by Sean Hoade
“Don’t the Marines see enough horror?”
Berry smiled. “Ma’am, it’s ironic. The fantasy horror relieves a lot of tension from the real-life horror over there.”
“Madam President,” Adamson butted in on the lovefest, “there are huge economic, military, and scientific concerns to be addressed. Might I suggest we move the literature lesson along so we can get to what we need to be doing?”
The President nodded, a bit chastened. “Just give us the bullet points, Lieutenant, if you please.”
So this, in essence, was what Lieutenant Berry (soon to be promoted beyond his wildest imaginings) told the most powerful people in the world—the assembled top brass of every military branch, Chairman Adamson and the Secretary of Defense and other Cabinet members, not to mention the President and Vice President of the United States:
Cthulhu was introduced in the 1928 short story “The Call of Cthulhu,” which first appeared in the fantasy magazine Weird Tales.
In the story, Cthulhu—an “Old One,” something between an alien being and an actual immortal—rises temporarily from His sunken city of R'lyeh, which Lovecraft established as being near Point Nemo.
He rises on March 23, the same date as the Event. The very date on which they were now speaking.
The Old One’s rising causes visions among sensitive humans such as artists and drives other people mad.
Any outsider who comes somehow to know about the existence of Cthulhu is murdered by a secret worldwide cult spreading from isolated Aleutians in the north to lost tribes in the jungles of Papua New Guinea in the south. The narrator ends the story with the observation that he himself is being followed by a shadowy figure whom he believes will kill him very soon.
The ancient city of R’lyeh—and where Cthulhu rises—is said in the story to be at (Berry looked up the exact numbers later and emailed the information to all parties) coordinates 47.9°S 126.43°W.
The effects of Cthulhu’s rising are felt only as long as He is able to break the waves.
One arm of Cthulhu’s cult is discovered by accident and rounded up by perplexed officers in the Louisiana Bayou, who have never seen a ‘degenerate sacrificial cult’ before. At the scene, a police detective notices an idol of a tentacle-faced giant creature and learns that their belief is that He has been “dead and dreaming” for hundreds of millions of years.
After a short time above the waves, the city sinks again because “the stars aren’t right.”
Cthulhu is destined to retake His planet. Whether it is tomorrow or a million years from now, when the Old One rises for good, all living humans except for those who worship Him will be doomed to insanity and death.
“Well,” the President said, “that was cheerful.”
“May I ask,” Secretary Farr said, “why an alien entity would be called ‘He’? We wouldn’t know if genders of this … species, I suppose you’d call it, have any relation to our own.”
Berry smiled and said apologetically, “You are quite right, Madam Secretary. All I can say is that the story was written in a much less enlightened time. Lovecraft used that terminology in 1928 and so it has stuck, I suppose.”
“Thank you for the information, Lieutenant. And thank you for the question, Secretary Farr,” the President said with a wry smile. General Adamson didn’t even deign to look at Berry as he retook his seat next to the general. “Now, leaving alien gender identity issues aside for the moment, Doctor Tyson, let’s proceed with the data picked up by our sensors at scientific research stations around the world—”
“If I may, Madam President,” Secretary Farr interjected, was given the go-ahead, and then turned to Berry and said, “Lieutenant, let’s say that this ‘Cthulhu’ or some entity resembling the monster portrayed in that story is responsible for the Event. How could a science fiction writer back in the 1920s possibly foresee that any of this would happen?”
Again, all heads turned to Berry, who was starting to wish he had never said a word and had just done his job at the laptop and projector. Not helping was General Adamson’s very loud and impatient exhalation of breath. But duty was duty, so he told the room, “I don’t know if anyone else actually believes this, but there’s a faction of Lovecraft enthusiasts who say that he was … well … psychic, and either he didn’t know that’s where his ideas came from, or he did know and couched this knowledge within his fantastic stories. He saw them printed by pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, where only the most open-minded readers would encounter the stories and understand what they foretold.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I didn’t use to, Madam Secretary … but I think I might be coming around,” Berry said, and many in the room allowed themselves a snicker.
“Let’s finish this up. I’ve got an address to make to the American people,” President Hampton said to Tyson, and he filled them in on everything the surviving scientists had relayed about the intensity and duration of the Event.
“And what shall I say about the cause?” she asked.
Tyson stood silently at the dais for a moment, then said, “We haven’t the slightest idea, Madam President. As of this moment, we haven’t even developed any theories.”
“Other than Cthulhu,” she said.
Tyson smiled at the comment, but, seeing the serious look on her face, ceased almost immediately. Then he nodded and said, “Yes, Madam President. Other than Cthulhu.”
New York City
Event + 12 hours
It was two in the morning at the Algonquin, but few guests slept, having been glued all day to the news channels talking around and around the Event, the only update being that the President would address the nation sometime that night. Now it was finally happening, and the world could see how the United States would officially respond to the worst disaster in human history.
Martin Storch sat on the leather couch of his suite, a highball glass filled with Johnnie Walker Black Label in his hand and a lot more in his belly, watching a somber Judith Hampton take the lectern adorned with the Presidential seal.
