R'lyeh Rises: Cthulu Awakes

By B.B. Irvine

Following discovery of the Shoggoth in Antarctica during the ill fated Hobblestone-Thorpe Expedition, sole survivor Sam Oliver has had a difficult time readjusting to his life on Earth as he knew it. Then “Mayday” and “abandoning ship” are the last words heard from Clementine Prioress, the only survivor of a ship that seems to have vanished off the radar, sending Sam Oliver to the South Pacific to save her. Discovery that the ominously fabled R’lyeh has risen is followed by the awakening of dread Cthulu - potentially threatening all life on Earth, starting with humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: B.B. Irvine
• Release date: May 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370808588

B.B. Irvine

B.B. Irvine was born in New York City in 1959. He graduated from the High School of Music and Art N.Y. (1976 music), New York State University at Stony Brook (1980 B.A. liberal arts), and in 1982 received a certificate as a Physician Assistant from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in North Carolina. He has worked in settings including emergency medicine, AIDS research, and addiction treatment in New York City where he lives. In 1994 he earned a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do from Grandmaster Richard Chun. His novels and screenplays evidence his knowledge of people and frequently weave medicine, science, history, romance, and martial arts into the action.

Book preview

Chapter 01 - Monday, 16 Dec: On Thin Ice In New York City

After what I saw in Antarctica last December 2012, I no longer mind things that go bump in the night – it’s things that slither and slide I worry about now.

There weren’t too many things slithering around the urban environment of New York City in December, though. I was in the city to visit the U.S. home offices of my current employer for a job performance review. SantAngel Group was not happy with the way the true events of the ill fated 2012 Hobblestone-Thorpe Antarctic expedition to Mount Takahe last December had been revealed in an e-book called Shoggoth Unbound. The only thing I’d done right in releasing what I’d written about the expedition’s actual fate was in giving it to an e-book writer nobody had ever heard of to publish it (I misheard him, and thought he was a more classic publisher.)

It was now mid December, nearly a year later, and after eleven months of virtual availability as an e-book it had sold just nine copies so far. It seemed that all of my care in getting the truth out ran afoul via an unknown science fiction writer… But it is out there.

As a respected science consortium, SantAngel Group does believe in getting the truth out, but they would have preferred to do some vetting of the manuscript in advance of any release. That did not happen. Although they had not stopped paying out my stipend, changed any of my benefits, or refused to pay for the university’s fall semester fees for the doctorate I was now pursuing there, my recruiter had called me up for, a meeting in New York to review this year and have some frank, end of year discussions, Mister Oliver. They were still unhappy about the e-book, and might fire me yet because of it.

The job at SantAngel Group paid me seventy two thousand dollars a year and came with full health benefits and a very small apartment, all in return for carrying a special edition smartphone to be available as a field consultant if called on. They paid for my health and shelter and subsidized my university fees, so six thousand a month in pay was a very decent amount to live on, especially in south Florida. Most of it I had banked away.

The job was a lot for me to lose. I felt fortunate they had kept it all going, and was apologetic as possible while suggesting that I had been suffering from exposure and PTSD when I wrote that manuscript, and then had my own problems with adjusting, once back in south Florida. That was all the truth, and I think some of the bosses at the meeting were ready to stop right there.

We all knew I wasn’t the only one who had some problems adjusting, once back: Clementine Prioress, a pilot who flew the helicopter that brought me back alive from Mount Takahe, had not done well either. Following our late December return to the States after Antarctica, SantAngel Group had put Clementine to work near my university, so we could be together and support each other into the New Year and beyond. She flew back and forth between Tamiami Airport and SantAngel Group research ships in the Florida Coastal Survey project. Clementine loved to fly, and the job description guaranteed at least one flight a day (weather permitting), moving whatever they needed to be moved. With six ships within distance, that meant one flight a week to each, sometimes two flights in one day. It was a good way to spend January in Florida, readjusting to a world with hardly any idea there could be anything in it like a Shoggoth that was now being controlled by human brains with a malevolent, evil agenda.

