The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack (40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Tales) (57 page)

I shook my head. “Shindo. Do you believe that any number of our men could do more to that black-hearted thing than we have already done?”

He sighed. “No, sir.”

“Shindo,” I said. “Have the men move to the edge of the runway. We are too near to the trees.”

“Yes, sir.”

He left to do as I ordered. And I watched the lamplight, the little caged star with the power to spell the difference between courage and cowardice. Take that little star from the night, and what did we have left? I twisted the knob and doused the flame. The darkness came complete, and I laid my head on my arms on the table, aware that my body was a spent ember. I did not dare close my eyes. But I could not keep them open.

Sleep washed over me like an ocean tide, tugging me far away, so quickly I could not even realize what was happening.

* * * *

I opened my eyes to a darkness so pure that I might have been closed within a coffin. My muscles were frozen, and I could not even move a finger. After a few moments, I realized that my head lay on the tabletop, cradled by my arms. Something was tickling my left ear; an insect, perhaps. I wanted to bat it away, but I could not move.

A sharp buzzing sound began, like the whirring of a beetle’s wings. But it rose steadily in volume until it became far louder than any insect. And then the buzzing took on a strange, articulated quality, rising and falling in a terrible imitation of speech. Eventually, I could make out words, though they had no meaning to me:

“Michi kyong mi, ghia da cho-chiyo.…”

A stab of sheer terror broke my paralysis, and I bolted upright, batting frantically at my left ear, certain there must be something resting there, but my fingers touched only air.

And the sound continued.

“Kyo-gha baung, balah kai…
We… we… watch…we…win.”

I cried out, hands flailing. One of them struck the lantern, and it fell to the floor with a crash. As the echo died, the buzzing voice also went silent. The tickling behind my ear remained, though, as if legs of chitin had grasped the flesh of my earlobe. I called Shindo’s name, but received no reply. Stumbling blindly toward what I hoped was the door, my hand struck the ridged wall of the hut so fiercely that pain charged up my arm like an electrical shock.

Finally, my questing fingers found the door, and throwing it open, I lurched outside, desperate even for starlight to break the terrible blackness. I could see the dying coals from several fires, and above, a few stars twinkled in a hazy sky. There was no moon. None of my men was in sight. I wanted to call out, but now I feared to raise my voice——for again, the night was bereft of sound. To my left I could see the dark hulk of a bulldozer, and I went toward it slowly, picking my steps carefully over the rutted earth.

When I reached the machine, I glanced up at the ridge, only to see a single, flickering point of flame near the darkened crest. The light was stationary, as if the torchbearer were simply watching and waiting, knowing that it had nothing to fear. Had I brought my rifle with me, I would have opened fire, though it was far beyond the range of my puny bullets. Instead, I merely rested my weight on the cowl of the bulldozer and glared defiantly at the torch. I sensed that whoever held it was laughing.

At last, I turned to gaze upon the runway we had labored so diligently to complete. In the pale starlight, a few meters away, I saw something that struck me as out of place. As I went toward it, fingers of cold nausea began to wriggle up from my stomach. It was a tall and spindly thing, with something large and bulbous perched atop it. Taking a few steps closer, I peered closely at it, trying to establish the identity of the dead.

It was Shindo. His eyes were closed, the mouth open and tongue lolling from slack lips. Black blood still dripped from the torn neck, pooling like oil on the ground at the base of the bamboo stave. I groaned miserably, no longer repulsed or sickened; simply finished. How long had it been since we had shared the last bottle of wine? A few hours? Only minutes, perhaps?

Suddenly, Shindo’s eyelids flew open, and the dead eyes turned to look at me, shining with terrible cognizance. With a gasp, I backed away, unable to tear my gaze from this sickening desecration, unwilling to accept the indisputable proof of my own sight. The living eyes followed my every movement, their gaze horrified and pleading. No! No awareness could possibly remain in that ruined case of flesh and bone.

I turned and ran toward the row of tents that now lined the earthen apron beside the airstrip. I tore open the flaps of the first one I came to and poked my head inside, only to find it empty. I ran from tent to tent, rewarded with the same result at each and every one. Where? Where were they? Every man in the camp could not have disappeared. It was impossible.

But I was alone.

