Through Dark Angles: Works Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft Read online

  I win. I will be the first to set foot in the red chamber. I hope no one’s down there with obsidian knives.

  April 24, Sabbath day, 2:30:

  When I lowered myself onto the floor there was a skull to greet me. As opposed to mourning this Indian Yorick, I yelled. This is the result of too many B movies in childhood, I suppose. Let me return to the scientific method while I’m still awake.

  The red chamber is almost perfectly circular in shape. Its height is 25 feet and its diameter paces out to be 60 feet. It is a disappointing find. There are no ruins or helmets of conquistadors here. In the dead center of the cavern is a large stone—altar, I suppose. It is 3 feet high and 6 across, just as circular as the chamber. The altar is made of a fine-grained black basalt. I remember enough college geology to know that it had to come from at least 100 miles away. (Passing thought: my college English classes are paying off, I’ll write this up for a mint! I had thought that class in writing the science fiction short story at Texas Tech would come in handy someday. Thank you Dr. Christensen!)

  There are the skulls and skeletons of twenty-five individuals here. Seven of them are/were children. Watching them in the blood-light is very disquieting. Jerry’s eyes are all agleam; the blood of Spanish conquerors is no doubt nearer the Seven Cities of Gold than it has been in six centuries.

  Connie does a conjuring trick and produces the inevitable bag of grass. We decide quite somberly that Baudelaire would have smoked dope in the same circumstances. I roll the joints. I offer the first number to one of my skeletal friends; since he makes no move to take it, I pass it on to Connie.

  I stop smoking and start writing after the third number. I don’t want to get real stoned and run screaming out of here like some character in a Hoffmann tale.

  A glance at my watch. The Great God Seiko tells me it’s 4:30. The inertia that dope brings has settled upon us. I tell J & C that I’m going to crash here. They debate returning to the jeep with each other, then sleepily agree to stay here.

  They choose the altar slab to sleep on. Not for me—I point out that, after all, Sunday is a religious day. I also tell them that I’m going to sleep like the dead.

  April 24th HIGH NOON:

  I awake groggily. The cannabis indica is singing a celestial fugue in my weary head. The red light remains unchanged, the color of sunlight through closed eyes. I had terrible nightmares while I slept.

  I dreamt of moving in the red-litten world. I walked over to a certain spot in the floor and opened a secret door. It was carefully camouflaged. Only the priest of the Watchers, the one called the Awaited, could even see the door. The chamber below was—the English language breaks down here—black-litten. A rope ladder was thrown up to me from below. Loathsome little green men clambered up the ladder.

  In my dream I was neither disturbed nor repelled by these ghouls. They were man-shaped but a little less than man-sized. They had a greenish, rough skin, large-eyed, large-eared, with a horrible, distorted resemblance to the koala bear in their faces. They were grossly emaciated—I realized the smaller skeletons were not those of children. They were indeed the Watchers that I had read about in the Typhonian Tablet in Dr. Bowen’s Occult Folklore at Amarillo College. I wish I had paid more attention instead of trying to get into Cassilda Jones’s pants.

  I knew they had waited for me a long time. They were sad that there were only seven of them; you need ten to worship properly. But it had been long, so long! With tears on their faces, they shambled toward me, manifestly eager. They were exactly like me. I had waited all my life for some purpose. I had gone through a marriage, through college, through a few jobs, and where had I wound up? A crappy apartment two miles from my parents’ home in Amarillo, Texas. Like the Watchers, I was waiting. They would show me what to do. They would show me, because I could do what they couldn’t do, bring life to their half-real world, because I had already spent years in a half-real world. I could bridge the gap, because I wasn’t real, not any more real than they. They put their little hands on me, I could feel the gritty sand, they put a slippery glass knife in my fist . . .

  Some dreams are hard to disbelieve upon wakening. This one was particularly so. The bodies of my two closest friends lie on the altar with their necks slit. Beside them glimmers an obsidian blade, slick-shiny with their blood.

  Fortunately, there is very little blood on my clothes. I fish Jerry’s keys out of his jeans pocket. Unfortunately this will remain a private journal. I cannot share this Angkor Wat with anyone.