I’m not trying to be funny. I saw the Shoggoth kill humans with hardly any effort at all, I later saw it responding to human thoughts and commands, and it had nearly killed me twice. As she had hovered above me, Clementine also saw the Shoggoth below her, saw it reaching out for me below, and as she took us up and flew away, we had both watched it fall down the side of Mount Takahe, into a crevasse within the ice sheet at its base.

That fall and the avalanche on top of it wouldn’t kill it. I’d done the best I could do, delaying it from simply slithering off to the western Antarctic coast then on to South America, Australia, New Zealand – who knew?

Within three weeks, Captain Clementine Prioress fell into a clinical depression which grounded her for almost two months during medication related treatment. It was painful to watch her struggle, to wonder what she saw in the horrible dreams that she never talked about, to know in my heart that she blamed me, because I had survived.

It was not Clementine’s fault she saw the Shoggoth, any more than it was mine.

Chapter 02 - Sniffington

SantAngel Group was a British science consortium which had been set up soon after World War II. It seemed to have had a lot of ex-OSS/MI5 and other intell types on the original board, and that pattern had continued over the decades since. Nowadays it was a broad consortium composed of science programs, science institutes, and special consultant groups. The Media Groups (Science, Cultural, Historical) generated revenue through artistic and documentary productions sold to TV programmers and the public, but much of the budget came from a couple of billionaires on the board of directors, who made very large contributions, and other wealthy citizens they knew also donated to the budget.

That budget allowed SantAngel Group to sponsor or co-sponsor expeditions and science observations across the globe, sometimes in return for documentary access to the expedition, sometimes just for pure, original research. Sometimes it was a historical documentary, or a history based story being re-enacted by actors, in a big budget production with special effects and everything any film company used. The goal was to educate everyone on Earth about things they might not know about, using solid science and stories with great visual images whenever possible.

When I was first contacted, I had wondered how I would fit into that sort of business. The friend who had referred my name to them agreed with me that actual work seemed a bit unlikely, and I’d more likely be paid well to simply carry a phone and be ready if called upon. My friend had also pointed out that various crews and personnel in certain places could be subjected to a kidnapping, or be lost in a storm, or during a climb. I needed to stay ready and be the best consultant I could be, because if I ever was called upon, lives would depend on it. My original hiring slot had been within a tiny part of SantAngel Group’s Operations Support Group called Rescue Operations Division. When the time came, he was right: I was lucky I had stayed fit and trained. I survived, and if I hadn’t become a man driven to be a whistle blower about the Shoggoth, who suddenly fancied himself as a writer, I’d have done fine in the long run.

My recruiter at SantAngel Group was English. He had only told me his name once. I always thought of him as Sniffington. Eleven months after my January e-book fiasco, Sniffington was there at the table for the Big Meeting in New York City, when I was told by Dr. Liam Pearwood that I was moving over to a larger unit called the Science Media Group. I was also told: Rest assured that being lateralized in this way in no way means your job is any way in jeopardy.

Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. As I heard it, to assure me with the term jeopardy mentioned at all meant my job was very much at risk of being cut if I didn’t watch out from now on. But for the moment, though, it was handshakes all around, and Dr. Pearwood had been on my side all along. It was always hard to tell with Sniffington.

The Science Media Group had media and entertainment units making documentaries and historical docu-dramas all over the world. Deep within its directory menu was a division named the Enigmatic Sciences Division. It had a decent budget and a tiny staff. The Enigmatic Sciences Division office in New York City was also tiny, located in the main building’s basement. The tiny office came with a gangly young man who wore a multi-pocketed vest with a smartphone in every pocket plus a minimum of one iTablet strapped to each limb segment, and a sleek, blond haired young woman with knowing blue eyes and a real New York City certainty.

She laughed. Finally got him to the right place, hm? she asked Sniffington, my escort. A slight French accent suggested that her New York City certainty was acquired.

