The Lovecraft Squad: Dreaming

by Stephen Jones

  The others heard it too. Petrushka and Wyatt raised their heavy MP5s, turning. “Where’s that coming from?” one of them whispered.

  They saw it, then, as it crawled out of the left-hand tunnel before them. They all trained their flashlight beams, trying to comprehend the legless, skinless thing. It possessed a torso, two arms, hands, a head, but nothing below a trailing spinal cord that dragged on the ground like an ossified tail. It pulled itself along toward them, its jaws clacking together with each movement. A gelatinous mass that might have been an eye swiveled, fixing on them.

  “What the hell,” somebody said.

  Wyatt brought the assault rifle up to his shoulder, about to fire when Jefferson saw the motion and threw out a hand. “Wait,” he whispered.

  Wyatt looked at him, incredulous.

  The crawling monstrosity lurched forward and snapped at Jefferson’s feet as he leapt back. His fingers were trembling, but still moved rapidly as he plucked a folded sheet from a pocket, opened it, raised his flashlight and began to read. “Ogthrod ai’f . . .”

  He broke off as the crawling thing screamed, a sound of such piercing agony that Masterton wasn’t the only agent who staggered. Jefferson quickly recovered, and raised his voice to shout over that uncanny, nerve-rending shriek: “Geb’l-ee’h . . .”

  The scream became a choked gasp as the thing began to smoke. Emboldened, Jefferson read faster. “Yog-Sothoth . . . ’ngah’ng ai’y . . .”

  Now the creature was almost piteous, as it writhed in the thick cloud of glowing, green vapor gushing from it. Jefferson cried out: “. . . ZHRO!”

  The monstrosity vanished in a final geyser of luminescent smoke. Within a few seconds, only a steaming mound of bluish-gray dust was left.

  The agents released a collective breath. As Jefferson lowered the page, Wyatt said, “Maybe this won’t be so hard after all.”

  Jefferson turned on him, stern. “Do you think that thing could have torn apart Shakman, or Boyer, or Doughty?”

  Wyatt looked away. “No, sir.”

  “We can’t afford to get overconfident. Got me, agent?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jefferson stepped around the smoldering remains to the mouth of the tunnel the half-thing had slithered from. “It came from here, so we go this way. Wyatt, Petrushka . . .”

  They stepped in, leading with the MP5s. Jefferson, Reyes, Masterton, and Olivetti followed.

  Because they moved cautiously, Masterton had time to examine the walls more closely. Interwoven with the cold, chipped, gray stone were darker patches in streaks running several feet. It took her a few seconds to recognize these striations as ancient, long-dried blood, left by something mangled that had dragged itself—or been dragged by others—through these caverns.

  She looked up as they slowed, still several yards from where this tunnel spilled into another large space. Petrushka, at the front, had stopped and raised a hand. At first, she didn’t know why—and then she heard it too: a horrible keening, from not one but many inhuman throats. The sound was distant, plainly before them, terrifyingly agonized, and alien.

  After a few, nerveless seconds they began to move forward again. They left the tunnel and entered a space that was far larger than the last. The walls weren’t curved, but jutted out at odd angles; entrances to other tunnels dotted the perimeter. Their flashlight beams couldn’t find the ceiling, but the floor was rife with openings, each about six feet in diameter. Despite the chill, a thick odor infested the place—that smell of decay and sulfur.

  Some of the wailing sounds came from the tunnels spilling out into the chamber, but some also echoed up from the openings in the ground.

  “What is this?” Wyatt muttered.

  Jefferson half-whispered, “This was once used as a sort of holding area. It was said to have been designed by a man named Joseph Curwen, who advised the original Washington architects on some of the occult functions.” Jefferson turned to make a chalk mark beside the tunnel they’d exited from before returning his attention to the floor.

  Petrushka asked, “What are the holes for?”

  As he inched toward the edge of one, Jefferson said, “Keeping things that’ve been called up.” Leaning forward, he used his flashlight beam to peer warily into the nearest pit.

  Something howled as the light hit it. Jefferson fell back, shaken. “Dear God.”

  “What is it?” Petrushka said.

