The Lovecraft Squad: Dreaming

by Stephen Jones

  The cultists pushed back their cowls, dazed. The less human ones—those with protuberant eyes and fishlike mouths—slumped to the ground as if their puppet strings had been severed. The knife fell from the limp fingers of the priest, hitting the stone with a dull clang.

  Elwood turned to his men and motioned them back down the tunnel. “Let’s get out of here.”

  It was the rookie who asked, “You mean we’re not going to—?”

  O’Hara cut him off. “Get your ass in gear, kid.”

  They were silent until they reached the sewer exit and once again stood on the bank of the Miskatonic, where the fog had lifted, revealing galaxies of stars and a welcome half-moon. “What the hell just happened, Frank?” asked O’Hara.

  Looking at his friend, Elwood shook his head. “I don’t know, but . . . somehow Kennedy stopped them.”

  Kretzmer said, “How could the president be here? How is that even possible?”

  “I’ve got no idea. But—he was.”

  As they made their way back through the silent streets of Arkham to their car, only Jefferson, the new agent, spoke. “Are all the missions like this?”

  VI

  Bobby sat on one of the couches in the Oval Office, listening as his brother spoke while pacing the room. Apparently Jack didn’t care if Hoover heard this conversation.

  “I can’t explain it, but I was there, Bobby. Completely there, in the midst of this . . . this ritual. Something big—something just impossibly huge, like—like a god—was waiting. I knew it wanted to come into our world, and it would have, if they’d finished what they were doing, but . . . well, I think it stopped because of me. I don’t know how I did it, but they didn’t touch me.”

  Bobby weighed his words carefully before speaking. “It was Halloween last night, Jack, it’s easy to get worked up on that night and have some pretty intense dreams—”

  His brother cut him off, turning to glare. “This was not a dream. This happened.”

  Bobby held out a placating hand. “Okay, okay . . .”

  Sitting beside his brother, Jack leaned forward. “Let’s say this was not a dream, okay? We know it’s been happening since we came to Washington.”

  “I’ve been reading through some of the files of the Human Protection League, and it turns out that a lot of Washington was built along occult lines . . .”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I’m not.” Bobby gave his brother a half-smile and continued. “Freemasons had a big hand in the city’s layout, and incorporated all kinds of symbols in the design, including a lot pertaining to the zodiac.”

  Jack eyed his brother before laughing. “You’re one of the most rational people I know. Do you believe it?”

  “Well, the Lovecraft Squad certainly does. They take all of this stuff very seriously, even brought in special experts who consulted on the best location to put their offices. So it’s possible, I suppose, that this is something you’ve always had, but it took this place to . . . well, activate it.”

  Jack nodded, and then stopped abruptly. “Wait, the little boy . . .”

  “Boy?”

  “You can verify this whole thing, Bobby. The boy I took out of there, the one they were going to sacrifice—I dropped him off outside a police station here in Washington, the one on Indiana next to the Criminal Justice building. At least I think I did. Check with them and ask if they found a child on their doorstep in the middle of the night.”

  Bobby pulled a pad and pen out of his pocket, jotted the note. “Will do.” Bobby put the pad away, started to say something, rose, paced, and finally turned to his brother. “Jack . . . these things the Lovecraft Squad fights—monsters, even gods from other dimensions—the only thing that’s ever stopped these things in the past has been an extraordinary amount of fire-power, and even that’s usually just a temporary deterrent. If you can stop them somehow without guns or explosives . . .”

  “. . . Then we can do to them what we did to Khrushchev in Cuba last year.” Jack grinned.

  Bobby somehow couldn’t work up the same enthusiasm.

  Hoover pumped Elwood’s hand. “Good work on putting down that ritual last night, Elwood. I knew I could count on you.” Hoover released the hand, settled into his desk chair, and waved the agent into the seat opposite.

  “Thank you, sir,” Elwood said, as he lowered himself onto the cool leather, “but we didn’t actually do anything.”

  Hoover frowned. “Then who did?”

