by Al Halsey
Frank turned on Tina in a rage, then slammed down some hard copy pictures of a Martian hill.
“Not tracks. There’s nothing, I repeat, nothing alive up here. Just us. And some very overactive imaginations. When Heather popped that lock, the air pressure stirred and kicked up sand. It’s a coincidence. That’s all. Random movement of sand,” Frank shouted.
“They were tracks,” she whimpered. “I can’t take this anymore.”
“We have our new orders. You and Connor are going to suit up and take one of the MRV’s out to this rock pile, 29 kilometers that direction. Some egghead back home thinks he has found a brick wall sticking out of a pile of rock. Take some photos, prove how stupid they are, and get back here,” he said angrily and pointed east.
“I won’t,” she said. Tina held her face in her hands. “Not going out there. They’re out there. There’s no hope. They’re watching.”
Frank knelt beside her, and then shoved his palm hard against her chest. Compressed against the bulkhead she gasped for breath.
“You’re going to. Or else. Understand? We are astronauts. This isn’t a Girl Scout camp out. Now saddle up and get moving. We will monitor you the whole way; stay in communication,” the Commander ordered.
“Or what?” she snapped, as the tears cascaded down her cheeks. “What will you do?”
He tensed, his fingers tensed near her throat as his teeth clenched. “I will…kill you. I won’t tolerate mutiny. Insubordination. Just do your god damned job. Control the fear.”
Mike’s voice came across strongly in the bud. “We got round one of the telemetry data from the MRV. Five by five, Commander. However, I’m a little concerned about you asking questions about mutiny. I’ll run it across our JAG team, see what they say. Don’t do anything crazy, ok? This will work out.”
“It’d better,” Frank grumbled as he watched the remote monitor attached to Tina’s helmet. She and Connor drove east across the rocky Martian terrain. The large black wheels of the MRV spewed dust and pebbles into the air. It left a long, thick cloud of dust as he switched views to the camera in the cart.
“Just stay frosty, Commander. The President…” Frank clicked the screen and interrupted the DPack. He pulled the earpiece out and tossed it onto a counter. Focused on the screen, minutes turned to several hours as the MRV snaked slowly across the desolate landscape. Darwin came up behind and sat quietly where he watched the progress over Frank’s shoulder.
Frank microwaved another mug of coffee while Darwin yawned repeatedly.
“I’m gonna go clean up, catch a quick power nap,” the Mission Specialist said quietly. “Not sleeping well. Back in a few.”
“Alright then,” the Mission Commander said. He looked askance at Darwin. It felt like something was wrong. Several more minutes passed and a hill appeared on the horizon. He recognized it through the screen as the one from the photos. The screen fuzzed a bit as something disrupting the transmission.
“The destination is up ahead,” Connor’s voice crackled in the speaker.
“Connor. Tina. Can you read me?” Frank asked.
A few seconds later he heard a reply, distorted from static. “We hear you…interference of some kind…we see the hill, proceeding on foot,” Connor said.
“…shouldn’t be…watching…” Tina’s muffled voice came through the bud. “…I can feel them…watching…more tracks…”
The screen began to distort as the two moved up a small sandy rise to the round stone outcropping. Static flickered and shot across the screen as the two moved cautiously around the hill. The end of a smooth, cracked wall became evident. The static increased as the camera panned up and down, the picture fractured by bursts of static. Broken words were barely audible. “…cave in…entrance…wall…worked stone…” was all that could be made out of Connor’s voice. Then the images pieced together bright lights: head lamps and hand lights. Suddenly, the screen went black.
“Darwin, I lost the signal. Edders?” Frank called into the intercom. “Darwin?” he said, then cycled through the views on the internal cameras. Several rooms were dark. The med bay had those two body bags stored in a cold, Plexiglas locker. Then he hit a camera in the living quarters. The light in the shower stall silhouetted the Mission Specialist’s figure. Steam rose in the booth and Frank turned back to the screen. Tina’s camera showed only static. Five minutes turned to ten and ten turned to twenty as he sat: a quiet sentinel without any information.
