Napoleon arrived just after midday and dutifully completed the exchange following a brief meeting with two of the clan’s senior council members.
“It’s kindly of you to welcome me on a work day,” Napoleon said. He spoke thoughtfully and benignly, showing his gratitude for their generosity. “This here will do fine. Make more than a few families happy to see this fruit. We have so many young mouths to feed we can’t keep oranges and tangerines on the shelf these days.”
“Best you’d be gittin’ back on that road, son,” one of the elders said. His voice sounded hollow and metallic. His gaze wandered purposelessly, and his eyes shone with a hoary radiance. “Long haul ahead a’ye. Best not be on your own come eventide.”
“Yes, sir.” Napoleon could not decide whether vanity or fear fueled their standoffishness. Neither council member attempted an exchange of pleasantries, preferring brevity over civility. Sensing an underlying animosity, Napoleon chose not to speak about his mother’s death. He elected to keep his accusations and condemnations undeclared—at least until he had time to find what had caused Benita Mullen so much angst. “I’ll be on my way.”
Though his mother had forbidden him from searching for it, Napoleon found the church precisely where he expected it to be: It stood a stone’s throw from the barrier wall beneath a tangle of twisted boughs—amidst perversely gargantuan orange trees with blackish-green foliage and hideously hued blossoms. In the middle of the afternoon, unnatural shadows congregated in that modest wooden chapel. Its walls had been shoddily daubed with clay and propped up with supporting lumber to keep it from collapsing.
It seemed to Napoleon far too dank and foul to serve as any respectable house of worship.
He approached the building cautiously, minding each footfall. Although every able-bodied villager should be working the fields at this hour, he felt as though someone—no, some thing—had become aware of his presence. As he passed through the door, plunging into icy shadows that clustered in that single-room sanctuary, he shuddered with irrepressible dread.
To his surprise, Napoleon found the church completely empty—no altar, no pulpit, no pews and no embellishments of any sort. Aside from a single trail of grayish dust that bisected the chamber, the place revealed no evidence that anyone had crossed the threshold in recent memory. Whatever “wicked ceremonies” his mother had imagined, it seemed unlikely to him that anyone visited this remote church—and even less likely that worshippers flocked here to participate in some improper rite.
Only when Napoleon stepped back outside did he notice the curious patch of gray, brittle vegetation skirting the front of the building. As he knelt to inspect it, he heard a sudden clamor of shrill voices and a burst of movement from within the church. Before he could react, something solid struck the back of his head and he tumbled forward into the sickly saw palmetto and thorny catbrier vines, causing them to crumble into a grayish powder.
For Napoleon, an abyss of blackness followed.
4.
When Grady Hatfield and Javier Salas entered the office of Professor Douglas Wendell Olivier, the two biotechnology field researchers found their superior hunched over a table cluttered with papers, photographs and maps. Olivier, chair of Miskatonic University’s Department of Plant Sciences and head of the school’s agroecosystems lab, tugged at his bushy mustache and cleared his throat.
“Sorry I had to call you two in on such short notice.” Professor Olivier afforded them only a hurried glance. The pallor of his face revealed a preoccupation with some unspoken predicament. His eyes reflected a mix of urgency and fear. “I have been briefed by your faculty advisor on your progress in the Dunwich Exclusion Zone. The work you have been doing is groundbreaking, revolutionary. It is an honor to know that Miskatonic University can still bring cutting-edge innovations to the table.”
“We’re pleased with our findings to date, Professor Olivier,” Grady said, his nervousness evident. “But we aren’t quite there yet. It’s still too early in the trial phase to celebrate. If you were led to believe that we’re farther along—”
“My apologies, gentlemen, but it doesn’t matter how far along you are,” Professor Olivier said. “The luxury of time is no longer with us.”
The meeting settled into an uncomfortable silence as the two field researchers tried to fathom the professor’s impatience.
“With all due respect, Professor Olivier, using our research to launch a large-scale effort might make things worse,” Javier said. “The exclusion areas in North America are stable. There haven’t been any reports of Gardner meteorites since the late 1940s. I know we are on the right track with this study, but racing to get it into mass production before we can examine the results of our first legitimate field trial is irresponsible—and I don’t want to be connected to what might be a catastrophic failure.”
Professor Olivier sighed disconsolately, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair as he glanced toward the ceiling. For a few moments he sat silently, his expression one of deep reflection. He seemed to be struggling with some unwritten rule, some obstacle which, should he choose to eliminate it, would make his argument more comprehensible to the young scientists.
“What I am about to tell you must not leave this room, gentlemen.” With an abrupt effort, he steadied himself in both mind and bearing. “In the world in which we find ourselves, information is often compartmentalized for the good of society. As you are keenly aware, the field laborers know very little about our situation. They have all heard tales, handed down for generations, that recount the years when meteors fell from the skies. They know the story of the building of great barrier walls to enclose the wastelands and halt the spread of the blight. They all acknowledge the existence of large, glorious cities, though none of them have ever visited one. They all maintain the hope that one of their children might be fortunate enough to escape a life of exhausting labor by being chosen to be educated—just as you two were selected.”
