Black Wings Of Cthulhu: Volume Two Part 2

Fyodor glanced at the tape recorder to make sure it was going. Had he administered the drug wrongly? This could not be a memory-Roman could not possibly remember 1935. Still, it was surely a doorway into Roman's unconscious mind. A powerful mind-a writer's mind, perhaps. A narrative within a narrative, not always linear; a nautilus sh.e.l.l recession of narrative...

Eyes shut, lids jittering, Roman licked his lips and went hoa.r.s.ely on. "...trip to Cuba canceled but still-Florida! Saw alligators in the sluggish green river-seemed to glimpse a slitted green eye and within that eye a sulfurous light s.h.i.+ning from some black sky... A great many letters to write on the bus back, handwriting can scarcely be legible... oh, the pain. In the midst of my midst, how it chews away. Cursed as always with ill health. Getting my strength in recent years, discovering the healing power of the sun, and then this-the old flaw chews at me from within now. I fear seeing the doctor. Nor can I afford him. Little but tea and crackers to eat today... can't bear much more anyway, the pain in my gut... I seem to be losing weight... R.E.H. is dead! Strange to think of 'Two-Gun Bob' taking his own life that way. He should have been a swordsman, striking the life from the faceless flyers when they struck at him in some dire temple-not muttering about his Texas neighbors, not stabbed through the soul by his mother's pa.s.sing. We should not be what we are-we were all intended to be something better. But we were planted in tainted soil, R.E.H. and I, tainted souls blemished by the color out of s.p.a.ce. I wrote from my heart but my heart was sheathed in dark yellow gla.s.s, and its light was sulfurous. So much more I wanted to write! A great novel of generations of Providence families, their struggles and glories, their dark secrets and heroics! I can be with them, perhaps, when I die-I will become one with the old houses of Providence, wandering, searching for its secrets... And I refuse to leave Providence, when I gasp my last...

"The sweet little nurse takes my hand, more tenderly than ever Sonia did. But G.o.d bless Sonia, and her infinite patience. If only... but it's too late to think of that now. The nurse is speaking to me, Howard, can you hear me?... I believe we've lost him, doctor. Pity-such a gentlemanly fellow, and scarcely older than... I can't hear the rest: I'm floating above them, amazed at how emaciated my lifeless body is; my lips skinned back, my great jutting jaw, my pallid fingers. I'm glad to be free of that body. There's no pain here! But something calls me from the darkness above. Is the light of Heaven up above? I know better. I know about the opaque gulfs; the deep end of the sky. The Hungry Deep. I will not go! I will go see Dunn! Yes, dear old Dunn. Something so comforting about the company of my fellow Amateur Pressmen. I'll find my way to Dunn's house... Here, and here... I flit from house to house... is it years that pa.s.s? It is-and it doesn't matter. I drift like a fallen leaf along the stream of time, waft through the streets of Providence. How the seasons wheel by! The yellowing leaves, the drifting snow, the thaw, the tulips... I see other ghosts. Some try to speak, but I hear them not... There-Dunn's house! I'll see if he's still within. But no. Father Dunn has moved on. There is the little Irish girl, adopted by the Dunns. And the cat, her cat, fairly bursting with kittens. Oh, to be a cat. And why not? The mice... sweeter when they run... I speak to the girl... she shouts in fear and throws something at me. She chases me from the house!

"What's that? One of the great metal hurtlers in the street! Truck's wheel strikes me, wrings me out like a wet rag... Agony sears... I float above the truck, seeing my body quivering in death, below me: the body of the cat. But I am at peace, once more, drifting through Providence. Let me wander, as I did once before... let me wander and wait. Perhaps next time I'll find something more suitable. Someone. A pair of hands that can fas.h.i.+on dreams...

"The Great Deep calls to me, over and over. I won't go! My ancient soul has strength, more strength than my body ever had. It resists. I remember, now, what I saw in the ruins of that old lighthouse-under its foundations: the secret pool, the shamanic pool of the Narragansett Indians. A fragment of a great translucent yellow stone was hidden there-a piece of a larger stone lost now beneath the waves, once the centerpiece of a temple in the land some called Atlantis.

"The cat-eye stone struck from Yuggoth by the crash of a comet-whirling to our world, where it spoke to the minds of the first true men; gave the ancients a sickening knowledge of their minuteness, the vast darkness of the universe.

"It has been whispering to me since I was a child-my mother heard it, she glimpsed its evocations: the faceless things that crawled from it just around the corner of the house. She'd tell me all about them, my dear half-mad mother Sarah. She had visited that place, and heard its whispering. And that seemed to plant the seed in me-which grew into the twisted tree of my tales...