Staring into the camera, she began:
Good evening. Twelve hours ago, an event of unprecedented violence occurred in the southern Pacific Ocean, killing almost half a billion people. While most of these deaths occurred on the South American continent, many American citizens around the world were among them. There is no nation on Earth completely untouched by this Event, and I have spoken with the leaders of the United Nations Security Council and exchanged commitments to work together in the difficult days to come.
The world’s top scientists are working to discover the nature of this Event—who or what caused it, exactly how many have died, and how we might prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.
As you might expect, thus far we have very few answers to any of these questions. We do not believe that this was a terrorist attack, but rest assured that if any individual or group is found to be behind this murder of unprecedented magnitude, they will swiftly be brought to justice. And it will be rough justice.
Right now our best guess is that it was an extremely rare geomagnetic event, a massive discharge of non-nuclear radiation that swept across the face of our planet. My Secretary of Science and Technology, Doctor Norman Tyson, has demonstrated to myself and to the entire command structure of our nation that, if the radiation had been able to penetrate through Earth as opposed to spreading over its surface, there would not be a human being alive to hear me right now. And, despite all of the power the American people have entrusted to me, I would not be alive to give this address.
May we give thanks that even more lives were not lost to this Event even as we remember those hundreds of millions who fell victim to its merciless charge. I will be holding daily press conferences with Doctor Tyson and Science and Technology Undersecretary Doctor Bob Nye. All questions will be allowed, and all options are on the table. I stand with you and the citizens of every other nation in the world in the conviction that we will mourn our d
ead, learn exactly what happened, and then respond as one to this unexpected and terrifying assault on the very existence of the human race.
May God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
Martin shut off the set before the talking heads could get on and tell the viewer what they themselves had just heard the President say. With one familiar move, he slid the rest of the twelve-year-old whisky right down his throat.
God bless America, he echoed in his mind. That is rich, indeed.
If there were a Supreme Being, would He not have had a hand—indeed the decisive hand, the lone vote needed in favor—in the disaster that had just occurred? A disaster that not only killed almost ten percent of the world’s population, but had also made Colbert and every bloody chat show host go dark for who knew how long? Martin had a book to promote, for fuck’s sake. Set to appear on Colbert that very night—ready to tape the show at 5:30 that afternoon, just to have it knocked off the schedule indefinitely by 24/7 coverage of “The Event.” The newsholes were calling it “The Event” because no one had one confirmed bit of information about it. They were talking and talking and talking without even a shred of insight. This was why he never watched television news. Or rarely, and even then only to mock the dead-eyed anchors for sport.
It was supposed to be Colbert on tonight’s CBS’ Late Night, tomorrow night on The Daily Show, Terry Gross on drive-time public radio the day after that—boom boom boom, books sold, lectures sold out—and now an entire week of exposure at the very highest levels that would have shot his new tome into the stratosphere was gone. Preempted at the very least, possibly rescheduled, most likely canceled entirely. Assistants calling Martin Storch—New York Times bestselling essayist and go-to wit on everything from the new British King’s coronation to the death of a beloved celebrity—assistants calling instead of the bloody hosts themselves.
It was a nightmare. Yes, of course he felt shocked and even nauseated about so many people dying or being incapacitated—he himself had felt the effects, although for some reason not as acutely as Percy—but hell, they were dead or dying and there was nothing to be done for them. What about his new book of essays? What about him?
He called for Percy, but the assistant didn’t respond. Maybe he was out giving blood or some bollocks. The victims of this Event, this tragedy or what have you, needed ocean burials, not donated blood. Widespread aneurysms called for microsurgery, not buckets of perishable body fluids sent from Illinois and Alabama to who knew where.
He refilled his glass, and the liquor went down even smoother this time.
Bugger it all. Martin wasn’t going to be on television or radio for a month, if then. People would probably not feel like browsing bookshops as they panicked and ran about like geese in mating season the next few weeks, especially not for a book from one of the Western world’s chief disillusionists and iconoclasts. So the release of his new and important book would be met with as much fanfare as the latest paperback reprint of Little Dorrit.
And his was a damned fine book, too, even if he said so himself. Part autobiography expressed through his impressions of the events during each year of his life, including those before he could walk or talk. He hadn’t witnessed any of those very early events at first hand, of course, but his insights even on them were still sharper than those of any of his older fellow scribblers. An entire chapter on the writers who had shaped his worldview—Bertrand Russell, David Hume, H.P. Lovecraft. All of it maybe not even being delivered to bookstores now, not with every highway in the country piled high with autos that had plowed into one another at full speed.
He poured another Black Label and downed it. The talking heads were chattering again, and who knew where Percy had skittered off to, but Martin fell soundly asleep on the suite’s couch and so didn’t know what new shit had hit the fan until he awoke, rumpled as hell and twice as grumpy, the next morning.