Professor Olivier explained that just as knowledge had been withheld from the field laborers, the government had decided to keep some information from the educated masses as well. He felt ashamed that he willingly participated in the deception, though he understood the necessity.
“What does this have to do with our research?” Javier did his best to restrain his growing resentment. He had long disapproved of the treatment of the field laborers. Discovering that he, too, had been fed misinformation throughout his life left him with wondering who he could trust. “What is it that we haven’t been told?”
“The reason the Gardner meteorites stopped falling in the late 1940s is that the League of Nations managed to create a network of tracking satellites and defensive weapons to shield the Earth from further harm,” Professor Olivier said. “This phenomenon is neither a natural disaster nor some cosmic coincidence—it is the first stage of an invasion.”
Professor Olivier explained how, in the early 1940s, a team made up of mainly American, Russian and German scientists theorized that the Gardner meteorites might be more than a naturally occurring phenomenon. They believed that an alien intelligence was utilizing the barrage to eradicate or weaken dominant species on Earth in preparation for an assault. This led to the rapid development of aerospace technologies that included weapon systems for tracking and destroying incoming meteorites and preparing for a potential planetary attack.
“It is a disgrace that the scientists who worked on those projects are known to so few,” Professor Olivier said. “Those physicists and aerospace engineers salvaged our chances at survival, yet their names—Oppenheimer, Fermi, Bogolyubov, Tomonaga, von Braun, Goddard, Goeppert—are not mentioned in our schools.”
“What about our names,” Grady said. “I suppose they’ll be forgotten, too—like the builders of the barrier wall, the armies of custodians that marched to their deaths in the wasteland testing containment and neutralization concepts, the field laborers who maintain the flow of food into the cities. No matter how important their contribution
to civilization, they are all insignificant.”
“You’ve come this far, Professor Olivier,” Javier said. “What other secrets would you like to reveal? Why have we been summoned?”
“Over the last six months, we have been accumulating reports of anomalies from exclusion zones in North America and Europe.” The chair of Miskatonic University’s Department of Plant Sciences shuffled through his papers until he found the one he wanted. He reviewed the document attentively, searching its contents as if hoping to find something he might have overlooked that would diminish its significance. With a grunt and a lurch, he slid the report across the table toward Grady and Javier. “After decades of dormancy, something is stirring in the gray desolation. Evidence has come from Alaska, the United Provinces of Central America, France, Finland and Bulgaria. Germany has reported that documents smuggled out of the Russian Empire suggest that a major city located near the Kherson Exclusion Zone—possibly Odessa—has been destroyed.”
“Destroyed by what,” Grady asked. “We have spent hours inside the Dunwich Exclusion Zone. Other than the blight itself, there is no life.”
“No life we can recognize, at any rate,” Professor Olivier said. “Our predecessors here at Miskatonic examined the very first meteorite more than a hundred and thirty years ago. In their notes, they offered more than quantitative data. One observation always comes to mind when I contemplate the origin of our unwelcome visitors: The lead investigator wrote ‘that cryptic vestige that descended from the fathomless gulfs beyond our reckoning was in my estimation the bearer of some inconceivable message from unimagined realms of matter, force and being—and while we may aspire to find confirmation that we are not alone in the universe, I shrink from the possibility that our fertile world might stand forth as a beacon to cosmic nomads such as this.’”
The reference, made with the deepest solemnity, ushered in another moment of nervous silence. All three men wrestled with the decisions that had to be made. With so many unknown variables, so many unfathomable factors and so many inconceivable liabilities, pure logic would not be enough to solve this equation.
“Containment, neutralization and reclamation,” Grady muttered, looking out the window. In the distance, he could see the western edge of the barrier wall that bordered the Dunwich Exclusion Zone. “All these years, we’ve been delaying the inevitable. We’ve slowed its progress with embankments, surface impoundments, dikes and round-the-clock monitoring. We’ve had encouraging results with limited chemical treatment and oxidation, sorbents and incineration. All the while, though, it’s been hibernating beneath the surface, waiting.”
“Where do we begin,” Javier asked. “How much time do we have?”
“I need you to conduct a full-scale test as soon as possible,” Professor Olivier said. “You’ll need enough material to cover an area of a hundred and ten thousand acres. I have already activated a team to meet you at the target area. They have been instructed to wait off-site until you arrive.” Olivier paused, choking on a piece of information as he contemplated the repercussions of withholding it. Deciding that there had been too much censorship already, he laid his cards on the table. “Earthwatch reported this morning that they have lost a team of perimeter patrol guards. They disappeared while investigating an anomaly.”
The solemnity of the news tormented the academician. He and his colleagues had been lulled into a false sense of security due to advancements in technologies that kept the blight in check for decades. Their decades-long respite had come to an end.
“We can be ready within twenty-four hours,” Grady said. “We have enough in inventory already. We’ll just redistribute what we’d intended to test in the Dunwich Exclusion Zone.”
