus in inky darkness.

  The buoys in the harbor clanged in boat wakes; strings of lights run mast-to-cabin lit up the boats as they left Innsmouth Harbor for deeper waters. Walter stopped in the quad to catch his breath. He dropped the pads on a bench and bent over, hands on knees, and greedily sucked in breaths of cool sea air. He wondered while he gasped if what he saw would get him back in Arkham, typing where he was safe amongst the gossiping biddies.

  “The library,” he wheezed. Walter stood up, unbuttoned his lab coat and picked up the pads. “The library will relax me.” Walter took his pulse from his throat as he walked.

  The library hadn’t changed. Most of the lights were out, save for the librarian’
s office and the emergency lights over the door. Walter cleared his throat several times to get someone’s attention. Finally he took the form out and placed it on the glass top of the display case. It was warm to the touch and a slight vibration raced across his fingertips. Walter laid his hands on the glass and images flashed through his mind. Deep space and deeper gods. Something inside cracked and his eye twitched.

  “Can I help you?” came a high pitched voice. Walter turned, whisking the form off the case. He waved it in the air at the approaching person.

  “Book retrieval for Dr. Putnam.” She looked at the form then at Walter, sweat trickling down his cheeks. She ripped the form from his hand, tearing the corner off.

  “Wait here.” She pointed at some chairs in the corner. “Do you want some water?”

  “Yes, please.” Walter sat in the hard, straight-backed wooden chair. She returned with a paper cone filled with water. Walter grabbed it from her hand and gulped down the water. Some of it ran down his chin. Most of it made it into his mouth.

  “I’ll get your books.” She walked away, glancing nervously over her shoulder. Walter remembered all the images burned into his mind. Holes the size of planets in space. Tears and rips through time. Jagged horrible cracks running the length and width through planets. Giant eyes staring; long reaching tendrils that dripped water and blood.

  “Can you help me with this?” Walter nodded and stood. The librarian handed him the keys. Her hands were shaking. He held the case open and Walter unlocked the display. With trembling hands he reached in for the books, no titles, no text on the outside; no print on the covers. Each one brought horrible and wondrous images into his mind. He smiled, laughed a little and closed the case. Before she could lock it, Walter took the case from her, signed the forms and ran from the library.

  Outside in the courtyard, someone screamed. The sharp crack of a gunshot rang out. Walter ran down the sidewalk; it was too late for a bus and too far to walk. He needed a taxi. When he saw the black pincer coming from the lab, Walter turned and ran for home.