Sniffington gave her a rather chilly look. Bringing him here was the final decision made this time, yes. That sounded a bit ominous. Maybe job jeopardy wasn’t what they had meant at the Big Meeting.

She frowned at him, then looked at me. Great story, but not very bright to release it like that. Something in her blue eyes urged me to agree with her.

I’m sorry that happened, I said, once again. I wanted to be sure the world knew. I didn’t know there were any specialists available in-house to help.

My recruiter sniffed and gave her a supercilious grin.

The video is the awesome freak, man! said Tabletman (also with a French accent, but neither was from France – Canadian, maybe?) He pointed to his left pectoral area, where the iTablet he wore there now showed what appeared to be a big green glob on the edge of white tablecloth.

I looked at Sniffington. Video? I growled. What video? I was stunned and angry.

He seemed affronted by my demeanor. "On the helo. An external camera. Told us more than you chose to at the time." He sniffed his disapproval.

So they had known all along.

For an instant, I wanted to kill him. I really did.

The woman snapped her fingers, breaking that instant. Hey!

Both of us looked at her, slightly annoyed.

She was angry at us both, and her scowl was ferocious.

We all looked away for a moment as we each readjusted our professional personas.

That video explained why they han’t simply fired me. They might not have wanted an e-book about it out there, but clearly SantAngel Group saw what had happened in Antarctica and knew what was going on. They also knew that Clementine and I both had PTSD because of seeing the Shoggoth, which was why her treatment and recovery were deemed so important… And why they had put up with my attempt at healing through writing it out, although the utter lack of e-book sales must have helped.

She gave my recruiter a nod. Thanks for the referral, she said crisply.

Sniffington gave her another supercilious grin. Good luck. He glared at me, still completely unaware how close to an assault he had just been. Please behave yourself. We can’t afford to lose you. He honestly meant that, too, in his British way.

Might as well be angry about the weather… Thank you, sir, I said.

Off he went.

She rolled her eyes. My name is Sibelle Triomphe. She pointed at Tabletman. He is Phillipe DuPort.

Sam Oliver.

Welcome to Enigmatic Sciences Division, Sam Oliver.

I nodded. What can you tell me about how a previously believed to be fictional thing like a Shoggoth erupted itself out of Mount Takahe last year?

Her blue eyes narrowed, then Sibelle laughed. Not as much as you have told us all in your careful, very honest memoir, she admitted.

You mean you actually bought an e-copy and read it?

She shrugged. Phillipe caught it right away. He is a nearly obsessive Lovecraft fan. She looked away. Sorry about Captain Prioress.

Yes. Something about her solemn face now registered with me. Wait. Did something happen? Both of them looked at me, then at each other, surprised and annoyed.

Sibelle took it. They did not tell you yet?

It took all my years of training to keep cool. No. As far as I know, I’m here in New York City to meet and review my work performance. And now here I am, with you. What happened to Captain Prioress?

Contact has been lost with the research ship she was on. She was the last voice heard on comms, calling a ‘mayday,’ and it sounded like they were… Were abandoning the ship in heavy weather, perhaps.

Where? Polar waters? Clementine – freezing to death?

Sibelle blinked. No – It’s a research vessel at a site in the South Pacific.

"You mean they fucking sent her out looking for R’lyeh, don’t you?!" I snapped.

Sibelle looked a bit frightened by my face and tone. Not… Not exactly.

I took a deep breath and looked at my hands. Scaring people was not my intention here (not yet, anyway). When I looked up, I saw Sibelle was not scared any longer, she was visbily struggling with her orders to lie to me.

I looked over at Phillipe. Right? I asked him.

Phillipe just nodded, looking sad.

