[anthology] Darrell Schweitzer (ed) - Cthulhu's Reign Read online

  He couldn’t see any of the bugs, which made him feel better. One time a couple of them flew into town and seemed to be checking everything out. Mr. Franks had run inside his house and grabbed a bottle of Raid and ran after them spraying the air. They stopped and sort of hovered. The poison seemed to do no harm, but after thirty seconds Mr. Franks just sank to the ground. His skin showed angry red blotches in the shape of the angular designs on the bugs’ wings. He never came to and passed a few hours later. Now when a bug flew by, people ran indoors.

  As he continued south, the sky changed from blue to the color of lead. Comesee had been a little anglo town. In the old days (which seemed so far gone), it survived by its junktique stores that sold to the Austin tourists on weekends. Nat hadn’t thought about the town since the Rising, even though it was just a few miles away. Since then you just assumed anything that could be bad was. The billboards still welcomed folks in the name of the Lions. Historic Denton’s BBQ still promised the best Elgin sausages and brisket. Even the Dairy Queen was up ahead nine blocks on the left. A few burned-out cars were on the highway, but the passage into town looked clear. Nat glanced at the pair of loaded Glock 37s on his passenger seat. Bullets worked against most things. If it didn’t hurt your eyes to look at it, generally bullets would hit it. He slowed down as he came into town, waiting for either for signs of humans or of the Change.

  It was the latter.

  The Chevy dealership was covered with gray mucus. Nat could see angular things of metal that jerked inside. He gave it wide berth and drove on into the center of town the corner of 2nd and Main. Calabazas—what do they call them—jack-o-lanterns stood in front of every business on Main. It was spring, no time for fresh pumpkins. At least it was spring back in Doublesign. Father Murphy said he had to look for Two Guys from Texas Books. Time was pretty leaky these days.

  There it was. Middle of the block between to the karate place and Hickerson’s Video and Game Rental, it had big plate glass windows. It wasn’t covered in slime; it looked normal. Maybe there was a healing book inside. He hated getting out of the truck. Nothing swooped or buzzed or squelched. The air smelled clean and hot. He left the motor running. He walked to the door. It was dark inside; faded reds and pinks dominated the window display. The Rising had happened in February, and many places still commemorated a faded Valentine’s, when earth’s old lovers had come back. The door was locked. He got a cinderblock out of the back of the pickup and smashed the glass. All of the jack-o-lanterns had rolled closer to him while his attention had been elsewhere. Reality was melting; he would have to be quick. Dr. MacLeod had explained to them that the “Otherness” had to seep in through “liminal” things. Nat thought that “liminal” meant scary. He kicked two of them away from the door, grabbed a flashlight and went in, careful not to slip on the broken glass. The store didn’t smell right—it didn’t have that acid tang of Tia Rebecca’s yellowing romances. It stank of fire and copper, but the books looked OK.

  There it was. The Bible. It sat on a shelf beneath diet books, with other Bibles and Books of Mormon and old Methodist hymnals. But it was big and black with gold lettering Biblia Santa. It had a nice heft in his hands, but as he picked it up something laughed in his head. Voices in the head weren’t unusual, but they made him miserable. Outside the shop, the jack-o-lanterns weren’t round or orange any more. They were becoming one of those clear snot-looking things that seemed to have rusty machinery and mercury inside. They were dumb but fast. He grabbed some paperback novels and flung them on to the street. The snot-thing formed several eyes that focused on the books and squelched off in their direction. Swallowing hard, he ran toward it, since he needed to get to his truck. It didn’t turn until he was inside. He threw the truck in reverse and pulled into the crossroad. It had sensed him and shot out two long runners of snot to pull itself toward the backing Chevy. It grew mouths. Some yelled “Tekeli-li!” Others made the sound of fire engines and turkey buzzards. One mimicked a reporter from Channel 42, “Tex DOT has no explanation of the mysterious slime on I-35.”

