David Barbour - Shadows Bend

Howard thought he must be dying, but he suddenly found himself back at home, standing on the shaded porch. He could feel the day’s heat in the breeze and smell the dry bite of sage carried in from the desert. He looked around, trying to get his bearings, knowing, in the back of his head, that this must be a dream. He pinched himself, just to be sure, and winced at the pain. “Ma?” he called. “Poppa?” No answer, but he heard the dry rustle of leaves and the low creak of a loose shutter. Now he turned to the front door, which stood slightly ajar, and as he opened it he heard the sounds coming from his mother’s room, sounds of exertion-expulsions of air, grunts and groans, odd sucking noises. His heart sank. It must be his father using the aspirator again, he thought. He’s pumping Out Ma’s congested lungs with that awful thing. Already Howard Could imagine the nightmarish scene in the room, and he did not want to’ go’ in and interrupt. That Would annoy his father because Ma Would get all embarrassed even though she was in agony. He didn’t want to’ cause any more pain than what she already had to’ bear, So’ he decided just to’ get a peek; he tiptoed to’ the doorway and glanced inside. What he saw sickened him at first, but when he realized exactly what his father was doing to’ his mother he felt such a blind terror and repulsion that his vision went red.

In the scarlet haze, Dr. Howard appeared to’ be aspirating his wife, draining her lungs. He stood hunched Over her, grunting with effort, his body lurching up and down in a pumping motion. Mrs. Howard struggled under him, weakly kicking her feet, her arms spread wide, fingers pathetically curling and uncurling. She gasped and wheezed under his weight, helpless. Scales Of dried mucus and blood caked her lips. The disgusting wet noises came from somewhere else. “Poppa? Ma?” Howard said again, his voice high-pitched like a little boy’s. His father turned abruptly and faced him guiltily, as if he had been interrupted in the middle Of a crime. “Bobby,” he whispered. “Get Out, boy.”

“But Poppa…”

NOW Dr. Howard moved slightly to’ the side, revealing his wife’s torso.

Long tendrils of coagulated pus and mucus slithered Out Of her Wound; they fell in Coils at the foot Of the bed, wrapping and unwrapping around each Other as if they were alive. And then Howard realized that what lay at his father’s feet was a living, writhing mass Of snakes. He shrieked. Mrs. Howard’s wound started to’ gush blood, and the Doctor turned to’ face the door head-On. From his unbuttoned pants, a gigantic mushroom-headed penis reared up, dripping the same vile gore that issued from his wife’s chest, and now as he leered and brake into a Loud laugh, tilting his head back, Howard saw the penis move Of its own volition and open its serpentine mouthful Of dripping, hooked teeth-into a hideously evil smile. He shrieked again, and he did not care now whether he was dreaming Or awake.

Neither Lovecraft nor GIory heard Howard’s scream. Their senses were turned inward, Occupied to’ the utmost at the threshold Of madness in their personal realms Of dream reality.

Lovecraft rolled Over from his contorted Position and found himself in bed. He looked around, surprised that the cave had vanished, relieved, almost, to think it might all have been one of his nightmares. It took him a moment to realize he was thirteen again, groggily waking up from the afternoon nap his aunts forced him to take for his various maladies. From the pleasant warmth in the room he knew it was early summer. Birds twittered in the trees Outside. The rustle Of branches almost made him feel the coolness Of the breeze, bringing him to’ full consciousness. He knew what today was-today was the day he Would take down the heavy anatomy book and examine the illustrations he had waited So long to see. He slipped On his light robe and opened the door to go downstairs into the library. Quietly, quietly—he didn’t want his aunts to hear and Come inquiring like the nosey birds they were. He held the doorknob firmly and pulled it slightly as he turned it to the left, and then he drew the door to him in a smooth, single motion until it stood wide-open. A gust Of perfumed air. He frowned. And suddenly a Woman stood in front of him. Did he know her? It wasn’t either Of his aunts, and certainly not his mother. “Hello, HP,” she said in a COY and melodious voice. “I see You’re finally up. Are YOU ready to’ do’ the honors?”