I shook my head and closed my eyes. In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulu waits dreaming…

Chapter 03 - Antarctica: December 2012

I was the only person to return from the Hobblestone-Thorpe Expedition to Antarctica last year. A climb up the sloping side of a dormant Antarctic volcano named Mount Takahe was going to bring ten scientists up to the southwest crater rim to survey the rim and collect new rock samples from places which had been sampled only once, twice, or never before. Two climbing guides were to lead the other ten members of the expedition through the climbing portions. I was one of the climbing guides and the expedition Safety Officer.

When I finally got back aboard RVIB UNDECIM INFRA, I told everyone there had been a fall, a gradual peeling off of all eleven climbers on one slope while I was advancing ahead, roped to a separate piton and about to set another one. Falls were not uncommon disasters, and most of the other climbers were not very experienced with ice climbing. I reported I was ahead of both lines of climbers, anchoring pitons and setting rope for the next advance. While I was ahead doing this work, Elizabeth R. Thilkspoon, a skilled veteran of K2 (and of a dreadful avalanche and rescue effort there) was the climbing guide in charge of the ten science party climbers. Arresting a fall is a very challenging climbing emergency; once three or four bodies are in motion, the ability to hold all the weight requires stout anchors, skilled climbers, and luck. And if one line of climbers slips and slides down into another, usually both lines fall. Even she could not stop physics, once too many bodies were in motion. One line slipped, it peeled off the slope and slid down it into the other, then they all slid down the slope and into a crevasse.

No one on the ship seemed too surprised to hear my first report. Mount Takahe, where we had been climbing, was known to have crevasses. All eleven climbers falling into one was likely if they started their fall on any slope that ended at a crevasse. I was clearly suffering from exposure and shock, and in need of treatment for some sprains and other injuries collected along the way. No one had questioned me very hard at the time.

Although it was never classed as an earthquake centered on Mount Takahe, the 21 December collapse of a central portion of the volcano’s caldera ice dome into a central sinkhole that was five hundred meters in diameter had measured 2.0 on the Richter Scale.

The globe soon learned that a science expedition climbing in Antarctica had fallen into a crevasse, killing eleven. As this was dangerous field work in a dangerous place, it was not viewed the same as losses among tourists climbing Mount Everest. Because it was so close to Christmas and happened on the same day that a very old Mayan calandar happened to run out, it was reported on a busy news day, and the prosaic fate of the Hobblestone-Thorpe Antarctica Expedition soon vanished from interest. The scientists and academics might not be well known to the general public, but there were several published papers among them, and most of them had taught somewhere at some point. By bringing back the science data collected up until that point, theirs was not a total loss, and I was even given credit in some circles for surviving on my own and making sure the reasons we were all in Antarctica still received scientific study and attention.

There wasn’t much media interest, however. Falling into a crevasse was too prosaic a way for a climber to go these days, and ten unknown eggheads climbing up a mountain in Antarctica seemed like perfect candidates for that to happen to. So it was reported worldwide, but…

I was unavailable for media interactions as RVIB UNDECIM INFRA was returning to Port Stanley in the Falklands. The ship was a former Royal Navy icebreaker converted into a research vessel, and it had limits of speed when it came to handling in open southern seas. Arrival at Port Stanley on 29 December had been within a dense fog that kept the media from getting any images clear enough to excite anybody when the ship docked.

The tabloids were not complimentary. That would be against their nature. It had been kind of an expedition joke that everyone thought I was an ex-SEAL, Delta, Recon Marine, or some other sort of ‘dangerous’ military veteran. After the fact, that history seemed almost prescient as my being the only survivor allowed iNet idiots to wonder if I had killed everyone else. The tabloids didn’t say I had done that, because rhetorical question headlines and lurid photos worked better: How Did He ALONE Survive?! and What REALLY Happened Down There?!! Although both sold well for one or two weeks, the story had died out by New Year’s Day, when everyone could finally relax because 2012 was now completely over and nothing dreadful had happened.

They were wrong: it had, but they weren’t in Antarctica to see it, didn’t know there was an e-book out about it, and had no idea what sort of malevolent creature was out there, somewhere in the deep South Pacific Ocean off Antarctica.