  Before leaving the red-litten chamber one thing remains to do. I will investigate that certain spot on the caliche floor. I don’t know which will be worse—to find a secret door or to find nothing.

  The Rock Ledge 2:00 April 24:

  I am thankful my position enables me to make diary entries. Writing is a good way to fight fear and pain. I made my way to the secret place and laid my hand on a small stone projection scarcely noticeable.

  The stone depressed and a section of caliche floor slid noiselessly away. Amazing that it still works. Beneath me was blackness thick enough to touch. Tangible blackness, darkness made visible. I found a penny to drop into the abyss and counted, waiting for the chink below. Instead I heard a meeping sound. A rope ladder was flung up at me. I caught it just as I had in dreaming. I fastened it to the rock and ran and got the obsidian blade.

  It cut through the rope as though through thread. I heard a thump and howls below. I pressed the rock again, sealing off the entrance to the black world of the Watchers. My sacrifice had made them real, and they wanted me to join them. Believe it or not, I had wanted to, it had felt GOOD killing my near friends—or if not good, at least real.

  I almost made it away, too. As I crawled out of the blue-litten chamber the stone tunnel collapsed, pinning both my legs. I’m sure the right one’s broken. The left one doesn’t have any feeling in it. I can’t shake the impression that the tunnel bit me rather than just collapsing. I hope my legs are completely covered by rock. I wouldn’t want something nibbling on them.

  If the Watchers stay real they will haul me off to their world. If I remember, the Typhonian Tablet said that they try to leave enough traces in the world to suggest but not confirm their reality. I wonder if they will leave anything of me.

  (For Richard Gavin)

  Sanctuary

  It was the third year after the Aeon of Cthulhu had begun. The second year after Nat’s wife had walked off into the sky, and three weeks since he had driven into Austin to raid a drugstore for anti-depressants and vitamins. It was noon; three years ago he would have been at Precision Tune scanning cars whose “Check Engine” light had come on. No, since it was noon, he would be walking across the street to Tacos Arrandas #3 with Willie, Juan, and Mike. The chicken flatuas with sour cream would be pretty good right now with a cerveza. Someone was crying in the Church, but someone was always crying. They would quiet down. Everyone sat upright at Santa Cruz during the day—unless they were praying. If they weren’t out growing vegetables, they stayed here. There were non-Catholics here—Mr. Jones, over there, with his black shiny face, he had been some sort of Baptist minister. The once fat blonde lady that taught science had been an atheist—what was that word they used in Mr. G’s class? I guess her hypothesis had proved wrong. There were gods; mainly they ate us.

  Nat hated the Church except for Jesus. Jesus never looked too good growing up stuck on that damn cross, couldn’t help anybody, could he? He used to make stupid jokes with the cholos he hung out with—“Why can’t Jesus eat M&M’s? ’Cause they fall through the holes in his hands.” They would tell him that he was going to hell. Guess they were right about that. He still carried his baby-blue rosary from back in the day. It seemed like those from Below didn’t give a shit about colors.

  He liked Jesus now. He didn’t understand why Jesus was white when the Virgen was Mexican. Don’t you know that had been a shocker to Joseph? The brown eyes were large and shocked with pain—we should’a known he was telling it was comi
ng for years. We all look like that now. Jesus had caught up with the times or the times had caught up with Jesus. The crying had stopped and praying had started. Prayers were pretty free-form, mainly to Jesus or the Blessed Virgin, but occasionally someone worked in a call to Yog-Sothoth, as Keeper of the Gate—he was pretty popular. Maybe he would gate them all back. It was one of the few Names everybody knew. CNN had lasted for twenty-three days after the Rising. So everybody knew something. Even in Doublesign, Texas.

  He thought of his youngest brother, Jesús. Jesús decided the thing to do was Get with the Program. He rented some horror DVDs from Blockbuster—he figured that he would get in good with the New Bosses. He studied the ritual sequences, the sacrifices. So he drove into Austin, found an occult shop, and bought some black candles, some chalk, a fancy knife, and a big chalice to pour blood into. Mama told him to have faith. It was a stupid argument. Had faith kept Cody from getting HIV? Had faith kept Esmeralda’s pickup from being hit by the eighteen-wheeler?