  “This man stopped the ritual—the man I told you about before, who I saw on the tower. He was there again.”

  “Did you see him properly this time?”

  “Clearly, sir.” Elwood took a deep breath and said, “It was John F. Kennedy.”

  Hoover stared for a second in silent disbelief. “John F. Kennedy . . . as in, President Kennedy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And how do you explain that?”

  Elwood shrugged. “I can’t. But I saw him clearly, and it was President Kennedy.”

  Hoover steepled his fingers and peered over them at Elwood. “Tell me exactly what he did.”

  “We came upon this Esoteric Order of Dagon ritual in a cavern beneath Arkham. There were maybe thirty participants, including a priest. As we arrived, the priest was about to sacrifice a child—six or seven, I couldn’t be sure of the gender. Suddenly Kennedy came walking forward out of the darkness, and everything just kind of froze. He picked the child up, turned around, and walked back into the darkness.”

  “And you have no idea where he went with the child?”

  Elwood reluctantly shook his head. “No, sir. I couldn’t see him on the far side of the cavern.”

  “So you also don’t know why he stopped the ritual.”

  Blinking in surprise, Elwood said, “To save the child.”

  “Or to deliver it personally to whatever was waiting for the sacrifice.”

  “What?” Elwood wanted to tug at his collar, get some air, cool off, stop the world from spinning. “No, sir, I’m sure that wasn’t—”

  Hoover cut him off. “Why are you sure? You can’t tell me what happened to that child.”

  “But . . . I . . .” Elwood broke off as he realized Hoover was right about that much, at least—he didn’t know where Kennedy had gone, or what had happened to the child. Was there a chance Hoover was right? But no, he’d felt a distinct change in the atmosphere after Kennedy had left . . . but would Hoover believe that? Would he want to believe that? He needed more proof. Maybe someone else who had seen Kennedy, although O’Hara, Jefferson, and Kretzmer had seen no more than he had.

  Randolph Carter. As loathe as he was to think it, he had to talk to the leader of the Dream Division. If Carter still had a foot in the Dreamscape, he might have seen something too.

  “Thank you, Agent Elwood.” Hoover was standing up, extending a hand, indicating the interview was over. “I’ll look forward to reading your full report later this afternoon.”

  “You’ll have it, sir.” Elwood shook the FBI director’s hand.

  He felt Hoover’s eyes searing his back as he left the office.

  VII

  Carter inhabited a small room that adjoined the HPL’s main lab; not only did he require almost constant medical attention, he was also monitored by the League’s scientists to make sure he never returned from the Dreamscape in the company of anything else.

  Audiences with Carter had to be requested personally with Director Brady a day in advance, and were often rejected; Carter’s mood had as much to do with it as his health. Elwood was almost hoping his latest request for a meeting wouldn’t be accepted, but it was. He proceeded to Carter’s room at the arranged time, where the dreamer’s ever-faithful assistant, Dorothy Williams, led Elwood in.

  Carter was seated today—during their only prior encounter, he’d been bedridden—and was probably as close to cheerful as he ever got. His boy’s body had wizened with age, and he still wore the hefty canvas mittens and bronze metal eye-patch
that hid the parts of himself that were no longer human. He eyed Elwood with genuine interest as he entered, before saying: “Thank you, Dorothy. That will be all.”

  The middle-aged woman quietly closed the door behind her as she left the office, but not before giving Elwood a mistrustful stare.

  “Ah, Special Agent Elwood, nice to see you again.”

  “Call me Frank.”

  “Thank you, Frank. Please don’t concern yourself about Dorothy. She’s fiercely protective of me and my work.” Carter leaned slightly forward in his chair, although the movement seemed to cause him some discomfort. “Am I correct in assuming that you’re here to talk about the president’s role in the Dreamscape?”

  For an instant, Elwood could only gape. When he found his voice again, he asked, “You’ve seen him too, I take it?”

  “Oh yes. Our Jack is nearly as gifted at night-traveling as I am.”

