David Barbour - Shadows Bend

With more caution, Howard crept up to the loose door. He paused, gathering courage, telling himself that what he had seen was more than just a reflection of the flashlight off some fragments of broken glass. He wanted to go back indoors and come back with help, but then what if it was only a trick of the light? He didn’t want to be’ humiliated in front of his friend and his father. Taking a deep breath, then two, to calm himself, he crept up to the door and yanked it open, stepping aside to get a clear shot at whatever lay in waiting for him.

Nothing.

Howard lowered the gun, and it was then that the thing flew out of shadows, knocking him off his feet in a flurry of feathers. In his panic, he cried out, shooting off another round before, with a sudden acuity in his senses, he realized he had been bowled over by a barn owl even more frightened than himself.

Still on his back, Howard felt with his left hand for the flashlight he had dropped, but before he found it some other light appeared from above him, and he squinted.

He looked up to see a lantern swaying in the grip of a large, rugged hand. He heard laughter.

“Quite a hero,” said his father’s voice, finally. “Almost shot yerself a lil’ ole hoot owl.”

“Where were you?” Howard said, struggling to get to his feet with out slipping. “You left Ma all by herself.” ,

“Why, she had her best little boy to protect her,” said Dr. Howard. “I don’t like the mess of candles, so I just borrowed this here hurricane lamp from Mrs. Butler. What’re you doin’ outside?”

“I thought I saw someone.”

“Yer always seein’ things, boy.”

“Outside Ma’s window.”

“A minute ago?”

“Yes.”

“That was me, boy, just checkin’ the property. We damn near got blasted to hell by that lightnin’. Why don’t you just go back inside and see to yer delicate-Iookin’ Yankee friend, eh? Heat him up some tea or somethin’.” The wind seemed to twist Dr. Howard’s expression into one of disgust.

WHEN HE HAD DRIED OFF and returned to the kitchen, Howard was surprised to find Lovecraft illuminated by a flickering candle stub attached, with a drip of wax, to the lid of a tin can. He was sitting at the table, still sipping his coffee, his shoulders hunched together and his right foot shaking with anxiety.

“I see you found a candle,” said Howard.

“My travel bag is equipped for such eventualities. I believe I heard shots outside.”

“It was nothin’,” said Howard. “Thought it might be the fellow you mentioned, but it was just my father prowlin’ around. Everythin’s fine.” He went back into the kitchen for a moment and returned with two new candles on their holders. As he lit them from Lovecraft’s candle stub, he saw the black-oilcloth satchel open on the table and couldn’t help but notice the ivory handle of a knife protruding from a compartment.

“It’s a flint knife of African origin,” Lovecraft said, noticing his glance. “Another present from my friend, Loveman.”

“Just what we need to cut the still-beating heart out of a lovely nubile virgin, eh, Lovecraft?”

“It’s best to be prepared for the widest possible range of eventualities, Bob, although I’d be forced to defer the honors to you.”

Howard’s friendly slap on the back nearly knocked the more slender man out of his seat. “Sorry there,” said Howard. “Didn’t know my own strength.”

“I shall take that as evidence of your past pugilism,” Lovecraft said, coughing to clear the coffee that had gone down the wrong way. Now. that they had other candles, he pinched his out, filling the room with the odor of burnt wax.

“Where’s the Artifact?”

“On the table, where it was when you left.”

Howard followed Lovecraft’s gaze to the tabletop and saw the Artifact, nearly indistinguishable from the wood grain except for its faint contours, which seemed to be absorbing the light from the candle flames. The first time he tried to pick it up, his fingers could not grip it. As Lovecraft had done before him, he had to use his nails to pry its unexpected weight off the table.

“My God,” said Howard. “This thing’s got no right to weigh this much.” He held it closer to his face, turning it to catch the light as its color changed to match his flesh. At the instant when its transformation was complete, it glowed momentarily, revealing the lines of its hideous face. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Nor have I.”

“Let’s go back out to the livin’ room, HP. I’ll light the heater to kill some of this damp. We got a lot more to discuss.”

They left the dining room, leaving one candle behind. Howard discovered that when he held the other candle close to the Artifact its flame dimmed and grew smaller, as if the thing were robbing it of air, but when he drew the flashlight closer, its beam grew more intense.

“Exceedingly curious,” said Lovecraft. “Those phenomena were ones I had not noticed.”

“There’s somethin’ electrical about it.” Howard put the candle down on the coffee table and walked into the shadows to ignite the heater. He heard a sharp exhalation from Lovecraft, and he swung the beam of light around to illuminate his face.

“My leg!” cried Lovecraft.

Confused, Howard moved the light over the contours of Lovecraft’s body until the beam highlighted his outstretched leg. At first the white fabric of the pants looked mottled with shadows, but the shadows moved oddly, as if their two dimensions were rising into a third, and as they seemed to take on a tangible shape, Howard suddenly realized they were alive-insects-crawling spiders. Lovecraft cried out again, more shrilly, and frantically brushed them off until they were all scattered somewhere in the darkness of the room.

“Shine the light this way! Crush them!” said Lovecraft.

“They’re only spiders, Hp_ Might as well leave ‘em be.” Howard tracked one with the flashlight until it disappeared under Lovecraft’s hat. “I’ll be God damned,” he said, very quietly.

There was something very wrong with the hat.

The white pellets of hail on the hat should have melted long ago, but they were still there; the crown of the hat and its rim seemed to be trembling. Howard moved the light closer, then arced it from side to side, swearing under his breath. Tiny spiders, hundreds of them, thousands of them, had just hatched from the white pellets and were swarming all over the hat and around it, spreading across the table, covering everything in their path. Howard picked up a copy of Weird Tales and swatted at them, crushing dozens with each blow. “Gimme a hand, Lovecraft!”

“I—I—” Lovecraft’s words changed abruptly into a cry of alarm, then shrill sounds of disgust as he swatted at his legs once again, brushing the tiny spiders off.

The insects were easy to see against his white suit, so when Howard could see no more, when it became futile to look for their tiny, skitterIng shapes in the inadequate light, he helped his panicked friend until Lovecraft finally sat down, shivering from both cold and repulsion. On the cover of his Weird Tales, the curvaceous body of the scantily clad maiden in distress was covered in the sticky gore of crushed spiders, plastered with still-trembling legs. Howard dropped the magazines, face up, onto the coffee table. “Damn shame,” he said. “That nice artwork ruint.”

Lovecraft thought it no loss to have defaced the lurid covers, but he kept silent as he examined himself carefully in the dim candlelight.

“You’re right,” Howard said. “There’s somethin’ mighty strange goin’ on here. It can’t be just coincidence that all of this happened just after you walked in.”

“You believe me now?”