  He turned his truck toward Doublesign. The creature was gaining speed. It had made some of the strands into tentacles that were holding on to his tailgate. He put the pedal to the metal. 40, 50, 60. At 75 the main mass couldn’t keep up, but about a gallon of the goo had managed to plop itself in the bed of his truck. It was making little green eyes that looked like zits and little centipede legs to scuttle across the bed. It slimed its way up his back window and its little eyes just spun around. Two mouths formed, their voices thin and high like a kid that has breathed in a helium ballon. One yelled, “Tekeli-li!” and the other said, “¡Si usted ve un soggotho escaparse!” Nat laughed. That was—what’s his name on KHHL out of Leander. Man, he was funny.

  Before.

  Yeah, before.

  Nat tried to concentrate on his driving. He rolled his window up as far it would go. A tiny thick tendril was pushing itself against the window, a tiny eye forming at the tip. He didn’t want to take it into the village. He had some bug-spray, a Crip-blue bottle of Raid Flying Insect Killer. He braked hard and leapt out the passenger side window and let the loathsome mass have it. Jesús, Maria y José. It pulled itself into a dirty white ball and flung itself on the asphalt. It was rolling away. Some days you got the bear; for Steph’s sake he hoped the bear would never get him. Dr. MacLeod said that all life on Earth came from the shoggoths. He said they had never gone away, just “hidden up the spiral staircase of DNA.” All of the things that showed up three years before had always been here, but most humans couldn’t smell them or hear them or see them. When that city had Risen in the Pacific, we could touch them and they could touch us.

  The sky looked blue, hazy, but not dangerously so. The sun was white and some turkey buzzards were flying off to the west. The ground had grass and a few late-season bluebonnets on it. Figuring it was not against the law to pick them now, Nat gathered a few and one Indian paintbrush for contrast. He put them in his truck on the passenger’s side next to the Bible. He decided to open it, to look for cures. Father Murphy had disgusted him by suggesting that some curandero bullshit would be good against the Otherness. Real crosses and real rosaries hadn’t worked. At his worst moments, Nat thought that the campo santo of the Church didn’t really work either. Some day They would come, some ally of the Thing in the Pacific. Doublesign was a small village. It couldn’t feed them the fear and misery they drank like wine.

  He opened the Bible to find that it too was a trick.

  The book had been hollowed out. There was no curandero’s herbs, no list of spells against the coming of the night. It was little spiral-bound book from Lulu Press. The chapters made no sense to Nat.

  1. “Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy in the Ryleh Text,” Mircea Eliade

  2. “Divinatory Deep Structure in Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan and the Yi Ching”

  3. “ Prophetic Patterns in Innsmouth Jewelry,” Ellison Marsh

  4. A selection from “Crave the Cave: The Color of Obsession.” Esther Harlan James. Diss. Trinity College 1996, pgs 665-670

  5. A selection from “A Refutation to Shrewsbury’s ‘Elemental Schemao.’ ” Mary Roth Denning. Diss. University of Chicago 2007, pgs. 118-126

  6. A selection from “Fieldwork with the Brujos Ocultados of Barret, Texas.” Carlos Cesar Arana. Diss. UCLA 1973, pgs. 93-118

  7. “Cthulhu in the Necronomicon,” Laban Shrewsbury

  8. “The Black: Sutra of U Pao in relation to Left Hand Path Cults of South east Asia,” Patrica Ann Hardy. Diss. MIT 2001, pgs. 23- 40

  9. “The Prehistoric Pacific in Light of the ‘Ponape Scripture’ (Selections),” Harold Hadley Copeland

  “Alles Nahe werde fern”

  Everything near becomes distant—Goethe

  AD MEIORVM COVLHI GLORIAM

  As usual, Nat did not know who was tricking whom. The small black book with its simulated leather binding had probably been one of those books college kids buy for a class. Juan had bought one for
his Southwest life and literature class and another for his HVAC class at the community college. Juan had been working in Dallas when the Rising had occurred. Mama loved Juan better; he was the gang-free smart son. Nat smiled at his brother’s favorite joke, “What do you call two Mexicans playing basketball?” “Juan on Juan.” Nat started to throw the book away, but who was he to judge? Certainty went out of the world three years ago. Daymares and night-reams were the scaffolding of reality now; loved ones walked into the sky.