He clicked the intercom again. “Edders. I need you up here,” he ordered, and waited for a reply. Static flashed and Tina’s camera began to transmit images as she ran toward the MRV.
“Oh...god…” she shouted, her voice cracked through the distortion. “Connor’s down…He’s gone…”
“Tina, repeat,” Frank commanded as her camera became clearer. The MRV was in motion. It turned around and retreated back across the large wheel tracks left earlier. “Repeat, please.”
As she drove away from the hill, the picture began to stabilize and Frank could hear her ragged breaths.
“Not me. Not me!” she screamed.
“Tina, I need you to calm down and tell me what happened to Connor. Calm down. You’re breathing too hard. Cut your mixture,” Frank ordered. “Where is Connor?”
“He’s gone. This thing…like a…protoplasm…I don’t know, it enveloped him and I ran. It’s not gonna take me, Frank. Not going to die like that,” she cried. The camera in her helmet panned down and he recognized the silver handle of a demolition charge.
Her white glove grasped the handle and he could hear an audible breath, long and deep as she pulled the handle. “Tina! For God’s sake, don’t do it!” he screamed, as the screen flashed and went dark. “Tina! Tina!” he shouted.
A control panel buzzed. The Spirit of St. Louis somewhere far overhead in orbit, radars and infrared scanners warned of an explosion far below.
“God dammit,” he snarled, body tense as his eyes began to tear up.
Frank hit the com. “Darwin! I need you up here right now!” he hollered, then panned the internal cameras. The shower still flowed. He sprinted down several short corridors and skidded to a stop inside the washroom. The Mission Specialist’s form was clearly visible through the transparent door. He was dressed in his white jumpsuit, and stood motionless as the water ran over his body. The steam rose in clouds and fogged in the room. “Darwin? What are you doing?”
Frank approached cautiously. “Edders? Can you hear me?” No answer. He cautiously opened the shower door.
Darwin hung, a length of insulated wire tied to the shower head and wrapped around his neck. His skin was pale, lips blue, eyes rolled so only bloodshot whites showed as the water ran over him.
“No!” Frank screamed and tore at the cord around the other man’s neck. He tried to lift him up to take the pressure off his neck. He fought, yanked on the line until he pulled the fixture out of the ceiling. Water gushed, no longer governed by the shower head in a single stream. Frank reached up, fumbled for the handle, and shut it off.
“Breathe, damn you!” He screamed, then listened for breath and checked for a pulse. Neither was found. He breathed into Darwin and began futile cycles of CPR. Several sets into it, he realized that Darwin’s heart would not start without a defibrillator. He raced to medical. He unlatched the door, tripped over equipment scattered on the floor. “What the hell?” he screamed, the contents of the room a jumble.
The door to the cooler was open: the body bags gone. For a few seconds he stood, panicked. He was the only one left alive. In the last half hour, Medical had been torn apart and the two corpses had vanished. He took a couple steps backwards to the door, and ran back down the corridor to command.
“This is not happening,” he whispered, then crouched behind a console to catch his breath. “Not happening.”
He took a key from a pocket in his jumpsuit, entered it into a small lock and a panel opened. Inside was a black case. He fumbled at it and it dropped to the floor. On the
side was a small digital lock. He entered a secret code known only to him. The latch popped.
Frank took the one weapon on the base in his hand along with an extra magazine. Thirty shots of subsonic 9mm. Frank jacked a round in the chamber and cautiously returned to medical. He held the gun in front of him. The chaos in the room was still as he remembered, and on the floor was a defibrillator.
He grabbed the defibrillator and advanced cautiously back to the shower. After several shocks and injections of epinephrine, he realized his crew was dead, but he was not alone.
Mike pounded the console, and watched the screens in Mission Control as the information streamed to Houston from Mars. The events he saw were 18 minutes old. He screamed in frustration.
Frank unplugged the charger for the second MRV and settled into the seat. The distant sun had begun to set. The recirculation pump hummed and he touched the throttle, then followed the tire marks left by Tina and Connor’s MRV. Under the dim light, he drove. He stopped once to inspect the strange marks that resembled tracks. They led across the wheel marks left by his crew, on top of the sandy soil. He glanced north, then south.