“This is a matter of our survival,” Olivier reminded them. “You need to act quickly and decisively. As soon as you have assembled your gear, I’ll authorize emergency transport to the Polk Exclusion Zone in Florida.”
5.
It took Napoleon several minutes to gather enough strength to move after he regained consciousness.
He found himself in the atrium of some old building, abandoned upon a linoleum floor and surrounded by overturned chairs and small piles of rubble. The stench nearly choked him when his senses returned. A ghastly, pungent odor of universal decomposition pervaded the place. Though night had clearly fallen, in place of velvet darkness Napoleon discerned an enigmatic glow that could not be associated with starlight or fitful moonbeams.
“It’s just the two of us here, for the moment.” The woman’s voice startled Napoleon and he struggled to sit upright. The pain in his head made him wince. “Easy, now—take it slowly or you might black out again.” She sat down on the floor next to him and offered a melancholy smile that left little doubt as to the hopelessness of their situation. “My name is Virginia Sandoval. I’m with Earthwatch.”
“They call me Napoleon, son of Lyndon and Benita Mullin.” At the thought of home, he felt an upwelling of shame. He should have heeded his mother’s warning. He had responsibilities, a sister to protect. His desire to avenge his mother’s death had superseded his reasoning. “I come from the village in District Eight. Come looking for the people who killed Mama.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“I think so,” Napoleon answered, though the thought of it made him queasy. “We’re t’the other side of the barrier, ma’am.”
“That’s right,” Virginia said. “And that means we’ve been contaminated—poisoned by the blight.” Virginia still wore her protective biohazard suit, though the headpiece and breathing apparatus had been forcibly removed by her captors. Why they had not executed her she could not guess. Her team had been slaughtered in an ambush just inside the barrier wall. “We weren’t expecting people inside the zone. Do you know who they are?”
“Folks from the village, I reckon,” Napoleon said. “Folks what built that church where they worship false idols. Mama said they been foolin’ with things that ought not be summoned—things what they saw in their dreams, she said.”
“What kind of things?”
“Can’t rightly say, ma’am, seein’ as I ain’t never had such dreams. But everyone ’round these parts knows about the folk that live in District Twelve up alongside the barrier wall—how they hear things calling from the wasteland and have horrible visions when they fall to sleep. ‘Revelations,’ Mama called ’em.”
Virginia had read recent reports that included theories about “telepathic transmissions” emanating from some of the exclusion zones, influencing the behavior of field laborers unfortunate enough to live in dwellings not far from the barrier walls. Little evidence could be found to support the conjecture, but it had still led to a ban on new construction in certain areas—and, in one instance, the evacuation of a fifty-year-old village officially deemed “entangled in genetic depravities and wicked worship.”
“It’s been here all along,” Virginia whispered, the realization breaking upon her like a thunderclap. “It’s not a prelude to invasion. It is the invasion—an invasive species, its seeds sown from outer space over decades. Now, the first sprouts have appeared—psychic tendrils reaching out through dreams to manipulate a small army of converts.”
At that moment, the so-called converts returned: A mob of cultists filed into the building, armed with ancient rifles and pistols they must have salvaged from abandoned communities inside the Polk Exclusion Zone. Despite the age of the weapons, Virginia knew they still functioned. Her team had been outfitted with scientific devices used to take measure-
ments and record data. No one anticipated the need for a heavily armed contingent.
Neither Virginia nor Napoleon offered any resistance when the cultists hauled them to their feet and marched them out into the night.
Outside, the dim luminosity Napoleon had noticed earlier glistened even more keenly, radiating from every dilapidated building, every heap of rotted vegetation, every upturned stump and fencepost and brick wall. That insurgence of uncanny incandescence
possessed a certain variability that hinted at a hidden intelligence.
“Whatever you are planning to do with us, you must realize that Earthwatch will be sending recovery teams into the zone,” Virginia said, knowing the threat would not sway them. “Your village will be razed, your families taken into custody and you—and anyone else who has been contaminated—will be incinerated.”
“One by one, they will awaken,” said one of the cultists in an authoritative voice and in a style so imposing that he provoked an immediate response among his followers.
“One by one, they will awaken,” the cultists chanted, continuing to march deep into the exclusion zone—farther than any security drones had probed, farther than any team of research scientists had ventured in decades.
“You are betraying your own kind—sacrificing humanity’s only chance at survival.”
“One by one, they will awaken.”
“You’ve all been corrupted,” Virginia said. “It’s been festering here all these years, putrefying the land. Earthwatch didn’t realize what it was doing to you—all of you. We would have found a way to help you.”
“One by one, they will awaken.”
The procession finally came to a halt atop a small hill. At its summit, there appeared to be the remnants of a diminutive crater—the kind of depression indicative of a Gardner meteor impact.
“One by one, they will awaken.” The cultists continued their chanting as they secured their prisoners to a thick wooden post with chains. “One by one, they will awaken.”
Not even Virginia Sandoval could conceal her fear when the thing revealed itself.
“Mama was right,” Napoleon said, shaking his head in terror as it lifted its shimmery, translucent bulk into the night sky. “Things that ought not be summoned—things not of this world.”
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