"I drift above the elm-hugged street, refusing to depart my beloved Providence. But the call of the Great Deep is so strong. Insistent. I hear it especially loudly when I visit Swan Point Cemetery. No longer summoning-now it is demanding.

"There is only one way free, this time-I must hide within someone... I must find a place to nestle, as I did with the cat... Here's a woman. Mrs. Boxer is with child. I feel the heartbeat, pattering rapidly within her-calling to me... I go to sleep within her, united with him, the tabula rasa...

"I wake on the beach, full-grown. I cannot quite speak. I cannot control my body. It moves frantically about, speaking into a little invention, from which issues a voice. 'Why, what do you mean?' says the voice. 'This is your mother, for heaven's sake! Whatever are you about, Roman?' If only I could speak and tell her my name. A voice comes from my mouth-but it is not my voice, not truly. I want to tell her my name. I cannot... My name..."

Fyodor leaned closer yet. The next words were whispered, hardly audible. "...is Howard. Howard Phillips. Howard Phillips Lovecraft..."

Then Roman was asleep. That was the natural course of the drug's effects. There was no waking him, now, not safely, to ask questions.

Stunned, Fyodor sat beside Roman, staring at the peacefully sleeping young man. Seeing his eyelids flickering with REM sleep. What was he dreaming of?

FYODOR HAD GROWN UP IN PROVIDENCE. EVERYONE here had heard Lovecraft's name. Young Fyodor Cheski had his own Lovecraft period. But his mother had found the books-he was only thirteen-and she'd taken them away, very sternly, and threatened that he would lose every privilege he could even imagine if he read them again. She knew about this Lovecraft, she said. Things whispered to him-things people shouldn't listen to.

It was one of his mother's fits of paranoia, of course, but after that Fyodor was taken with a more modern set of writers, Bradbury and then Salinger-and a veer into Robertson Davies. Never gave Lovecraft another thought. Not a conscious thought, anyway.

His mother, in her manic periods, would babble about a cat she'd had as a small girl, a cat that used to talk to her; she'd look into its eyes, and she'd hear it speaking in her mind, hissing of other worlds-dark worlds. And one day she could bear it no more, and she'd driven the cat into the street, where it was. .h.i.t by a pa.s.sing truck. She feared its soul had haunted her, ever since; and she feared it would haunt Fyodor.

A chill went through Fyodor as he realized he had fallen entirely under the spell of Roman's convoluted narrative. He had almost believed that this man was the reincarnation of the writer who'd died in 1937. Perhaps he did have a little of his mother's... susceptibility.

He shuddered. G.o.d, he needed a drink.

He thought of the wine in the bas.e.m.e.nt. It was still there. Hal said it was vinegar, but he hadn't tested the other bottles. Fyodor had a powerful impulse to try one out. Perhaps he'd see something down there that would spark some insight into Roman...

His patient was sleeping peacefully. Why not?

He went downstairs, to find that Roman's mother, anxious, had gone to see her sister. Leah was yawning at her desk.

He looked at her, thinking he really should take her out, once, see what happened. She's not dating anyone, as far as he knew.

He almost asked her then and there. But he simply nodded and said, "I'll take care of things here. He's sleeping... he'll stay the night... You can go home."

He watched her leave, and then turned to the bas.e.m.e.nt door, remembering the agent had mentioned the house had belonged to the Dunn family for generations. Doubtless Roman had found out about the house's background, somehow, woven it into his fantasies. Probably he was a Lovecraft fan.

Fyodor found the switch at the top of the steps, switched on the light and descended to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Really, that bulb was too bright for the bas.e.m.e.nt s.p.a.ce. It hurt his eyes. Ugly yellow light bulb.

He crossed to the corner where he'd replaced the cap over the hole in the floor. The crowbar was still there. He pried up the cover of cement and wood-took more effort than he'd supposed. But there were the bottles. How was he to open them?

Why not be a little daring, opening the bottle as they did in stories? He pulled a bottle out and struck the neck on the wall; it broke neatly off. Wine splashed red as blood against the gray concrete.

He sniffed at the bottle. The smell wasn't vinegary, anyway. The aroma-the wine's bouquet-was almost a perfume.

The bottle neck had broken evenly. No risk in having a quick swig. He sat on one of the crates, put the bottle neck to his lips, and tasted, expecting to gag and spit out the small sip...

But it was delicious. Apparently this one had been sealed better than the one his friend Hal had looked at. Strange to think it had been here undisturbed all those years-even when his mother had been here. Only once had she mentioned the name of the people who'd adopted her. The Dunn family...