  Jesús drove to the parking lot of Sam Houston High School that night. The moon was full and high, and it had not yet opened its Eye. He spray-painted two big circles, one inside the other. We all watched. It was better than listening to what was going on in Japan. You’d think after all them Godzilla movies they could have handled it. We hadn’t told Father Murphy; we wanted to see if Jesús was right. He lit five black candles in the shape of a star. Then he opened a used black paperback book that he had paid top-dollar for in Austin. He read some gibberish by flashlight.

  Then he went to his old Chevy half-ton and took his red-nosed pits out. He had them tied up with bungee cords and they were squealing and barking. He dumped them in the center of his circle, put on his black graduation robe, and got the Chalice and Knife from the front of his truck. He carried an MP3 player with him and laid it next to the dogs. He cranked up The Symphony of the Nine Angles and started yelling stuff about the “Blood Is the Life” and “Passing through Angles Unknown.” I guess I should have paid more attention in Mrs. Gamble’s geometry class. Then he picked one of his dogs up and cut its throat. It was not easy to manage this and hold the chalice and the paperback. The dog made a terrible sound, and we were going to rush in and stop all this, but we were scared, we had seen the Terrible City on CNN and the Thing at the North Pole.

  He dropped the squirming and whimpering dog. “¡Venga adelante y aparezca, O Utonap’stim! Venga! Venga! Yog-Sothoth! ¡Beba la sangre se ha ofrecido que! I call you by the Seal that is at once Four and Five and Nine! ¡Venga! ¡Venga!”

  The dying dog tried to crawl away. The other screamed as we had never heard a dog scream. His flashlight went out, but it wasn’t very dark because of the moon. Then he went dark. It was as though every piece of light was sucked away suddenly. We could feel sound being sucked away, too. In Robert E. Lee Park next to the school there were the usual late spring lightning bugs flashing on and off. Suddenly they all flew our way. They clustered all over Jesús. We could see him struggle, but couldn’t hear a word. He fell over and the dark went away; even his flashlight flickered back on. I ran up to him. The bugs had eaten his skin and eyes. Juan found a gun and put the dog out of its misery. We had trouble getting the cords off the other dog without getting bit. When we did she ran away. We burned the book. CNN told us that, in a few days, if you called them by night they came.

  Nat didn’t like thinking about that. But you couldn’t think otherwise. He looked at poor white Jesus. Poor bastard, even being white doesn’t save you now.

  Nat was rich right now; he had made a run into Austin with Jesús’ truck. He had found an HEB that wasn’t looted. Dried pinto beans, jalapeños, canned ham, tangerine jello, soup, flour (without too many weevils), and a large can of fruit cocktail. Mama invited the MacLeods from next door. Dr. MacLeod had taught classes in chemistry at the University of Texas. His wife had taught painting classes for adults at the community college here in Doublesign. They had been great neighbors since before the Rising. They were Mormons, so they had over a year’s supply of food saved up. They loved Mama; even when Nat and Jesús and Juan were sowing wild oats, they took her applesauce bread and had her over for “Mormon Beans” back when ground meat was available. Dr. MacLeod had been so helpful when the Rising happened. He knew all about the Masons and the Illuminati. He spoke at one of the last town meetings, and everyone agreed to crucify the old men in the Mason Lodge. It was easy to catch them, not one was under eighty—besides, they died quick, which everyone says is a Good Thing these days. Dr. MacLeod explained how the One World Government was really about Cthulhu. After the moon opened its Eye, it was clear what the “All-Seeing Eye” on the dollar bill had been about.

  Mama didn’t have electricity, of course. But Nat had driven to Barton Creek Mall the day after one of the Shining Waves had passed through Austin. It had paused at the Mall, breaking it into three big pieces. Nat and Juan had loaded up their trucks two times each with the stock of a Wicks and Sticks. At first (before Victoria had walked into the sky) Nat kept all the candles at his place. But when his wife was Called by the Thing Behind the Winds, he had moved everything (including Stephanie) to Mama’s. They lit candles everywhere, and only once had the house caught fire by one burning too low.

  Dr. MacLeod was explaining the world as usual. “What we didn’t understand is that it is all personal. I never understood that the many nights I researched stuff on the Web. All the scholars said it was impersonal.”

