Mists of the Miskatonic (Mist of the Miskatonic Book 1) (18 page)

“God dammit!”

              He fell backwards, sobbed, and held his face in his hands as he sat on the couch. For a few moments his thoughts swirled as it all came together in his mind, and he was a believer. They were right. The end of the world had begun.

              He picked up his phone, began to dial his ex-wife. Then he stopped.
She will see it for herself,
he thought.
Let her see if for herself.

              “…
the horrors that will befall the human race…”
the old man had said.

             
“…neither conformed to our laws of physics or human decency...”
Bishop Oakes had said.
“…beyond time, beyond logic, beyond decency… Death will be a welcome reprieve when Cthulhu rises from his ocean tomb. Humans will be herded like cattle…”

               
Kelsey stood, teeth clenched and put down the phone, then replaced it with his shotgun.

“…I don’t fear death. I will not live to see what is happening…”
the old man had said yesterday.
“…the dead trying to warn you that come back to haunt…”

              The detective thought about his brother as he put the barrel of the gun in his mouth, and thought about the final words of the FBI agent.
“…There…has to be…order. To…the end…”

“The things come from another planet, being able to live in interstellar space and fly through it on clumsy, powerful wings which have a way of resisting the ether…if you do not dismiss me at once as a madman.” H.P Lovecraft,
The Whisperer in Darkness

“Red Ruins”

Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s
The Whisperer in Darkness

Mission Commander Frank McLaughlin and Mission Specialist Darwin Edders looked at the surface of Mars from the command deck of the
Spirit of St. Louis
. From orbit, the planet passed slowly and the two watched distant craters and valleys far below.

Darwin tapped on the glass, pointed and smiled. “Valles Marineris, to the south,” he said softly. “We did it, Frank.”

The Mission Commander smiled and nodded. He stared out of the window through the fourth planet’s thin atmosphere and to the largest canyon in the solar system.

“Air braking was a bit more disturbing than the engineers said it’d be. No simulator even comes close,” Frank said.

“First humans in orbit around Mars, and you’re still thinking of the procedures. That’s why you’re the Commander, I guess,” Darwin said.

Frank bit his lip and thought about the long journey. “Yeah. We did it.”

“Just twenty-four hours ago this was all theoretical. We’ll go down in history. First manned mission to Mars. August 22, two thousand and fifty. Have you ever thought of that?” Darwin said.

“Not really. I haven’t slept in the last twenty-four hours,” The Commander said as he scratched at his short, blond hair. He looked around the deck. The lights were dimmed, as the four other crew members had retired to sleep before the next workday started. Screens flickered with data that streamed from every functional sensor on the ship. This compartment of the craft was no more than a cramped ten feet across, but the two windows made if feel like it went on forever.

“Who knows how many single event upsets we will be cleaning up in the next couple days, and replacing those nodes after charging. It would have been nice if the engineers back home would have modeled that big of a hit,” Darwin said.

“I don’t think anyone thought we would survive an SEU that big,” Frank said.

“The mainframe will take care of the upsets and decompress the backup data. Who knew we would be hit by that much radiation from the solar flare? Some sparking was bound to occur,” Darwin said and rubbed the dark stubble on his face. “Still reads nominal on the main boards. Backups are working. We will begin on the sensors after some rest. Power conservation mode in effect while the backups run diagnostics.”

The commander looked back out the window, touched the thick armored glass then turned to scan the screens. “We have a red light on the low gain panel. Are we getting DPacks we need to monitor?”

“Sorry, sir. We’ve been downloading data packets since the coronal mass ejection event and braking. Nothing unusual I’m aware of,” the specialist said.

In the zero gravity of the ship, Frank pushed himself off the bulkhead and floated to the low gain antenna panel. He gazed at the light. The flat panel monitor indicated seven different packets downloaded and decompressed at that moment. They were relayed from Earth so far away it took seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds of travel time to arrive.

“Military code six,” Frank said quietly, and hooked an earpiece over his ear. He pushed the bud deep and gently touched his thumb to the screen. The computer identified his print and cued up the message. A prompt appeared and a fourteen-digit security code had to be entered.

“Code accepted,” the synthesized voice of the primary mainframe announced in his ear. His index finger gently tapped on the screen and another familiar voice echoed. It sounded so close yet half a solar system away.

“Commander McLaughlin,” said the deep tone of Colonel Mike Ferguson. “Good to get your last report: the engineers are working double shifts to analyze all the telemetry Dpacked back to us. That Solar Event was a little more than we expected. Glad to hear you’re all ok.”

“A little more than expected? Good grief,” Frank mumbled and adjusted the ear bud. “Two days until landing.”

The voice in his ear continued, unaware of his sarcastic comments. “Frank, our simulations look good for landing, but you already know that. If your team can get those sensors replaced, we can run some more diagnostics. This mission has to succeed. There is a lot riding on it back home, both politically for the President and for NASA. Not to mention all the private contractors relying on this to boost public sentiment. The Great Ghoul that gobbled up so many missions has to be put to rest once and for all. It coulda been the Russians first, but their bad luck is our good. Once superstition takes a hold, y’know how voters get.”

