David Barbour - Shadows Bend

“Thank you, Bob. That greatly diminishes my anxiety.”

“What is it you’re worryin’ about? We’re alive, ain’t we? It’s Glory that’s dead.” There was a touch of anger in Howard’s voice.

“Let’s not argue,” said Lovecraft, wearily. “I am in terrible need of something to drink.”

After an uncomfortable silence, Howard pulled over at an adobe building with a single, decrepit gas pump in front. Over the open door of the garage, a Phillips 66 flying-horse sign flapped gently back and forth, squeaking on one remaining hinge. The place seemed deserted.

“Must be some soda-pop,” said Howard, getting stiffly out of the car. Lovecraft opened his door and tried to get out, only to fall back into his seat as a sudden sense of vertigo came over him. He calmed his breath and tried again, swinging his feet out first the way he had seen women exit a taxi, and he was able to rise without the shooting pain in the side that had plagued him the past several days.

With Howard out of his immediate proximity, it seemed he could think more easily about what had happened in the cave. It had all transpired so quickly, he thought. There had been no time to be deliberate or rational, no time to make a decision the way a reasonable man should. Why was it that, at the instant when their doom seemed inevitable, the monster had balked? If Glory had been chosen by the odd men or by Cthulhu himself for vulnerability to possession, then why had she been able to resist at the most critical moment? The memory of his own weakness and what it took to bring him back from his infantile withdrawal left him feeling deeply ashamed, and with that, the burden of guilt for having lost Glory, of having possibly been the cause of her death, weighed heavily on his heart.

Howard emerged from the gas station scratching his head. “It’s a ghost town,” he said. “Nothin’, no people as far as I can tell.”

“Bob?”

“Huh?”

“I must confess that I do not understand what happened in those last moments at the portal. But even more seriously, I must confess that in my mind I had grossly misjudged Glory. To say I underestimated her would itself be an understatement.”

Howard looked away for a moment, and when he turned back, his expression was hard. “Why can’t you just say what the hell ya mean, HP? Why are ya always hidin’ behind your fancy sentences and big talk like a damn coward? I know you feel guilty ‘cause ya think you failed. God knows I feel guilty. If I could go back, I’d find ten ways to give up my life for her, ya know that? Now we’re alive and cursed rememberin’ how we failed the person who saved our hides and probably the whole wide world, too.”

“I admit I am prone to circumlocution,” said Lovecraft.

“There-you just did it again!” Howard grimaced in frustration and smacked his fist into the palm of his other hand, causing Lovecraft to wince involuntarily. “Admit you feel bad, dammit!”

“Bob, you cannot force me to express myself in a mode—”

Howard grabbed his friend by the lapels and drew his face up close so that they were eye to eye. Lovecraft could feel Howard’s breath, the dampness of sweat and the texture of grime on his forehead.

“Say it, HP,” Howard hissed, slowly relaxing his grip.

Lovecraft stood up from the hunched posture Howard had yanked him into. He began to nonchalantly straighten his jacket, but then he relented, and said, “I feel bad, Bob. I feel terribly guilty.”

Howard gave him a tired smile and patted him on the shoulder. Suddenly, Howard’s expression changed again. At first, Lovecraft believed his failure to respond had provoked another burst of irrational anger, but then he realized Howard was looking at something behind him. He turned around.

It was a young boy-perhaps seven years old from Lovecraft’s reckoning, though he knew he was a poor judge of children’s’ age, having taken great care to avoid them since his own awkward youth. The boy had the light brown skin of a half-blood, but his eyes were a strange green-and-yellow color, rimmed in blue. He stood halfway in the shadow of the empty garage, regarding them in an attitude that seemed oddly mature.

“Hey there,” said Howard with a crooked, wholly unconvincing smile.

The boy did not respond. He took a step forward and paused as if to assess them more fully.

“Hello,” said Lovecraft. “Can you tell us where we might purchase some petrol and soda pop… preferably of the Dr Pepper variety?” The boy blinked and said nothing, but then pointed with his left arm. “And where might that be?”

“Awonawilona,” said the boy.

“Well, thank you very much, son,” said Howard. He motioned Lovecraft to return to the car. He started the engine as soon as he heard the oddly muffled thud of Lovecraft closing his door, but before he could release the clutch the little boy was suddenly standing directly in front, extending a curious hand toward the silver-tinged figure on the radiator cap. “Don’t touch that!” Howard yelled, leaning out of the window. “It’s hot!”

The boy gave Howard an annoyed glance and firmly grasped the wings of the figurehead,

“No!” Howard swung his door open and bolted from the car to jerk the boy’s hand from the angel, expecting to find his fingers scalded by the heat from the overwrought radiator. “Hell, son! Don’t ya understand plain English?” He frantically examined the boy’s hand, looking for the telltale signs-redness, blistered skin-but was surprised to find he was perfectly fine. “What the hell…” Howard looked up quizzically, holding the boy’s hand outstretched so Lovecraft could see. Then he reached over, and with his index finger Howard lightly touched the face of the silver ornament for himself. He jerked his hand back with an involuntary yelp of pain when he felt the stab of heat. “Damn it!” He stuck his finger into his mouth.

“Mama,” the boy whispered to himself.

“What did you say?”

“Mama,” the boy said again, still looking at the radiator ornament.

“You don’t say.” Howard scratched his head and looked around at the deserted adobe huts, realizing that neither the boy nor anyone else could possibly live there. “I bet you live in Awanalon-Awanawilona, right? Is that where your mama is?”

The boy, still mesmerized by the shiny silver ornament, did not reply. “How ‘bout you hop in with us and we’ll give ya a ride back home?”

“Thank you,” said the boy.

“Don’t mention it, kid.” Howard motioned toward his open door and let the boy climb in first.

The boy sat quietly as Howard turned the ignition and started down the road, but Lovecraft felt rather ill at ease with the boy so close and he sat crushed against the armrest on his door to keep from touching him. There was some sort of aura around him-not altogether unpleasant, but both strange and familiar at the same time, like a word on the tip of the tongue. For Lovecraft it felt like something itching from inside, and he drew away lest the feeling become stronger, even more alien and familiar.

Howard sensed it too, but he tried to hide his mild apprehension at what had just happened by clumsily reaching out his free hand and tousling the boy’s dark brown hair as he spun the wheel of the car one-handed. For all appearances he had taken on the attitude of a young father on a Sunday drive with his son-and what did that make Lovecraft but an eccentric uncle.

“Now what’s your mama doin’ lettin’ ya go off so far from home all by yourself in a ghost town?” said Howard. “Ain’t you afraid at all?”

“No,” was the boy’s response. He looked up at Howard as if to check if that was the correct thing to say.

Stealing a look down, Lovecraft noticed the chest pocket on the boy’s overalls jutted out. The boy looked up at him in the same instant, and Lovecraft instinctively drew even further back against the passenger door, his complexion going a shade paler than its usual sheet white.