“Honors?” said Lovecraft, taking a step backwards. “Carrying me Over the threshold couldn’t have tired YOU that much,” she said, stepping into’ the room. There was something terribly wrong. Once again, an Odd sensation intruded into’ his consciousness, and he Could not decide whether he was dreaming Or awake, whether he was an adult dreaming himself as a child Or himself-now-with lingering confusion from the dream he had woken from. But who’ was this Woman? And why did he suddenly recognize her as Sonia-his wife? He wouldn’t marry until-and then his thoughts broke Off and he found himself sitting upright at the foot Of his bed, the Woman standing in front Of him, disrobing. He Could not help the excitement that surged through him when he saw her nakedness, the pale gleam Of her flesh in the afternoon sun. What he felt reminded him of illness and nausea, but those sensations inverted into something perversely enjoyable. He felt guilt. He felt anxiety that, quickly verged on fear as the woman pushed him backwards onto the bed and straddled him, looming over him with the shadows of her pendulous breasts “What were you going to do today?” she asked. He looked up in confusion. “Where were you going when you opened the door?” He let out a grunt of air before he could say it: “Library.”

“What were you going to do there when you should have been here, ready for me?”

“I—I—” He swallowed involuntarily and pressed him self flat against the bed as she reared up, raising her arms to push her hair out of her face. “You were going to look at the anatomy books,” she declared. “Is this what you wanted to see?” She moved her hands over her torso, cupping her breasts, and then she hooked her fingers between them and pulled apart. He gasped, and yet he was not surprised when her flesh split and her breasts moved apart, revealing a volume of Quain’s Anatomy, opened to the page that showed the dissected female body. His face grew flushed, his breathing quickened, and he felt dizzy. Beneath his robe, where she straddled him, he felt wetness and pressure, and then something rigid and painful, pushing upward and simultaneously downward. She leaned down, and the pages turned of their own volition as she pushed herself sinuously and arched upward; the book opened to a diagram of female genitalia, and just as he realized what he was seeing, just as he felt that sick commingling of excitement and revulsion, she pulled her knees up and apart, spreading her legs to show, alive, what he saw on her torso in the diagram. It was a fishy, clam like thing ringed with hair, and when its two vertical lips parted, it was the color of salmon. He tried to push himself back when it loomed over his face, but he could not move, and when the toothless lips gaped wide, growing slick with a clear mucus, he tried to close his eyes. He could not. The smile widened, and the fluid began to drip on his face. He tried to make a noise, but now all he felt was his paralysis, his revulsion, his fear, and when the first tentacles emerged from that fleshy orifice, all he could do was gurgle, wide-eyed, and enter the depths of insanity.

Glory lay languidly on the cold stone floor as if she were stretched out in the sun. She was in Texas again. In the oil town. She was so tired her body was sore in more places than she could count, and in the evening heat she had fallen momentarily asleep without meaning to. When she awakened, quite suddenly, she had to shake off the oddest nightmare-about being lost in a cave-before she got her bearings. She was in bed, hot and slightly sweaty. A baby was crying in the other room, a thin and congested cry. “Gabriel?” she said. “Baby?” For a split second she felt a profound confusion, thinking that this must be a dream because she remembered he was dead, but then she realized she had been dreaming that awful dream in which he had died-that had been part of the nightmare. She leaped to her feet and rushed to the other room, not even noticing the splinter she caught in her heel. “Gabriel!” she cried, and she reached down into the crib to lift him out. He’s been alive all along, she thought, folding the swaddling cloth away from his face. The room was dark, and she could barely see him as she lifted him out of the crib. He made odd, congested mewling sounds, distraught with hunger, and he was wet-all over. “Oh, Baby,” Glory whispered, pulling the cloth away from where his face should have been. She saw two large eyes there, but something was terribly wrong. Her baby had no hair. Thick tentacles, like the snakes on a Gorgon’s head, grew where his hair should have been. And below those huge, goggly eyes, his body was smooth, streamlined, and sticky with a mucus like fluid.