“I have more riding than you Mike. It’d better work,” Frank said quietly. He scanned the screens as they monitored the systems of the spacecraft.

“But there is something that concerns us, and that’s why I sent this on a coded military sub-channel. Right before the air braking, we finished reviewing the final packets sent to us. Everything was as expected, but Morris’ reports were a little… how do I say this? Odd.”

Frank laughed aloud. “He went to Berkley. Of course it’s odd.”

“The routine medical evals and data were fine on all six crew, including him. However, Morris reported having trouble sleeping and bad dreams. I don’t know if you’re aware. You should be. Now you are, in case he hadn’t told you. Here’s an excerpt from the Dpack he sent so you can hear it in his own words.

The bud went silent for a second. Then the voice of the Mission Flight Physician was in the Commander’s ear. “It’s these dreams that keep me tossing and turning. I can’t shake this feeling of dread about Mars. That someone, something, is watching and waiting for us. Like we are just fish in a bowl, unaware that they are peering in while we go about our business. It makes me feel so old: so cold sometimes.”

Mike’s familiar voice returned. “No reason to panic yet, we are just concerned. The medical evals and his interpretation of the data correlate with our docs on the ground, so his judgment seems unaffected. If something were to go wrong, Jones is a nurse and Washington is a Navy Medic. They should be able to handle any emergencies that crop up, and our doctors are putting together step-by-step protocols for serious emergencies. As soon as they get them put together, we’ll compress them and transmit them your way. Our graphics people are working on supplementary vids to demonstrate surgery techniques and such. Just a precaution, no need to be concerned yet, Frank.”

“Quite a precaution. Damn,” the Commander grumbled. “Seems like a lot of work, Mike, if you weren’t worried.”

“I know you have your hands full, but just keep your eye on Morris to make sure he is functioning ok. We will keep you apprised on our end. Two days. You will make history, stepping foot on Mars. I… we… your country is proud of you, Commander.”

The ear bud went dead and Frank looked across the small compartment to the Mission Specialist. Slowly he pulled the black earpiece out and put it in a pocket of his flight suit.

Mission Specialist Heather Washington held the burnt-out circuit board in her dark-skinned hand. She inspected the scorch marks before handing it to Darwin. “That came from the recirculation back-up pump in the ventilation system. Stupid sparking, anyhow.”

Darwin sniffed at the board. The damaged electronics smelled like ozone. The pair was in the maintenance corridor between the oxygen reclamation and the back-up reactor. The two methodically tested questionable circuits damaged by the discharge of static electricity.

“When you think of the power sent out by the solar event, it’s amazing that we even survived: and just hours before we began air braking. Lucky the VASMIR engines functioned properly. If they’d failed, we might not have slowed enough to hit the atmosphere. Coulda skipped right off,” he said.

“As we continue to decompress the backup data, we are finding more single event upsets. Hard to believe replacing one bit of memory can so mess up our system.”

Heather pulled a new board from a plastic package and pulled an elastic strip. She let it float in the weightless corridor. She blew on the red ribbon and it began to tumble, carried by the recirculated air down the long chamber.

“Being a programmer, I’d think you of all people would understand what one number can do,” Darwin said and smiled. “I think that we’ve got the last sensor replaced in the water reclamation controls. I’ll set the mainframe to decompress the backup files.”

Something clattered: the sound of metal against a ceramic bulkhead echoed down the hallway. The two looked in the direction of the sound, and Heather handed an electric screwdriver to Darwin. “Is someone there?” she called out.

No one answered and she put her feet against the bulkhead and pushed off. She floated down the hall.

“What is it?” Darwin called.

She peered around the corner and leaned against the white ceramic wall. In the middle of the hallway’s intersection floated Doctor Rob Morris. He was motionless, dressed in his white jumpsuit, except he was missing one sock.

“Darwin, it’s the doc! Something’s wrong!”

Heather grabbed Morris and turned him to face her. His face was pale, his dark hair disheveled, and eyes rolled back to show only the whites. Quickly she checked for a pulse, held her fingers on his neck and listened for breaths. They were slow and shallow but he was alive and she held him close. She heard the metallic clatter again and she looked down the dark corridor to her left.

She saw a hint of movement in the shadows. Maybe a trick of her mind under stress. She squinted, tried to refocus, but no specific shape could be discerned. Heather turned back towards the doctor who gurgled. His eyes rolled back and focused on her.

His brown eyes seemed so sharp, but she felt like he looked through her.

“They’re watching us, even now,” he whispered. “Watching you.”

Heather stared into his eyes for a few seconds, and then they rolled back into his head and he began to seize. He flailed wildly.

“Darwin, I need a first aid kit. Now! Get Jones up here. Then make sure Medical is powered up!”

Mission Specialist Edders floated to her side, unlatched the kit and pulled on gloves. As the doctor thrashed and twitched, he moaned. Heather looked down the darkened corridor with a sense of dread as they waited for help.

The Colonel’s voice came through the ear bud into Frank’s ear. “We have run all the data. We cannot see anything physically wrong with the Doc that would explain this. Our medical team is going through the last set of MRI’s, but nothing different from the first. Those slides show a tiny kidney stone has formed during the trip, but other than that, nothing. Physically, he seems fine.”