  “Whatever it is, it’s not finished.”

  Masterton found a pile of fungus-covered wood against one wall, but there was something else there as well, something large and bound in vellum. She used her boot to push the spongy wood aside—which she realized must have once been a bench—and retrieved a large book. She let it fall open at random and saw it was some sort of journal, the pages covered with fading handwritten script. She read:

  1 Dec. ’76. Latest assay of Dragon’s Head more successful, but I do fear I’m working with damaged materials, since that which has been resurrected is not whole. The essential saltes provided by Moreby are either contaminated or were not gained in whole. However, brought W. down to view the results, and he is most intrigued by the possible militaristic uses of this research.

  3 Dec. ’76. Today W. himself visited and spoke the words of the ascending node, being then most astonished with the results. The thing thusly raised was a minion of the great Yog-Sothoth, an abomination of considerable size and strength. However, W. could not control it and so it was up to me to speak the words for returning it to its saltes. W. left distressed; I know that after his defeat at New York, he’d hoped to find some way to strengthen his troops. I do hope he will not despair and see that this research does indeed offer much to the fight against the British dogs.

  Masterton looked up from the book as realization sunk in. The year must have been 1776, and was it possible that “W.” was . . . dear God . . .

  Gunfire. The rapid small explosions of an MP5, amplified by the rock walls. Shouts. Screams, some human.

  Something with tentacles lunged at Masterton from the side, and she dropped the book and her flashlight to pump buckshot into it. It fell back, parts of it blown away, but then it came at her again. A second blast reduced it to pieces—which continued to crawl along the stone floor toward her. She staggered back, cracking the shotgun open to remove the spent casings. She was inserting fresh cartridges when she heard, over the cacophony surrounding her, a clear, strong voice reading out: “Ogthrod ai’f . . .”

  Of course. She found her flashlight nearby, snatched it up, risked a look around the chamber.

  Petrushka was surrounded by shambling, staggering things. Some had once been human; others had been human nightmares, impossible conglomerations of wings and claws and mass that should never have been seen outside of a dream. The MP5 was hurting them, but not stopping them. Petrushka kept firing, thirty rounds—until the trigger clicked on an empty chamber. As he tried to slam in a new magazine, he didn’t see the thing behind him that sprang out from one of the side tunnels, snagged his ankle, and pulled him off-balance. Screaming, he vanished into the gaping blackness.

  Wyatt and Reyes had taken up defensive positions on either side of Jefferson, as he read from the incantation. The sound of the MP5 and Reyes’s M16 rifle nearly drowned out the words, but Jefferson kept on. “Yog-Sothoth . . . ’ngah’ng ai’y . . . zhro!”

  The shuffling, grasping monstrosities all dissolved into piles of dust littering the floor of the chamber. For a moment there was silence . . .

  And then the next wave emerged from the tunnels and the pits.

  Masterton felt something on her shoulder, stumbled off, and spun to see a long, gelatinous limb extending up from the nearest pit. She forced herself to focus on the memorized words, and began to recite.

  Her tongue tripped when she saw Wyatt impaled by a talon extending down from a bulbous, many-eyed behemoth floating above him. She forced herself to finish the recitation, and as she called out the final word—“Zhro!”—she waited to wat
ch the resurrected horrors collapse.

  Nothing happened.

  She’d made a mistake somewhere.

  Hands shaking badly, she yanked the folded sheet from a pocket, snapped it open, and read. She tried to block out the sounds coming from ten yards away, sounds of Reyes’s rifle and Jefferson’s strong voice breaking off in a choked gasp.

  She read the words quickly, her back against rock. When something curled around her right ankle, she ignored it and kept reading. When she caught a glimpse of a face before her, peeling and buckling like old leather, incongruously surmounted by an 18th-century powdered wig, she looked back at the paper. When the specter in the wig reached for her and she looked up at the dusty, tattered military uniform, she had a terrible suspicion about who this monstrosity might have once been. She looked back down and finished the words.

  “ZHRO!”

  This time they worked. Everything in the chamber that wasn’t human fell to dust. When nothing new burst forth from the tunnels and pits, Masterton risked a glance to the side.