“Bullshit,” he cursed, then kicked and smoothed the marks with his boot before he resumed his journey.
He drove for another hour and came to a smoking crater gouged in the reddish-tinted sands. Broken and twisted equipment and pieces of the MRV were strewn across the landscape. In the middle of the basin smoke wafted upward, and made a tiny trail that disappeared into the Martian sky. A couple of the pieces on the sand were chunks of Tina, shredded from the blast of the demolition charge.
Frank shook his head angrily, tried to control his breathing, but he was panicked.
“Why?” is all he could say, and he returned to the MRV and gunned the throttle. Mind numbed, he continued, and followed the tire tracks until that familiar hill was on the horizon. He slowed the rover and could see more of the marks in the sand. The tracks were much like those of giant crabs that had danced and shuffled. Several sets ran north, then south, or simply started and stopped in the sand and appeared from nowhere. A cluster of the marks dominated the landscape, but they stopped like an invisible wall had halted their progress about fifteen meters from the stone outcrop.
The MRV skidded to a stop. Red dust flowed past the vehicle and Frank set his feet once again on Mars. The optics in his helmet closely scanned the rock wall. From this angle, he could see how smooth and uniform it was. Pistol in hand, he moved towards the wall, then discovered a small hole near the west end of it. His ear bud inside his helmet buzzed and popped. “Connor, is that you? Report.”
Something that mimicked human vocalization responded. “By the grace of Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young! He watches us. Protects us! But the wards prevent us. In the ruins, the ruins, the Eye of the Great Race of Yith. Retrieve it. Be rewarded,” the voice buzzed. “Live.”
“What are you?” Frank shrieked. He spun around and looked towards the horizon.
“The Eye sees the gate. The Gate opens to the Great Cthulhu! Cthulhu! Cthulhu! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! Dead, he dreams. He dreams of us. Dreams of opening the gate.”
“There is no gate! Show yourself!” Frank screamed again. He leveled the pistol at the horizon, and looked back and forth. He felt something behind him. When he spun, he saw nothing. He tripped and tumbled. “Bullshit! This is some trick!”
On the horizon something stirred and bobbed as a distant spot moved. The insect voice, some diabolical mimic of a human, continued. “Go below, into the ruins. The red ruins. Bring us the eye and live. La! Shub-Niggurath be praised!” A spot on the horizon took flight and the Commander watched it: the optics in his helmet zoomed in. His chest tightened with panic as several dark figures took to the Martian sky. Giant wings unfurled. He screamed. It was animalistic. Primal. With a mix of rage and fear, he sprinted towards the wall of reddish stone.
Slightly to the right of the wall, a rough, dark hole in the ground had boot prints that disappeared into it. In a moment of weakness, he went down into the hole. He was in a huge stairwell, cut from ancient stone. Bas reliefs of unrecognizable characters and figures covered every wall. Something about the oddly angled architecture, the inhuman figures of bulbous cones with four appendages that had been carved, disturbed him at a primal level. Distracted by the demonic images, he stumbled deeper into the well.
The lamps on his helmet activated as his foot touched something soft, and he looked down in the artificial light. It was Connor’s body, his uniform ripped and melted like he had been dipped in acid. The helmet was cracked, and some type of tan-colored fungus protruded. Frank reached down, then lifted his crewman’s head. Through the faceplate he could see the helm, stuffed with fungus that wriggled. An eyeball appeared: a bloodshot green-tinted orb that blinked. An oval shaped-orifice opened and screamed inhumanly, a keen shriek that chilled his soul. He screamed himself in abject terror, and ran back up the stairs and out of the hole.
As he tumbled onto the surface of Mars, he saw several figures that milled about on the cluster of tracks. Now closer, the inhuman fiends were highlighted by the sun. They were about the size of a human, with pinkish fungi-like bodies similar to that of a crustacean with multiple sets of arms. The head consisted of dozens of wriggling, ropy, antenna-like structures. Wings furled and unfurled. Thin membranes stretched: the light showed thick veins as they danced. Frank screamed again, and one of the creatures held an astronaut’s helmet and again he heard the voice buzz.