  Mama just smiled. It was not that she lacked intelligence, but like so many Something had shut down in her. She never left the house except to get water at el rito. By day she read old fotonovelas and copies of Reader’s Digest. At night she prayed in her sala. She would not go with Nat to church. Safety was here, in her home. She was happy when she could serve food to other people and when people brought her things.

  “What do you mean, Dr. MacLeod?” asked Nat.

  “It isn’t about what happened in the Pacific or the Arctic,” he said. “It’s your brother. It’s my son. Some Thing out there interfaced with us.”

  Mrs. MacLeod said, “Is it because we were bad? Because the world was bad?”

  “No, honey. We weren’t bad. We were just good food.”

  “We weren’t the ones that were eaten or,” she said looking at Nat, “Called.”

  “Our suffering feeds them. When they take poor Stephanie there,” he began.

  The child looked up, frightened.

  Nat yelled, “They are not taking Stephanie!”

  Mama began to cry, Stephanie looked down at her knees, afraid to move.

  “Come on, Nat, face facts. Everything we’ve heard tells us it runs in bloodlines,” said Dr. MacLeod.

  “Shut up, honey, this isn’t the place,” said Mrs. MacLeod.

  “They just need to face facts. The Others have a fix on their family, just like they got our Billy for meditation. Something was wrong with Theresa. She belonged to Them, and They Called her.”

  Stephanie had put her hands over her ears. She sobbed.

  “You go away, you bastard. We know what you are. Maybe they got your Billy because you had us nail up those old men. You go away and don’t come back.”

  “Nat, you’re being emotional. You know they won’t let her in the church building now. We just have to face facts.”

  Mrs. MacLeod got up and was pulling her husband by the short ecru sleeve of his shirt. “Shut up, Bob. Nobody needs to face anything. We’ve all faced enough. Don’t ruin another night.”

  He pulled his arm away from her. He drew back his arm as though he might hit her, and then just started sobbing.

  “Come home, hon,” she said very gently. “I am so sorry. So, so sorry.”

  Nat put Stephanie to bed. She was ten and would be in fourth grade if there was any school left. For a while Miss Farmer and Mrs. Martinez tried to do classes, but as it sank into people’s minds that man’s time as the earth’s master was over, classes ended. Nat and the people on the block raided Bowie Eleme
ntary School for books and globes and scissors and glue and colored paper. He had raided Terra Toys in Austin. There were still people or things like people in Austin then; that was before the Shining Waves passed through. The empty houses across the way were stuffed with stuffed animals. He thought it would make the world less scary for Stephanie if she saw windows full of white bears and blue horses.

  He usually slept in the hall between Stephanie’s and Mama’s rooms. There had only been one incident. One night a little crack opened in the air about six inches below the ceiling and a black slime had dripped down into another crack about six inches above the age-dulled hardwood floor. He had sat up for hours watching it, hoping it would go away, praying that neither of the females would wake up and see it. It faded away before dawn. Some people thought the whole process was driven by dreams. Others thought dreams were driven by the process.

  He couldn’t sleep tonight. Dr. MacLeod’s words had slipped under his skin. He thought about his little girl all the time. He played with her every day, not for the joy of play but to keep her focused on human things. Other parents wouldn’t let their kids play with her, not after her Mother . . .

  She liked the swing sets in Robert E. Lee Park. That was only two blocks away. He carried her on his shoulders, as if she were a much younger girl. They would swing, and he would spin her around on the roundelay. Then one morning he found that something had taken a bite out of it in the night. After that he kept her at Mama’s. Nat wanted beyond all things to be able to take her to the church, which he figured was the only sanctuary. Father Murphy had said no. He didn’t think the girl was Marked, but you know how everyone is these days.

  Dawn came and he made breakfast for himself and Stephanie. Grits with a little molasses. She looked cute rubbing the sleep out of her black eyes. She wore her pale blue shorts and her little yellow top. She was growing out of the top, beginning to have the buds of breasts. Nat doubted that she would grow up to become a woman. There was no future for humans anymore. He wondered for an instant if she would “marry” one of the gray-skinned ghouls in Austin, and the thought turned his stomach. Fortunately he did not loose his breakfast—food was rare.