Paula Guran - The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu

Light burn me, I’ve tried to be a good father. Once in a blue moon, I ignored my instincts and summoned the courage to perform one last valorous deed before the bell tolls an accounting. Perhaps Jon Foot’s dark magic could reverse this damnation. Too bad he’s dead and beyond the reach of all men. The names he mentioned — Julie, Ethan, Phil Wary — are mysteries that confound solution. With rare exceptions, sorcerers tend to keep a low profile.

There have been times, such as last night, fortified by loneliness for your mother, or by the powerful spirit of the jug, that I crept out to the bog and sat cross-legged in the moss and schemed of ways to slip this noose around our necks. Generally though, it’s much easier to live the life of a garrulous drunkard and cheerfully wait for fate to run its course. Yes, so much easier to not dream of bitterns pecking my eyes and balls for eternity.

Soon, I shall die. Then, I shall return and you will be gone. You will vanish as my brother and your mother did. After you, there is no one. I will reside here, an unfamiliar ghost of myself, alone.

He slumped against his pillow. The effort of reciting his tale of woe had drained the man and turned his flesh a chalky white. Bruises around his eyes and nostrils lent him the aspect of a corpse about to endure ritual mummification. He coughed. Blood speckled his beard.

The woman held his hand. The fire had burnt low, casting a shadow across her face. She said, “Uncle, I mean, Da, that was an amazing story. Especially the part about Jon Foot. Did you really meet him? Was he so very ordinary? Surely, you never met him.”

“Merciful . . . Did you listen to a word?”

“You are a sweet, confused sod. Fret not over damnation nor curses, nor phantoms. I ate the egg.”

“You what?”

“ We ate the egg, to speak true. Did you suppose I slept through your blundering around the cottage at all hours? What matter to follow you? And what matter, after you’d come and gone, to examine the item you coveted in your fevered state? A great white goose egg. Pristine as snow awaiting my eager hands to pluck it from the nest. Pluck it I did; plop into my apron and borne home in a trice.”

“No.” Horror twisted his countenance. He covered his mouth against a deeper, ripping cough, and blood came freely between his fingers. “Oh, daughter. There are no geese here. No geese. Nothing lives in the bog.”

“Our luck was good,” she said with placid determination. “The omelet we enjoyed this morning contained rich red yolk and a lump of half-formed gosling to boot. Praise to the Light. It is the first meat we’ve enjoyed since you took ill.”

He moaned and tossed his head in terrible negation. The woman stroked his brow. She soothed him until he ceased thrashing. His breathing slowed. After a long while it stopped. She squeezed his hand. How sad it was to lose one’s sanity with age as one lost his or her teeth.

She wiped her eyes and composed herself. There were practical matters to attend, such as acquiring a husband to chop wood and hunt game and run off the ever-lurking bandits. Pickings were slim in this neck of the woods, so she’d long delayed accepting a suitor. Now she feared it would come down to one of the inbred Slawson brothers or a gap-toothed hick from among the Smyths who dwelt a couple of hollows over . . .

The dog growled. His mangy fur stiffened until he was more porcupine than mutt. The woman told him to be still and then the shake roof peeled away with a grinding clatter. The stars were gone, replaced by a sky that glowed hellish red. A bittern, as tall and wide as a windmill, warbled mightily and slithered its long neck and broadsword of a bill through the gap and skewered the man’s corpse, lifted him on high, and flicked him back down its throat. A second bird echoed the hunting cry and muscled in, its smooth dark eye glinting with the murderous crimson light of the firmament.

“Well, shit,” the woman said. The black bill unhinged as it plunged to take her.

Gradually the swollen red light dimmed and stars sprinkled the heavens. The dog waited until he hadn’t heard any more screams or those piss-inducing bird cries for a while. He crept from beneath a table and sniffed around warily. Cold hearth, empty beds, no humans but for their fading scents. Tragic, although the mongrel had only wandered into the yard that spring. Scraps were less than plentiful of late, and the woodcutter had been free with his hobnail boot after a few drinks, so the dog wasn’t overly invested in the arrangement.

He jumped through the open window and trotted away into the night.

Crawford Tillinghast, a researcher of the “physical and metaphysical,” appears in H. P. Lovecraft’s “From Beyond.” It is the first of several stories with the theme — to quote S. T. Joshi — of “a reality beyond that revealed to us by the senses, or that which we experience in everyday life.” John Shirley— who has also written several works of fiction with that as a subject, perhaps most notably in his novel Wetbones — uses “From Beyond” as a springboard for this imaginative tale. Shirley also recalls being enchanted by “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” around age thirteen: “I’ve used Lovecraft’s concept of psychic exploring in novels like Bleak History and Demons .” His original Lovecraftian stories have appeared in many anthologies including Black Wings II , World War Cthulhu , The Madness of Cthulhu , Searchers After Horror , Innsmouth Nightmares , Gothic Lovecraft , and periodicals such as Weird Tales and Spectral Realms.

Emmy-nominated Shirley is the author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning collection Black Butterflies and the highly regarded collections Living Shadows and In Extremis , as well as over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His latest dark fantasy novel is Doyle After Death . A collection of his Lovecraftian fiction is forthcoming. John Shirley was co-writer of the movie The Crow and has written television including scripts for Poltergeist: The Legacy . His Lovecraftian-themed lyrics for the song “The Old Gods Return” (and others) were recorded by the Blue Öyster Cult.

I seen that Mr. Tillinghast since I was a five-year-old boy. Now I’m almost twelve, I finally I know him.

Mr. Tillinghast got that old house of his granddad’s just cranked up off its foundations and moved over here from Benevolent Street because they was going to tear it down, him being behind on some taxes and it being ugly and not fitting in over there and ordinances. That’s what Providence town people said about it. So he got it up on those jacks they used, and had a big tractor-trailer pull it over here, next door to the Cumberland Glory Trailer Park. We’re out by the new Walmart. My dad said there’s a money end of Cumberland Avenue and a no-money end. We’re at that no-money end.

My dad said Mr. Tillinghast must have a big ol’ bucket of money to do that. Said he would talk to him. My mom was drunk asleep, I didn’t want to stay around with the TV broke and Mama snoring with her mouth open, so I decided to follow Dad down there, and he never noticed if I did that.

It was cold out, but no snow yet. When I went out the door I wished I had a coat on but it was lost in that mess on the closet floor.

I followed and I seen Dad talking to a man strapping boxes from the back of his big car to one of those hand trucks. The man was dressed in a sweater and slacks and a bowtie. First time I saw a bowtie except on Mr. Rogers. That man did not act like Mr. Rogers.