He wanted badly to sit here awhile and drink the wine. Quite out of character-he was more the kind to have a little carefully selected Pinot in an upscale wine bar. But here he was...

Strange to be down here, drinking from a broken wine bottle, in the concrete and dust.

It's not like me. It's as if I'm still under the spell, the influence, of Roman's ramblings. It's as if something brought me here. Something is urging me to lift the bottle to my lips... to drink deeply...

Why not? One drink more. If he was going to ask Leah out he'd need to be more spontaneous. He could call her up, tell her the wine was better than they'd supposed. Might be worth something. Ask her to come and try some...

He licked his lips-and drank. The wine was delicious; a deep taste, and unusual. Like a tragic song. He laughed to himself. He drank again. What was it Roman had said?

I never used to drink. I wanted to take it up, starting with something old and fine. I want a new life. I desire to do things differently. Live!

Fyodor drank again... and looked up at the light bulb. He blinked in its fierce sulfurous glare, its a.s.saultive parhelion. It seemed almost part of an eye, a glowing yellow eye, looking at him from some farther place...

He stood up suddenly, shaking himself, his twitching hands dropping the bottle-it shattered on the concrete with a gigantic sound that seemed to resound on and on, echoing... and in the echo was a voice. His mother's voice... the part of her mind that had spoken to him through the sea of static. This time it said something else.

"We need souls. We have few left in our world. Come to us, across the Great Deeps. Restore our world. Become one with us."

The room, which should be dull gray, seemed to quiver in ugly colors. He turned and staggered to the stairs. His head buzzed.

Then he looked up to see that Roman Boxer was standing at the head of the stairs. "Doctor? Are you well? You are Doctor Cheski, are you not? I believe that was the name..."

Fyodor started wobblingly up the stairs. Alcohol level must have gotten very high in the wine. Seeing things. Unable to climb a d.a.m.n bas.e.m.e.nt stairs very well...

He got to the third step from the top-and Roman put out his hand to him. "Here-take my hand. You look a trifle unsteady."

But Fyodor held back, afraid to touch Roman and not sure why. "You... should be asleep."

"Yes, well-I simply woke up. And everything was fine! Whatever you gave me helped me enormously. The pain in my stomach is gone! I was surprised to be no longer in the hospital... Yes. Thought I was a goner. Kind of you to bring me home-if that's what this place is. That nurse-is she here?"

"The nurse? What..." Fyodor licked his lips. "What is your name?"

"You really have overindulged, my friend. I am your patient, Howard Lovecraft..." Roman smiled widely and once more reached for him. Fyodor jerked back, irrationally afraid of that hand. The hand of a dead man.

And Fyodor tipped backwards, flailed, tumbled down the stairs. He heard a sickening crunch...

Darkness entered through the crack in his skull. It swept him up, carried him away...

He drifted through the darkness...o...b..ting a far world. Beginning to sink toward that cloud-clotted planet...

No. He refused to go.

"In time, you will come. We traded him for you..."

Fyodor struggled, psychically writhing, to get back. A long ways back, and an endless time somehow folded within a few minutes... Then he was crawling across the bas.e.m.e.nt floor. Someone was helping him up. Roman... was that his name?

The young man, quite solicitous, helped him up the stairs to the front hall-and then Leah stepped in the door. "Oh my G.o.d! Fyodor! Roman, what happened! Have you hurt him? He's got blood on his head! I knew something was wrong! I was sure of it! Never mind, just sit down, Fyodor, I'll call an ambulance... and the police."

HOW THE SEASONS WHEEL BY. SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, winter; spring, summer, fall; a year and another... And then an early summer day... the roses were pretty, quite new, not yet chewed by the fungus... Mom drooped in her chair, across from him, eyes completely hidden in sungla.s.ses. She would want to play cards when she woke up. He preferred the puzzle.

"Fyodor?" It was Leah, speaking from the back door. Smiling. Dressed up rather formally. "We're going out. To the book signing."

"Hm?" Fyodor looked up from his Old Providence jigsaw puzzle. Mother had been grumpily helping him put the puzzle together on the card table, in the late summer suns.h.i.+ne; the rose garden behind the Dunn house. But Mom had gone to sleep, a jigsaw piece in her hand, slumped in her chair. She looked contented, snoring away there.

Roman was so good to take care of her-to care for them both here.

"I said, we're going to Roman's signing-for his book? You sure you won't come? The man from the New York Times is going to interview him."

"Is he? That's good. Big crowd?"

"Oh, yes. It looks to be a bestseller. I know you don't like crowds."

"No. Crowds and cats..."