I cried out to the night, to the burning light at the top of the ridge, to the unseen horror that I knew lay in wait somewhere in the vast darkness. I cared little that it might reach out to take me, for at least I would be where I belonged: with the men of the 212, who had lived and worked and died in my charge. I screamed until my voice faltered and went silent, my throat raw and tortured. On the ridge, the torchlight continued to burn indifferently.

At some point, I stumbled back to the Quonset hut and in the pitch blackness settled myself in the chair at my little table. My fingers found the framed photograph of my wife and children, and I squeezed it to my chest with such strength that not even the hideous clutches that had pulled my men through barbed wire could have loosened it from my grasp.

The darkness held its breath, and I wept.

* * * *

The sun could have been up for moments or for most of a day before I became aware of its light creeping through the still open door of the hut. It was not the light that had drawn me from the secret place where I had retreated and that I could not recall; it was a sound: the low whining of distant engines.

My first thought was that the tanks had arrived, for they were scheduled to precede the fighter group. But the sound I heard was not the deep grumble-clank of motors and treads. This was the distinctive drone of airplane engines. I rose from the chair and crept into the daylight. The sun had risen halfway to its zenith, which meant the fighter squadron was arriving on schedule.

But where were the tanks?

Stiffly, I walked down to the airstrip. The first thing I noticed was that Shindo’s piteous remains had somehow been removed, with only a repugnant dark stain left behind. Looking skyward, I could see no sign of the planes as yet; but the sound of their engines grew steadily louder, echoing through the jungle so that I could not determine the direction of their approach. They would have been trying to contact us——unsuccessfully, of course.

At last, I saw a trio of dots veering in from the east. They quickly grew larger until I could recognize the graceful profiles of the Ki-43 Hayabusas. They roared low overhead, dipping their wings as the pilots regarded the airfield curiously, the brilliant red balls of the rising sun gleaming from their forest green fuselages and the gray undersides of their wings. One of the pilots saw me, and I raised a hand in greeting, for a moment feeling a strange sense of normalcy, as if all that had happened here had been swept away by the arrival of my countrymen.

Five more vee-shaped formations followed, and behind them, a trio of Ki-57 transport planes appeared, carrying the squadron’s supplies and ground crew. The lead Hayabusa swung back to the east to set up its approach, and the other fighters fell in close behind. A lump of joy and relief rose to my throat, though some whispering voice inside warned me that my most difficult task might yet lie ahead, once the pilots discovered the awful truth of what had happened here.

Despite a conscious effort to avoid doing so, I chanced a look toward the top of the ridge. Suddenly, my blood went frigid and my heart began clanging like a gong in my ears. There, as on the previous day, a wavering heat haze marred the sky above a cluster of swaying trees. I could feel the thing watching me.

Then, as the fighters began to descend, I heard a deep, buzzing sound, like a swarm of mad hornets. Yet this was different from the sound that had become so horribly familiar to me; this had a deeper, more mechanized timbre. And then, when the truth of this new reality began to dawn on me, despair again gripped me and I ran out to the runway, waving my arms frantically, trying to make the fighter pilots understand and veer away.

From over the top of the ridge, a swarm of dark, roaring silhouettes appeared, buzzing rapidly toward the descending fighters. The lead Ki-43 had already dropped its gear and was only a few hundred meters from the end of the runway when it disappeared in a ball of flame, accompanied by a deafening boom. The wreckage hit the ground and splattered like liquid fire, sending debris spiraling into the nearest trees. The pilot of the Hayabusa behind it firewalled the throttle, and barely avoided dropping into the inferno itself. I saw the plane’s gear starting to raise and heard its engine straining to lift it out of harm’s way.

But even that heroic effort gained the pilot nothing. An olive drab Tomahawk dropped onto the Ki-43’s tail, its .50-caliber machine guns blazing, tearing chunks from the Ki’s wings. The stricken plane rolled slowly onto its side, and I saw something——an aileron, perhaps——whirl into space. The Ki-43 suddenly nose-dived and smashed into the ground a mere hundred meters from where I stood, the horrendous impact knocking me onto my backside.