  He opened the hollowed- out Bible; on the flyleaf someone had written two verses in heavy pencil. Genesis 28:16-17: And Jacob awoke out of his sleep, and he said, Surely Jehovah is in this place; and I knew it not. And he feared, and said, How terrible is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Job 3:8: May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.

  He drove on to Doublesign. Felix Washington stood on guard duty. He was the Rev. Jackie Jones’ uncle. Felix was a very popular man, and at 78 certainly the oldest left. He had been a jazz pianist back in the day; he’d played gigs in Austin as little as five years ago. He had also saved a coffee can full of marijuana seeds. Marijuana provided a good buzz and it was good for trading with the some of the other little towns that still remained, like Thalia. Felix still tickled the ivories at the Kuntry Kitchen, and Nat had seen his name on yellowing posters for The Soft Machine and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. He liked to piss people off by saying, “Cthulhu ain’t no worse than white people.” Felix opened the gate and waved him on.

  Nat drove to Santa Cruz. Father Murphy sat at the wooden picnic table near the entrance. He had his pocketknife out, looking for all the world to be carving something in the rotten wood. He indicated that Nat should sit beside him.

  Nat realized how angry he was. His heart pounded. The fat bastard had had him risk his life for a book. A book wasn’t going to solve their problems, certainly not the Bible. Hadn’t we seen hundreds of people using the Bible to lay It back in the sea? Who was this fat Irish-man, telling his family and friends what to do for the last two decades? He had preached against his cousin Cody’s queerness, so Cody had run off to Houston to live in the gay community there, sealing his death when the waves that came with the Rising wiped Houston off the globe. He denied the Mass of the Dead for the scores of suicides, saying the Rising was God’s test of our faith. As though the death of millions was a little algebra quiz. Nat wanted to start smashing him with the Bible—hit that red uneven face that always reminded him of a potato. Nat couldn’t sit down.

  “I brought your damned book.”

  “Thank you, Nat,” said Father Murphy.

  “It’s hollow.”

  “Many people find the Bible hollow these days.”

  “No, I mean it is really hollow. You sent me there for nothing.” Nat took out the little book from inside and tossed in front of Father Murphy. Murphy showed no surprise. Murphy continued his carving, some complicated sign.

  “When did you really know the human world was over?”

  “Three years ago, like everyone else.” Nat wanted the guy to finish. He looked at the church door.

  “Oh, she’s in there with the others. I am as good as my word. I understood the world was over when the Bishop sent me here. I was sent to this little hellhole as a punishment. The Mother Church doesn’t like its priests to stick their dicks in altar boys’ cherubic little mouths. Did you know that? So they sent me here and I knew the world was over when I saw Christ’s face in there. All that look of suffering. He had been mutely telling the human infestation for years and years.”

  Nat didn’t like that he had had the same thought as this kid-fucker.

  “You’re a fucking pedophile?” Nat felt his stomach heave.

  “I never liked fucking them; anyway age has taken care of that. Besides, I don’t really like brown boys as much as blonde ones. Do you know why the Rising happened?”

  “¡Chingada!”

  “Remember all of those talking heads on TV? When the stars are right, they said, they know nothing. The great Priest Cthulhu took a little nap, and a great deal of what is hidden by matter slept. We are the alarm clock. The shock. We figure out things, and as our tiny brains correlate the contents of our minds, their shock, their agony at glimpsing the true cosmos sends out a nice jolt. There are so many things waiting to Waken still; roses in your garden wanting to sing weird songs, pebbles wanting to shoot forth stony blossoms. Human time is done.”

  Nat wanted to hurt him. He would check on Stephanie, and he would tell some of the others first.

  “Why did you want the book?” asked Nat. “I know it is about bad things, but why now?”

  “The collector of these little texts was special to Cthulhu. His moment of endarkenment actually impressed It. This little Liber Damnatus is dear.”

  “You work for It.”

  “I have always worked for It. Most humans do, and those that don’t serve as well. Hasn’t your good doctor explained the Octopus to you? Humans’ shock, their horror, and, for a rare few, their ecstasy works for It. At this point all we can do that is meaningful in the world is to increase the aesthetic value of this blue marble of a planet for a Will older and better than our own. Humanity is its last decade will finally have a purpose.”