Heading north.

Chapter 04 - Lies, Publishing, and Truth: January

As we had headed back to the Falkland Islands in RVIB UNDECIM INFRA last December, Clementine Prioress had been supportive of my writing project and about getting it released it as widely and quickly as possible. She wanted an uncensored truth available, and I suspect she also wanted to know the truth for herself, to try and make sense of what she had seen standing on the crater rim of Mount Takahe on that cloudy December afternoon in western Antarctica.

After Clementine landed us back aboard the icebreaker with just she and I alone in the Antarctic Lynx helicopter, UNDECIM INFRA’s Captain Winston Nimrod had asked me, Isn’t there anyone else we should look for?

No, Captain, I had answered him. We’re it.

No one could get back up to Mount Takahe to conduct any sort of investigation there. No one was available for interview from the expedition except me. The only other possible witness to conditions observed on the ground was helicopter pilot C. K. Prioress.

There really was no local authority in the area except Captain Nimrod. His investigation involved reviewing the statements he obtained for the record from the Expedition Safety Officer (me), from the ship’s helicopter pilot (Clementine), and from anyone on board the ship for contextual reports about the poor quality of radio reception, the content of any communications, the weather, and so on. Within twenty four hours of the ship’s helicopter landing back on board, Captain Nimrod had conducted all of his interviews, written up his investgation’s report, and sent it on to SantAngel Group.

At about the same time Captain Nimrod was finding me not guilty for the loss of the expedition in a climbing accident, I had started a writing a time outline about what had just happened to me. I had no work assignment aboard the research icebreaker, and I was recuperating from exposure. Once I started writing, I was like a Southern Ocean roller: there was nothing to stop me. Writing it all out really helped me recall the timeline, the order of events and details, and it became the framework for what I then feverishly wrote out over the next thirty six hours, with just a few breaks. I finished a draft manuscript late on Christmas Eve, and started revising it the next day, drinking cocoa with Clementine, who would curl up and nap while I worked. She was still able to sleep peacefully in those days.

Finishing the manuscript didn’t help explain the the why of what had happened, no matter how well I had written the what down. The loss of my friend Ricky Schmidt was quite painful, and the way Elizabeth R. Thilkspoon had died twice, so to speak, were still spooky, unnerving images which always floated out at the periphery of my thoughts.

I was still in genuine visible shock at the one press event I attended when we arrived at Port Stanley on 29 December. By then SantAngel Group had been working on the story for nearly eight days, having made the first announcement about the loss of the expedition late on 21 December. I stayed away from all of the media, and I stuck to my script when I was seen. The only quote I ever offered to any media I met was: All I did was hike back with the samples until I was picked up by Captain Prioress in the helicopter. That was never very dramatic. My concern then was that the drama in my telling the truth about the Shoggoth would generate more buzz about my sanity than what had just actually happened, what I had seen. They might even republish that one tabloid story which suggested that I had killed and then eaten everyone else ("and not just ‘to stay alive,’ either, according to our expert!").

The science data and samples of rocks which I had lugged back were still far too abstract and too egghead for anyone to care about yet; that might come later, when their analysis was presented… But as the need for the expedition to Mount Takahe had always been questioned by old hands, the analysis might be never. New samples were always appreciated, but no one seemed to understand why the expedition had been that large, and set out with that high a degree of field interest in that particular Antarctic volcano, versus the Crary Mountains, or versus any others. The rationales given apparently never fit the costs, risks, and efforts needed to meet them – according to the experts.

If the samples ever led to something, the loss of the Mount Takahe expedition team that had brought them to light would be recalled, and so would everyone lost in that crevasse, as I said happened. Until that day, the public had defined the event as: A space cadet guide was guiding ten eggheads who should never have been mountain climbing in Antarctica, of all places, and they all fell into a crevasse.

