The Young of the Old Ones

"The Young of the Old Ones" is a short Cthulhu Mythos story by American author Jeffrey Thomas, first published in his 2005 collection Unholy Dimensions by Mythos Books. It is the third and final story in a series set in Thomas's Punktown milieu involving the character John Bell.
== Synopsis ==
When a man believed lost for the last eight years after an experiment in dimensional travel miraculously reappears, Colonial Security Agent John Bell is assigned to conduct an investigation at the R'lyeh research station.
Through interviews with the returnee and science staff there, he establishes that the man has been in the presence of a godlike being, most likely Cthulhu, and that while there his body was laced with thousands of microscopic creatures which the team have successfully removed. However, when Bell orders these organisms destroyed, a reaction is triggered which causes them to grow massively in size, attack all those they come into contact with, and attempt to re-initialise the dimensional portal.
Fortunately for the few surviving staff - not to mention the human race as a whole - other elder powers have been watching these events from the beginning, and have inserted a biological version of the star-stone into the facility, killing the invading creatures at a terrible cost to itself.
== Publication History ==
Since it’s first appearance, "The Young of the Old Ones" has also been included in the 2012 German-language collection Geschichten aus dem Cthulhu-Mythos by Festa.
Category:Jeffrey Thomas works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works