  Nat took the hollowed shell of the Bible and smashed it as hard as he could against Father Murphy’s cheek. He knocked the priest off the bench onto the grass. Murphy just laughed. Nat stomped on his chest.

  “Beautiful.” Father Murphy gasped, “Just beautiful. Oh Loathly Lord freed from the Angles of the Water Abyss I am but a shard of black rainbow to adorn the world to which you awaken. Gurdjiatn Cthulhu gurdjiatn ekd szed mem-zem zmegnka!”

  “Fuck you, asshole!” Nat left him. He needed to see Stephanie now.

  “Look, my son, I am turning the other cheek.” Father Murphy rolled over. “I have made my garden beautiful for You. By the green star of Xoth I adore Thee, Domine.”

  About twenty people knelt in the church. Stephanie was a couple of rows from the front. Candles flickered around the Virgin, and the noontime sunlight came through the stained glass, but the church seemed dark.

  “Calabaza, are you OK? Stephanie, we need to go.”

  She didn’t move from her prayer. No one moved. He ran to her, neglecting to genuflect as he passed the altar, even though the light burned signifying His presence. As he came up to her, her face confused him. She had the naughtiest smile ever, and her eyes were crossed. Then he realized that something slick and shiny was coating her face. He touched her. He flinched. She was cold and sticky. A little sob died in his throat. All of them. They had faces of idiocy or leering lust. Some fixative had been sprayed over their faces. Someone had fixed their hands into obscene gestures. Miss Abelard was chewing on a crucifix; Joel Sanchez was whacking off.

  He fell on his knees next to Stephanie. His weight knocked her little rigid body sideways. She would be a praying fool forever. He looked up at Christ. How could you let this happen?

  Murphy had sawn Christ’s ivory colored head off. He had replaced with an ivory-colored flying octopus. The image that the whole world had watched on television and feared. The image that had been in the dark spiral tower of their DNA. The part of Nat that was holding his world together, had its last moment. Nat felt the world stop. He heard a snap inside his head and his psyche dissolved into shock. He actually felt no amazement when the little flying octopus relaxed its grip on Christ’s body and began flying so slowly, ever so slowly on its stubby wings toward Nat. Nat’s last coherent thought was that it couldn’t move that slowly and stay in the air. He was trying to scream.

  He heard Father Murphy entering the church continuing the strange chant he had begun outside. He saw the green banner Father Murphy carried with the strange yellow design, and felt the tentacles as they surrounded his head. He almost laughed because they felt like something familiar—IcyHot muscle rub. He felt them slip over his open eyes a
nd push their way into his nose. He felt one wriggle through his mouth and crush his larynx.

  After that, there was no more linear thinking. What had been Natividad Moreno was now another art object. A tiny part of the Remaking of the world.

  (For Robert Price)

  HER ACRES OF PASTORAL PLAYGROUND

  Mike Allen

  Lynda chews her peas. Her husband watches, his wary gaze fixed on the beauty mark beneath her left eye, no bigger than a felt-tip stipple, a fetching accent to the delicate sweep of her cheekbone.

  When Delmar first placed her plate in front of her, that mark wasn’t there.

  “Your pork chop okay?” he asks. “Not too dry?”

  She nods, mutters “It’s fine” through a mouthful. The muscles at her temples flex as she chews, drawing his attention to the lovely streaks of gray that flare above her ears, so exotic, so witchy—the angle of her head projects in his mind just so and a sleepy flutter of lust stirs deep within him. And a flutter of alarm, too, though why that is, he doesn’t understand.

  Then the black spot on her face moves. It’s larger now, no longer a beauty mark, a lumpy mole with a thick black hair sprouting from its center. The hair twitches again, like a bug’s antenna.

  A whippoorwill starts its saw-motion song outside as a warm breeze stirs the kitchen curtains. Through the window Delmar notes two of the Appaloosa grazing in the pasture closest to the barn. Despite the brooding, overcast sky, sunlight washes the farm in soft watercolor hues.

  Lynda picks up her ear of corn, peers out the window just as a faint spatter of rain belies the filtered sunlight.