  Now it was Elwood’s turn to lean forward. “Okay, that’s part of what I don’t understand: if he’s in the Dreamscape, why do I keep seeing him? I mean, I don’t see you.”

  “I travel much farther than Jack. There are worlds beyond worlds, dimensions you cannot begin to imagine. With all of that available to you, why remain tethered to this realm?”

  “Because,” Elwood said, measuring his words, “you care about what happens here.”

  Carter nodded his scarred head. “He does. I don’t.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Carter’s features suddenly darkened, and for a second so did the entire room. Elwood, who had experienced far more dangerous and mysterious events, shivered as the temperature dropped and something like a cloud of dread filled the chamber.

  It vanished as quickly as it had materialized, leaving Elwood stunned and Carter completely unmoved, as if he’d not even noticed. “I am here, Agent Elwood, because I am afraid. In the Dreamscape, things are . . . stirring. When I am within that sphere, it is increasingly difficult for me to move safely. And when I return, my pursuers frequently try to follow me back.”

  “Was that one just now, trying to break through?”

  Carter smiled, bitterly, before saying, “They can sense when I am agitated.”

  Elwood was abruptly anxious to leave the room, so he moved onto his real reason for coming. “Mr. Carter, what’s happening when Kennedy confronts the Armies of the Night? Why do they seem to back off?”

  “Surely you’ve experienced the president’s immense charisma, have you not?” Elwood nodded, and Carter continued. “That’s how his psychic gifts manifest in our world. But with the Great Old Ones, Kennedy seems to have an unprecedented ability to control them. Or not control, but . . . pacify.”

  “Is that possible?” Elwood had experienced the dark gods personally, had felt terror so extreme he could only wait, gripped in its frozen fist, immobilized, until it passed. The idea that something so powerful could be rendered placid was almost unimaginable.

  “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but . . . Hoover thinks Kennedy is colluding with the enemy.”

  Carter snorted. “The great tragedy of Hoover is that he sees enemies in the wrong places. And unfortunately, Director Brady reports directly to him.”

  “Does Brady concur with Hoover’s viewpoint?”

  Carter thought carefully for a moment, as a strange clacking noise came from beneath those concealing mittens. “Let’s just say . . . Director Brady has his own secrets.”

  At that moment, Dorothy Williams entered the room and pointedly held the door open behind her. The audience was obviously over. Elwood stood to go, thanking Carter. He started to hold out a hand, then remembered the mittens and instead thrust his hands into his pants’ pockets. He was halfway out the door, already relieved, when Carter called after him in that strange piping voice, “I’m sorry I can’t help, Agent Elwood.”

  “You already did, Mr. Carter.”

  VIII

  Date: November 10, 1963

  To: All agents, Human Protection League

  From: John Edgar Hoover, FBI Director

  Subject: HUMAN INTERACTION WITH THE ENEMY

  I have recently received a number of reports of sightings of an individual who is VERY highly placed in the United States government in the company of key players in the Armies of the Night. If you should encounter this individual in any surveillance of enemy forces, DO NOT ENGAGE. Until we can correctly ascertain the full scope of this individual’s involvement, he must be considered extremely dangerous. Please mark any reports of such encounters as HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL and for my eyes only.

  As an additional note, be aware that November 11 should be considered a significant date for Old Ones activities. When the Gregorian calendar took over from the Julian calendar, Halloween (or Samhain) shifted eleven days, and some cultists still celebrate the day according to the old Julian calendar. I urge you to exercise extreme caution and be on your most vigilant on this day.

  Elwood slid the memo across the battered wooden pizzeria tabletop to Bobby Kennedy, glancing around nervously. He’d carried the memo out of HPL headquarters at great personal risk, the same risk he’d taken calling the attorney general’s private number to arrange this meeting.

  Bobby read the memo and looked up at Elwood. “Thank you for alerting me to this, Frank. I know Hoover would throw a fit if he knew I’d seen it.”

  “He would, sir.”