“We cannot approach. Enter the catacombs. Retrieve the Eye! Live! Shub-Niggurath be praised! The Black Goat of the Woods! Long we have waited on Yuggoth for the hands of men to bring us the Eye!” The flock of evil things cavorted and skipped at that revelation. Frank raised his pistol, but the things continued to caper like decayed crows over carrion.
“Bullshit!” he screamed as the pistol bucked as he emptied the magazine. Several of the monsters took wing. Several others dropped to the ground, and dark fluids spurted onto the sands. Several others watched evilly as their comrades fell. The clip ejected and he jammed in the second clip, short one cartridge. Frank squeezed off several more shots and another demon fell. It flopped and twitched. He retreated to put his back against the stone outcrop and catch his breath.
The monster with the helmet had been shot. Another picked up Tina’s helmet. The parody of human speech buzzed again. “We have waited for an eternity for our prize. You will do what we say or die. The Mi-Go is patient! Cthulhu awaits and dreams of us. You primates have never seen us. Your archaic technologies cannot record us. We sail the distance between the planets.”
As the sun set, Frank watched. The rosy hues of the sand reflected the weak, yellow light of the sun. So far from his wife. So far from the ocean. So far from Oregon. He missed Earth. He missed the salt air.
The bodies of the dead abominations decayed and disappeared before his eyes. “Let me leave,” he demanded as the sun vanished. It faded and cast and eerie light.
“No!” buzzed the inhuman response. “Bring us the Eye, you live! We let you live!”
Frank pondered the thought of going back into the dark hole. The dead crewman was now infested with an inhuman fungus that waved and wriggled and winked. He unloaded the rest of his bullets at the flock. Several more fell onto the red sands. “No. I’m not going back down there.”
“We’ll wait forever,” was the inhuman response. “Forever!”
“You may have to.” He sat. The lamps in his helmet showed the monsters as they shuffled and hovered at the edge of his lights. In a tiny pocket on his arm, he took out the one last bullet and fed it into the gun. He gazed at a laminated photograph of his wife and himself. They stood on the beach at Lincoln City. He breathed deep, watched the stars as they appeared then put the barrel of the gun against his helmet. Frank missed his wife. He missed the ocean.
The press was furious. Mike tried to stay calm. “This is my last question. I have a
lot to do.”
A hundred voices shouted questions. Finally, he pointed at a reporter. “We didn’t see this micro-meteor shower until it hit. Space exploration is inherently dangerous. That’s all.”
He returned to his office and ignored the shouts: he felt anger mixed with sadness, but a new fear had overtaken him. Fran closed and locked the door, then looked at a still photo. A print of one of the last pictures of data DPacked from Frank’s helmet. It showed Tina’s disembodied helmet as it floated above the Martian surface. Whatever supported it was unable to be recorded.
“What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men…” H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Sturmbannführer
Part I
Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu
Lukas Eichmann looked down into the valley. From his vantage point on the snowy mountain in Tibet, the world lay before him.
The sun reflected off of the snow that surrounded him. A few wisps of clouds were pushed across the sky by the wind. Some originated from the peaks that cut into the sky around him. This was the first day in several that snow had not fallen and clouds had not blocked out the sun. He adjusted the straps on his pack, pulled his gloves tight, and shifted his goggles.
The air was so crisp and clean, yet so thin. His lungs ached from the effort to draw in breath. This break from the climb was a welcome relief. He did not like to look weak in front of his troops.
Lukas’s men were gathered around a small stove. A mess kit tin of hot tea was passed from soldier to soldier. Several shared a tin of hard biscuits. Those who did not eat or drink, double-checked their MP 40 submachine guns.
He reached down and pulled his Walther P 38 from its holster. The heavy glove made the gun feel strange and disconnected from his hand as he held it. Lukas did not pull the magazine from the pistol because he didn’t want to drop it in the snow.