Perhaps I should have told the truth from the start: "Some were killed outright, but most were voluntarily decapitated by a Shoggoth, just like in the H. P. Lovecraft horror stories in the Cthulu Mythos."

Hell, my being a crazed cannibal killer sounded way more plausible than that did.

Writing the truth as it had happened would have to be enough and so that’s what I did. Despite some publicity from the loss of the expedition, by early January no one was interested. Thorpe and Hobblestone fit a description as, wealthy but little known dilettante businessmen. who got what they deserved. No one who was lost was very well known outside of academic circles (or even within them), and falling into a crevasse was too quick and prosaic a loss to generate enough drama for the media. The scientists weren’t very famous, none had any extended families raising any questions about anything, and despite lip service platitudes, no one missed them.

There had been a 2 January C-130 imaging flyover of Mount Takahe, which had observed and imaged the collapsed caldera ice dome, but nobody else was going near Mount Takahe en route to anywhere else. Nothing weird happened in Antarctica or South America since then to suggest the Shoggoth had done anything strange, or even been sighted. Everyone was happy 21 December 2012 had passed without any global apocalypse, as unpopular as it was for Apocalyptics (Apocalyptophiles? Catastrophophiles?) to hear. Evidently the end of the last Mayan calendar meant not that the world would end because a really long calendar on the wall finally went out of date, it meant that just like any other culture, the Mayans would have to have the next one ready. They calculated they had a few centuries to get the next Long Count ready. Plenty of time.

Clementine was very good at centering me. She kept me grounded, and she had saved my life, so her understanding and support kept me from going crazy. At the time, I did not even know how bad it was, but I rebounded before it was too late, and we had a sweet time for a while…

Until she had her first nightmare, early in January.

I had read H. P. Lovecraft by then, so his fiction familiarized me in advance with the kind of nightmare she might be having. In the Lovecraft Mythos stories, the Shoggoth was a designed bio-tool and was supposed to be guided by thoughts of its masters, all of them alien entities who were related to Cthulu’s universe and interacted with Cthulu and the Spawn of Cthulu. Cthulu and the Spawn of Cthulu, all dead but dreaming within the great vaults of the sunken city of R’lyeh, were supposed to be able to affect human dreams despite their being in a not dead/not living state. But they were in stories, written by a man and other writers over time: Horror fiction.

Then, last 21 December, it developed that the Shoggoth was real, and its physical form was controlled by telepathy. I had seen how brainpower had turned the substance of the Shoggoth into a deadly tendril, or a giant hand with fingers. I had seen what the mind of Hobblestone could make the thing do.

I saw it. Clementine Prioress saw it.

Phillipe had the video of it.

The damned Shoggoth was real.

This suggested to me that the horrible dreams associated with Cthulu, as mentioned in Lovecraft’s stories, might share the same psychic components as the Shoggoth did. Most people on the Hobblestone-Thorpe expedition had been dreaming vividly during the trip from Port Stanley and throughout the hike. They were all Lovecraft buffs, but there could still be a non-material, psychic component present here, also as real as the substance of Shoggoth turned out to be.

Although Clementine had never told me what happened in her dreams, her restless movements and mumbled half-shouts were obvious signs of distress. I had some combat PTSD dreams before Antarctica, so bad dreams about what I saw happen might just be new PTSD for me, not because of Cthulu dead but dreaming in R’lyeh, or from the Shoggoth celebrating freedom after its release from below Mount Takahe.

Clementine Katla Prioress had never had nightmares before. She did tell me that much.

It was time to get the manuscript published. When RVIB UNDECIM INFRA had arrived at Port Stanley on 29 December the plan was that I stay out of any media glare as best I could. I had done this so well that not one publisher or media person whom I contacted in mid January knew who I was at first, or understood what had really happened in Antarctica. They also did not think ten unknown academic scientists falling into a crevasse was worth a whole book, they looked confused when I told them the truth about the Shoggoth, and then they passed on the book proposal.

Usually they didn’t laugh