  Waving the mimeographed memo, Bobby said, “Let me ask you something, since you seem to have Hoover’s ear on this stuff: do you have any thoughts about how he plans to deal with this?”

  “That’s why I wanted to see you right away. The director is completely convinced that your brother is seeking an alliance with the Great Old Ones in order to entrench his own power. I think it’s possible that . . .” Elwood broke off, unable to complete the sentence. What he was about to suggest was treasonous, terrible, unthinkable, yet he believed Hoover was quite capable of it. He gulped and continued. “. . . he intends to harm to the president of the United States.”

  Looking away, Bobby said, “How would he do that?”

  “I can’t say for sure. But he’d set it up so that blame would never return to him. He bears no love for the CIA, so he might try to find a CIA agent or informant he could use as his patsy. Somebody like that could be placed at a location where the president will be, but the real killer would be hidden somewhere else.”

  Bobby chewed a lip, thinking. “We’d be looking at a public place, then, probably something out in the open.”

  “I’d guess so, sir.”

  “Do you think Director Brady is involved in any of this?” Bobby asked bluntly.

  Elwood thought for a moment. “I’m not positive, but I don’t think so.”

  Bobby began folding the memo. “You don’t mind if I keep this, Agent Elwood?”

  “It’s all yours.”

  Shoving the folded note into a pocket, Bobby rose and offered a hand to Elwood. “Thank you again, Agent Elwood. The nation is grateful, and so am I.”

  Elwood accepted the hand. “Thank you, sir. Just promise me you’ll keep the president safe—he may well be the most important man in human history.”

  The note Bobby slid across the president’s desk had four words on it: Don’t go to Texas.

  Jack looked at the note, raised his eyes to his brother’s serious expression, and said into the phone, “I’m sorry, but I need to call you back.” He hung up and said, softly, “What’s this about?”

  Bobby tilted his head toward the Rose Garden. Jack took the hint, rising from behind the desk to follow his sibling outside. When they were away from the White House, Bobby said, “There’s a lot of stuff happening down there in the Lovecraft Squad. A lot of stuff that has to do with you. The agents there think you’re some kind of superman.” Bobby finished with a nervous laugh.

  “I don’t know about a superman, but . . .” Jack stopped walking and turned to Bobby, excited. “You know, those HPL boys have been fighting thi
s war for a long time now, just barely holding even . . . but I think I can end the war. I can’t explain how I know that or even how I can do it, but . . . all I know is that in the dreams, I can stop the fighting, and I think maybe that’s enough.”

  “So do a lot of the agents.”

  Jack thought for a few seconds before asking, “So what does this have to do with the trip down to Texas to raise more funds?”

  Bobby knew what he was about to suggest was crazy at least, seditious at best. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and said, “Because some of those agents think Hoover’s got it in for you.”

  “Hoover? But I’m winning his war for him!”

  “Unfortunately, he doesn’t see it that way. Don’t forget, this is the same man who’s seen communists lurking in every corner for the last twenty years. He thinks you’re working with the enemy. I’m hearing that he might be waiting for an opportunity out in the open, so he can have something set up that won’t connect back to him . . .”

  Bobby trailed off, unable to go on. His brother eyed him closely for a few seconds and then said, “Bobby, are you actually trying to suggest that the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation might engineer the assassination of a president of the United States?”

  “I don’t know. It sounds crazy, but—”

  His brother cut him off, with a vehemence that surprised Bobby. “It doesn’t just sound crazy, Bobby—it sounds impossible! Am I supposed to never leave Washington—hell, never even leave the Oval Office—again because you think Hoover might try something?” Jack caught himself then and lowered his voice. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but I just can’t cancel this trip. Lyndon’s counting on me, and you know we could use Texas for next year’s re-election bid . . .”

  Bobby nodded. “I know. Just promise me one thing: I don’t care what Hoover’s got on either one of us, we need to retire that son-of-a-bitch after you get re-elected. He’s older than the Moon and he really doesn’t like us.”