  Jefferson had fallen back against a rock wall fifty feet away; he bled from wounds in his left thigh, left shoulder, and scalp above his left ear. Reyes was crouched by him, holding out his rifle defensively.

  The others had vanished.

  Masterton picked up her flashlight and rushed to the fallen Jefferson. “Sir, how badly are you hurt?”

  Jefferson winced, but kept his voice calm. “There’s a first aid kit in my pack. Can you get that?” He leaned forward so Masterton could reach his backpack.

  Masterton grabbed it, opened it, found the first aid kit, yanked it apart, and retrieved anti-bacterial spray and bandages. She worked as quickly as her own trembling would allow, relieved to see that Jefferson’s injuries weren’t as severe as she’d first feared. As she wound gauze around his shoulder, Jefferson asked, “What happened to the others?”

  Reyes shook his head, his gaze following the flashlight beam he swung back and forth. “Something grabbed Wyatt from overhead, but I don’t know where it took him. I don’t know what happened to Petrushka or Olivetti.”

  “Petrushka got pulled into the tunnel at ten o’clock,” Masterton said, swinging her own light toward the dark mouth of the tunnel. “I didn’t see Olivetti.”

  She finished with Jefferson’s wounds and he staggered to his feet. “Are you two willing to proceed with the mission?”

  Reyes and Masterton exchanged a concerned look, and then Reyes turned to the deputy director. “Sir, we need to get you medical assistance—”

  “Thank you for your concern, Agent Reyes, but the bleeding has mostly stopped.” Jefferson hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. After a few seconds, he continued, “I need to level with you both—there’s another reason for our being here. Yes, we need to put down the things that attacked us and we need to search for Director Brady, but the real purpose of this mission is to check on an asset that’s hidden away down here.”

  Masterton and Reyes shared a quick, questioning glance before the latter turned to Jefferson and asked, “What’s the asset, sir?”

  “I’ll fill you in as we move.”

  They helped the deputy director to his feet. He gingerly tested his injured leg, grimaced . . . but then started walking away from them, skirting the pits in the floor as he headed toward a tunnel opening on the far side. “It’s this way.”

  The tunnel was too narrow to allow them to move two abreast, so Reyes jogged in front of Jefferson, brandishing the M16. “Let me lead, sir.”

  Jefferson nodded. Masterton took up the rear position. She was about to follow the others into the tunnel when she caught a glimpse of something glistening nearby. She stepped backward and saw crimson glints—fresh blood stained the lip of the nearest pit. “Hold on.”

  Reyes and Jefferson paused, looking back as she sidled up to the hole and craned forward to aim her flashlight into the bottom—where she saw the mangled body of Wyatt, his torso ripped apart, intestines spilled, legs bent, broken beneath him. She wished she could retrieve the MP5 that lay alongside his corpse, but it was impossible. “It’s Wyatt. He’s dead.” She joined Reyes and Jefferson in the tunnel.

  Reyes said, “That leaves Petrushka and Olivetti.”

  Jefferson and Masterton exchanged a hard stare before she spoke. “Sir, Olivetti—”

  Jefferson cut her off. “I’ve worked with Olivetti for seven years, Agent Masterton.”

  “I understand that, but he’s the likeliest candidate if we’re looking for who sold us out.”

  Reyes growled, “My money’s on Carter’s freaks.”

  “We need,” Jefferson said with a hint of soft anger, “to table this discussion for now and keep moving.”

  They made their way into the side-tunnel again. Jefferson limped; behind him, Masterton could see how each step cost him, could hear the tiny puffs that hid pain, but she admired the man’s resolve. “You were going to tell us about the asset,” she reminded him.

  “Yes. Thank you, Agent Masterton. As you may know, our nation’s Capitol was built upon occult plans provided by Freemasons. Those Masons—who included many of our founding fathers—were sort of an early version of the Lovecraft Squad, fighting the Armies of the Night and their forces as we do.”

  “We’re talking two hundred years ago?” Reyes asked, risking a quick glance away from the dark path in front of him.