Looking up, I saw at least eight P-40s, their noses painted with the distinctive fanged maw and glaring eye insignia of the so-called Flying Tigers. The AVG——American Volunteer Group——must have retained a squadron at Toungoo or Rangoon, which were the only remaining Allied airfields close enough to accommodate the fighters. With deadly, unified purpose, they swung around to pounce again on the low, slow Hayabusas, who, in preparing to land, were at their most vulnerable. I saw a few of the trailing Ki-43s pulling up into desperate climbs, their pilots hoping to gain some advantage on the enemy fighters; but it was to no avail, as four of the P-40s banked away to pursue. Within seconds, three more of our fighters had been blown from the sky, and I saw one of the Ki-57 transports totter in the air and spiral down as it attempted evasive action. The pilot had turned too sharply and stalled the plane, too low to recover. It disappeared behind the nearest trees, and a moment later, another thunderous boom shook the ground. A column of black smoke rolled skyward from the site.

Our Ki-43s were far more maneuverable than the P-40s, and at least two managed to swing around to attack the Tomahawks. My heart leaped as I saw one of them open fire at the trailing P-40, causing a plume of smoke to erupt from its engine. But no sooner had he taken his shots than two more P-40s dove onto his tail and, in an instant, sent him whirling to his death. High above, atop the ridge, the roiling heat haze seemed to regard the tableau as a cold, calculating monarch might watch two enemies struggle to the death for its own amusement.

A few moments later, I heard two more deep explosions in the distance: two more Hayabusas lost. I saw the single, stricken P-40, trailing smoke, climbing toward the ridge, finally disappearing over its crest as it retired from the fight. And shortly afterward, the remaining enemy fighters reappeared from the southwest, seemingly all intact, with nary a Ki-43 in pursuit. Then, to my horror, the lead P-40 banked toward the runway and me. I saw bright flashes from its wingtips as its guns opened fire; before me, twin rows of earthen splashes homed unerringly on me, and I felt a stab of indescribable agony as my left leg was hit. My lower leg buckled at an awry angle, blood spurting through the fabric of my trousers. I toppled to the ground, seeing white bone protruding from a jagged rip in my skin. For a brief time, I went completely numb, feeling only surprise and disbelief at the sudden strike against me.

All I could do now was shout and point to the devilish haze atop the ridge, praying that one of the enemy pilots would notice it and initiate an attack. At least one of the Americans saw my frantic waving, but he merely offered me a mocking salute; then his plane disappeared over the ridge on its way back home. Pain began to creep up my leg again, and a disturbing amount of blood was pooling on the dusty ground beneath me. I could not last much longer. But at least I could now be satisfied that I had died in combat, in defiance of an enemy who had insidiously attacked our hapless fighter group.

After a time, I again heard the buzzing of hornets from direction of the ridge. The heavy pounding began, as on that first night, so deep that it shook my body to the point of nausea. And as the horrid buzzing rose in volume, it once again articulated itself into some language I could not understand. But finally, the syllables began to become clear to me: “
Cho-chiyo ich byong mi
… Remember… Remember the children.”

I lay back on the ground, all my energy spent. I expected now to simply fall asleep and not wake up, for the pain in my leg was simply a dull, distant thing with little meaning. The persistent buzzing no longer frightened me. It seemed an almost soothing, lulling background voice to accompany the final release from my pain.

But sometime later, I heard the deep, droning whine of airplane engines. Craning my neck backward, I saw a lone Ki-57 slowly lowering itself to the runway, barely avoiding the wreckage scattered along its edges. As the plane slowed to a stop, its doors opened, and a pair of frantic-looking crewmen came running toward me. I realized that one of the transports must have survived the attack, and its crew had come to render whatever aid they might.

I recall being carried to the plane by four able-bodied men. But though their limbs were strong, their movements well-practiced, I could see in their eyes the unmistakable look of confusion, and in some cases, outright horror. Even if they could not actually see the thing that watched from somewhere on the ridge, I knew they felt its presence as profoundly as I did. By the time they carefully loaded my near-ruined body into the cargo hold of the transport, I could again hear the distant hornet’s buzzing from the ridge. Glancing out the door, I saw the trees swaying and bending as the thing began to descend steadily toward the field. I cried out for haste, and though the pilot and my attending rescuers probably misunderstood, it was my fear for them that drove me to fitfully scream, “Get us out! Get us out now!”