Louisiana Bayou
Event + 20 hours
From the sleepy depths, the not-quite-PhD Kristen Frommer felt something slimy, something frothy trying to enter her mouth, its tentacles reaching across her cheeks and around her neck—
“GAH!” she shouted as she surfaced to consciousness and saw that a couple of the degenerate cult members were holding up her head and trying to force some weird fizzy concoction down her throat from a carved wooden bowl. She jerked back and knocked the bowl from their hands. God only knew what vile Vodoun concoction was being poured into her mouth.
“Coca-Cola,” cult leader Howard said. “Good for what ails ya.”
The others had a good laugh at this, and after a moment Kristen allowed herself to smile at the words of the squat, olive-skinned man in front of her. Morning in the swamp was chilly and someone had pulled a sweatshirt over her head while she (was passed out) slept. It read Miskatonic University Fightin’ Cephalopods. Why did that sound familiar? Had that been one of the fifty colleges she’d sent her CV to in the vain hope of getting a tenure-track interview?
“You have been asleep a long time, my friend. Since the Call.” He looked into her still-dazed eyes and instructed one of the women to bring her more Coke. “It’s morning now.”
She sat up on the cot and accepted the can of soda from the fishy-eyed cultist and drank some of the sweet and fizzy “medicine.” When she had adequately wet her whistle, she took in the brightening sky and said, “It’s morning? What the hell happened?”
“Tulu’s herald has spoken,” he said, and Kristen noticed that the cultists had gathered around the little camping cot she had been placed on, all of them forming a circle three people deep to listen to their leader and bowing their heads quickly whenever he spoke the name of their god. “Cthulhu has sent His herald to spread the Call throughout the world, bringing pain or euphoria to all, to tell us to prepare ourselves for His imminent arrival.”
“Throughout the world?” Kristen repeated. “But I’m the only one who got that torture. I’m the only one who passed out. You and your people weren’t affected at all!”
“Nope!” Howard said with a smile. “And you were not the only one to feel the herald’s painful Call.” He gestured to two of the barely clad, young but flabby male cultists, who carried over an old-school cathode ray tube television set plugged into a series of extension cords leading back into the trailer, which Kristen could see now had generators chugging next to it. The blue smoke could not have been good for the local flora and fauna, she thought, although the crazy plants seemed to be growing as riotously here as anywhere else in the bog.
One of the men turned the knob with a click and after a few seconds an image appeared to match the sound of a somber-voiced Today Show anchor: “We have new word that the Pentagon last night sent unmanned surveillance aircraft to look for any sign of life on the South American continent, as well as any clues regarding what happened yesterday to kill hundreds of millions of people and sicken billions around the world.”
Kristen gaped at Howard, the one member of the group who didn’t seem batrachian or somehow malformed. She realized that she hadn’t heard any of the others speak a word of English (although they clearly understood it well) except for the en masse “welcome,” otherwise sticking to their consonant salad and the name Tulu. After a moment, she asked, “But … what happened? Was there a terrorist attack?”
“It was the Call, Kristen. Watch. They keep repeating the same thing over and over, but they got nothing to say. No terrorists taking credit, nothing. And we’d know right away—you gotta love the 24-hour news cycle. It’s even on the local-yokel channels we can pick up out here!” he said with a belly laugh.
***
So she watched. She watched collected security footage of people in the United States crumpling to their feet while screaming and holding the sides of their heads as if to keep their brains from exploding through their skulls. After almost a minute, those who had lost consciousness returned to life, looking around dazedly at others going through the same motions.
The
Today anchor then announced that they had new footage from cameras installed along Interstate 80/90 near South Bend, Indiana.
At first in the clip, there was the normal fast flow of traffic, eerily silent as such videos always are. Then, as if on cue, cars small and large careened into each other as 18-wheelers jackknifed and spun off the roadway, taking dozens of vehicles with them. Cars continuing at 70 or 80 miles per hour slammed into those that had already spun out and stalled or run into trucks or were just stopped for no apparent reason. Fireballs bloomed and smoke so thick it resembled black tree trunks billowed in columns into the air. Again and again cars, trucks, vans, big rigs, every vehicle went horribly awry, filling the screen with carnage and ultimately obscuring the view of the camera with the pillars of smoke.
Then the anchor’s face was back. “As of 7 a.m. Eastern Time, we don’t have any confirmed totals of deaths or injuries here in the United States, but our health correspondent, Doctor Timothy Goswami, has some chilling estimates that suggest the effects of this Event may be far from over. Tim?”
“That’s right, Jamie,” Doctor Goswami said as he stood in front of a wall screen showing the interstates criss-crossing a map of the country. “Sources within the DoT gave me what they called ‘conservative estimates’ stating that an average of 20 million vehicles are on US roads at any time, more than half of those on interstates. Regarding county and city roadways, reports are coming in that many drivers and passengers have died in collisions or one-car accidents, so it can be assumed that the total on the nation’s interstates—where speed limits are as high as 80 miles per hour, with most motorists driving faster—will be very significant, as many as 7 or 8 million people dead.”