David Barbour - Shadows Bend

WHEN THEY RETURNED, Howard and Lovecraft found Glory perched on the fallen oak, smoking a cigarette. She waved a mug at them. “Fresh coffee!” she called.

They convened around the table once again, and Smith gave a report of their meager progress. Lovecraft glanced furtively around until Howard pointed out the can of sugar, and then he spooned so much of it into his coffee that Smith’s eyes widened in concern.

“I’m not sure what to suggest,” said Smith. “The wisest course of action would be to take the book to Berkeley and let the antiquarians and philologists at it. Even so, it could take months or years to translate the text.”

“The span of months and years is hardly available to us.” Lovecraft added another spoonful of sugar. “Yet I am confident that something will transpire in a timely fashion.”

“And why’s that?” asked Howard. ” ‘Cause the crazy old Injun told us his tall tale? I wouldn’t be so happy about that, HP, since he told us we was all gonna die.”

“That seems rather moot,” said Smith. “We are all going to die, aren’t we? Eventually.”

Glory noticed the sun had already set. The horizon stretched purple and maroon across the west and the sky above was a cobalt blue and blue-black; a few wisps of cloud had drawn out like unraveling threads, gray-black on one side, tinted with a miasma of colors on the other. “He gave details,” said Glory. “Could we talk about something else?”

“Well, let’s have a little something to eat and then retire for the night. Sleeping out here, we’ll be up at the crack of dawn.” Smith got up and busied himself setting up the kerosene lamps and checking the supply of firewood.

The twilight didn’t linger for much longer, and soon, after a small snack and some incidental conversation, they set up their cots and got ready to sleep. Smith offered Glory the option of sleeping in the bedroom in the cabin, but she decided it would be safer for her to camp there with the men. She took the third cot, and Smith made himself a bedroll on the ground.

“I trust we shall have eventful dreams,” Lovecraft said by way of good night, “though I myself would much prefer a boring sojourn in the realm of Hypnos. I bid you all pleasant adventures.”

“I trust in cold steel and hot lead,” Howard mumbled.

“Good night, boys,” said Glory.

They continued to exchange quips for a few minutes before they said good night to Smith, who, by then, had silently entered the portals of sleep.

HOWARD WOKE UP in the middle of the night with an uncomfortably full bladder. He grumbled and sat up, scratching his head, momentarily disoriented. There were the coals of the fire still glowing, and above the black wall of the nearby tree line, the faint wash of stars behind the face of the moon.

He sat up and disengaged himself from his half-open sleeping bag, then swung his feet over the cot and tapped around for his shoes, which he now regretted taking off. For a moment he thought he had a headache, or perhaps that the coffee had been too strong, but then he realized that the night was vibrating with the sound of crickets, millions of them, it seemed. Recalling the scorpions, he quickly found his flashlight, switched it on, and pointed the beam down into his boots. They were empty.

Now he took his pistol from under his make-do pillow and swept the beam of his light around the campsite, half-expecting to be surrounded by a swarm of insects. There was nothing but the usual debris of camp.

He slipped his boots on and made his way to the tree line, where he paused, and then thought better of it and simply relieved himself, there, shivering with the release.

When he turned back toward the camp he thought he could hear something through the shrill droning of the crickets. It was his imagination, he knew, that made It sound like a low ringing chant-

“Cthulhu, Cthulhu, Cthulhu”-but after recent events he could not be sure. He swept the tree line behind him once again, then turned the beam back to the camp. There was Lovecraft on his cot, safely away from the wood smoke; there was Smith, oddly languid on the ground in his bedroll; there was his own empty cot near the fire; and there was Glory, bundled under her blankets. But where was her red hair? He walked briskly forward, realizing something was wrong, and just as he got to Glory’s cot the whispering abruptly stopped. A loud shriek came from the direction of the cabin, and with it a blast of blinding blue white light that cut through the darkness like the giant blade of a sword.

“HP! Smith!” Howard called, but they were already up, turning toward the sound. “Glory’s missing,” Howard said, and not waiting for the others, he immediately ran stumbling toward the cabin, eyes dazzled by purple afterimages.

The back door of the cabin was open, casting a rectangular swatch of light like the negative of a shadow onto the dark ground. Howard drew his pistol and ran in, his boots thundering on the wood floor.

The first thing he saw was Glory’s silhouette at the table, leaning over the source of the blinding light, whose blue tinge caused her hair to glow an unearthly violet color.

On the table, the pages of the Necronomicon fluttered wildly, behaving as if some frantic invisible hand were thumbing back and forth through it looking for a particular passage. Howard watched, bewildered, as the book flattened down, just as abruptly, its tattered pages open to an arcane diagram. Now Glory raised her arms high, the sleeves of her blouse falling to her shoulders, her skin pale blue, and a voice, clearly hers and yet not hers, whispered, “Cthulhu.”

“No!”

Instantly, Glory spun in her chair and faced him. Her face was damp, her eyes oddly reddish, her hair tangled. She had opened the buttons of her blouse and pulled the fabric down and back, exposing her breasts and her belly. Howard couldn’t help but stare. He tried to hold the pistol steady. “No!” he said again.

Glory smiled a wicked and lascivious smile that distorted the natural beauty of her features. “Put down the gun, Bobby,” she said, reaching toward him.

Howard took a step backward and pulled the hammer back. “Miss McKenna,” he said, “stop it.”

Glory tilted her head back and laughed, then she stared into Howard’s eyes and said, “Look at me, Bobby. Look at me.” She arched her back and preened for him.

Howard couldn’t take his eyes off her body. He thrust the pistol forward, but even to him it no longer felt like a threat. He took a step toward her, pistol still extended, and she reached for the barrel, smiling.

“I’ll shoot you, I swear,” said Howard.

“Oh, Bobby, you’re so brave.”

Glory was about to rise from the seat and take the pistol when Smith barged in carrying a lamp, Lovecraft on his heels. “Stop!” cried Smith.

Howard turned his head, momentarily distracted, and in that instant, Glory leaped up and swatted the .45 from his hand, sending it flying into the darkness of the adjoining room. The blow stunned Howard, and he responded with a boxer’s instinct, dropping his weight at the knees and swinging. His left hook caught Glory behind the ear, and it might have killed her had he not opened his hand and turned the punch into a mighty slap, which spun her all the way around and left her in a heap on the floor.

Suddenly the light from the table died down into a muted blue glow. “The Artifact!” cried Lovecraft. “She took it from me!” He did a foolish thing and reached for it, only to burn his fingers on the intense cold that issued from its face on the table.

Smith lifted Glory to her feet and sat her up in a chair, kneeling in front of her to support her. He took her jaw in one hand and turned her head this way and that. “Are you all right, Glory?”