  “Yes,” said Jefferson. “Some of these caves were natural, but the plans expanded and refined them.

  “The man responsible for the layout of the city was a Frenchman named Pierre Charles L’Enfant. He was skilled in more areas than creating buildings—he was also a follower of certain occult practices. He could night-travel, like Randolph Carter, or summon extra-dimensional entities.”

  Masterton asked, “So was he an acolyte of the Great Old Ones?”

  “No. L’Enfant was a true iconoclast—he wasn’t interested in being part of any group. He even left the Masons after one meeting. All of which is why he set up his practices here, underground, away from prying eyes.”

  Ahead of Reyes, the tunnel broadened out. He motioned them to a stop, but Jefferson moved past him. Masterton got a glimpse of a furnished open space.

  They were in a room that might once have been a primitive laboratory. On a worktable in the center was a collection of low metal pots, crusted over with ancient residue, and notebooks full of brittle pages covered in the spiky, ornate script of the 18th century. The walls were lined with wooden shelves holding small leaden containers, each with a metal stopper. In some places the shelves had rotted away, spilling contents onto the rough floor, where battered canisters tilted among mounds of bluish dust.

  “This,” Jefferson said, turning to address the two agents, “was one of L’Enfant’s workshops.”

  Masterton moved up to examine the jars—they were shaped like old Grecian urns, with handles, round bodies, and flat bases. They extended along two of the walls, hundreds of them. It took Masterton a few more seconds to realize that the urns on the two facing walls were actually slightly different in design.

  “Yes,” Jefferson said, seeing her take in the differences, “they are two different types. In his journals, L’Enfant refers to one as ‘custodes’ and the other as ‘materia.’”

  “Take a look at this.” Reyes stood in a doorway opposite the one they’d entered through, playing his flashlight over something in the next room. Masterton joined him to see stacks of coffins, some of old wood, others of metal. Curious, she stepped up to the nearest one, wrenched the lid aside, and saw that it held nothing.

  “Empty,” she murmured, looking back curiously at Jefferson.

  “L’Enfant had sources around the world for getting him materials to work with.”

  Masterton said, “Grave robbers, in other words.”

  Jefferson gave her a weary half-smile. “In as many words . . . yes. He experimented on the bodies, reducing them to what he called ‘essential salts,’ then restoring them.”
<
br />   “So,” Reyes said, “the things that attacked us . . .”

  “Yes, Agent Reyes. Likely resurrected from . . .” Jefferson toed a pile of dust that had spilled from a cracked urn on the floor, “. . . this.”

  Masterton said, “But those things haven’t been down here for two hundred years, or they would’ve attacked before.”

  Jefferson answered, “Correct. Which means that someone—our traitor—has been coming down here recently and enacting the spell associated with ‘Dragon Ascending,’ preparing the force that was set loose early this morning.”

  Masterton considered the possibilities. Olivetti still stood out for her, but Jefferson was right—he’d been a loyal agent for years. Petrushka was missing and was a newer member of the League, but Masterton’s gut told her he was dead, killed by whatever had pulled him into a tunnel earlier. Reyes was right about Carter—a man who’d become something both more and less than human—and whose motivations were never clear . . . but Masterton had always trusted Orme Appleton and didn’t believe that he, or Dorothy Williams before him, would have knowingly worked for a traitor. But their director, Nathan Brady, was also missing. The thought of their own director betraying them made Masterton shiver more than the chill subterranean air ever could.

  Jefferson spoke again as he gestured at another door leading out of the workshop. “We need to keep moving. The asset is that way, not far now . . .”

  He broke off as Petrushka appeared in the indicated doorway. He looked dazed, expressionless, and his chest was soaked in blood. He still carried the MP5, although it hung down at his side.

  Jefferson started forward. “Agent Petrushka—”

  Masterton’s gut cinched in sudden alarm. Acting on pure reflex, she shouted, “Get down!”

  Petrushka lifted the MP5.

  The other agents dived for cover as he raised the submachine gun and fired. But his aim was clumsy, doing little more than destroying dozens of the urns. Masterton pulled her jacket up around her face, trying not to breathe in any of the remains spraying out around her.