He had heard Roman's agent, a pretty blonde lady, chattering away over breakfast. "They're framing it as Roman Theobald, the man Lovecraft might have become..." Then she'd turned to him. "How are you this morning, Fyodor? Would you like some more orange juice?"

Very kind of her. Everyone was very kind to him, since the accident. Since the damage to his head.

Leah had married "Roman Theobald"-that was his pen name. Roman Boxer was his real name. Anyway-the name on his birth certificate. Sometimes, in the house, she used a funny little affectionate name for him. "Howard." Odd choice. Anyway, she was Mrs. Roman Boxer now. She was almost ten years too old for Roman, but Mrs. Boxer had approved. She'd bought the Dunn house as a wedding gift for them. Mrs. Boxer had died, soon after the wedding, of cancer. Buried at Swan Point Cemetery.

Fyodor felt good, thinking about it. Maybe it was the Prozac. But still-it was true, everyone was very kind. Roman, Leah, the doctors. And Leah made sure he took his pills in the evening. He really couldn't sleep without them. Particularly the pills against nightmares. He was quite sure that if he dreamed of that place again, the place the bells in the sea spoke of, that he would not wake up the next morning. He might never wake up again. And mother, then, poor old mumsy, would be all alone. Until they came for her too.

View TOM FLETCHER.

Tom Fletcher was born in 1984. He is married and currently lives in Manchester, England. He is the author of two novels-The Leaping (Quercus, 2010) and The Thing on the Sh.o.r.e (Quercus, 2011)-and numerous short stories. He blogs at www.endistic.wordpress.com, his Twitter username is @fellhouse, and he can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tomfletcherwriter.

"JUST THE HALLWAY ALONE IS WORTH IT," NEIL SAID. "Look at the banisters, the tiles, the s.p.a.ce."

It was a very impressive hallway. The floor was surfaced with black and white tiles, chequered. They were polished to a high sheen. The banisters of the spiralling staircase were heavy-looking. Dark, solid wood. Also well-polished. And the s.p.a.ce-the chequerboard floor seemed vast, the tiles seeming to diminish in size to nothing at the far side of the room.

"It's like being in a painting," Neil said.

It was like being in a painting.

THE ESTATE AGENT WAS AN INCREDIBLY TALL MAN with a perfectly bald head that gleamed as cleanly as the tiles. He wore a grey suit with a cream-coloured s.h.i.+rt. He carried a clipboard that held a few sheets of paper-information about the house, judging by the way he would look down at the clipboard and then impart some fact or other. His deep-set eyes blinked slowly whenever he spoke.

"This flooring is the original flooring," he said, his voice sonorous and profound, "dating back to when the first part of the house was constructed in 1782. Extensions have been made since then, of course, outwards and upwards and even downwards."

"Outwards?" I asked. "I thought this was a terrace?"

"It is a terrace," the estate agent said. "You'll see what I mean when we head upstairs. I propose that I show you around the ground floor to start with, and then take you to the upper floors, and then, after that, we'll come back down and you can explore the bas.e.m.e.nt. After that, I'll give you some time to talk between yourselves. How does that sound?"

"Sounds good," Neil said, looking up at the ceiling.

THE KITCHEN WAS AS IMPRESSIVE AS THE HALLWAY. Marble tops, a Belfast sink, those beautiful tiles throughout. Cupboards and drawers that looked custom made, and again, that lovely dark wood.

"Cheri," Neil said, "this house is amazing. We should go for it. We should definitely go for it."

"It is amazing, so far," I said, "but we haven't seen it all yet. Let's just see it all before we make our minds up. We need to think about the cost of it too. We can't just fall for the first place we see. We don't want to hurt ourselves, financially."

"Mmm," Neil said, waggling his head around, "yeah..."

The estate agent grinned and gestured towards the back door.

THE GARDEN WAS A LONG, THIN STRIP OF A THING, but it was verdant, bright, and green beneath the autumn mist. It was enclosed by a tall wooden fence. A healthy-looking vegetable patch thrived at the far end. The bright tops of a few ripe pumpkins bulged up, regularly s.p.a.ced. Neil squeezed my hand. "When we have kids," he said, "this garden would be perfect."

When we turned to look back at the house, I realised how low the mist had come. Even the windows of the first floor were obscured.

THE LIVING ROOM WAS COSY AND SQUARE, WITH WARM wooden floorboards-smooth and glowing with varnish-and an open fire, lit even then, just for the viewing. It roared merrily away like a happy animal. The walls had been given an even coat of pale lime green paint. It looked flawless-quite fresh.

The estate agent took us back out into the hallway and grinned his huge, toothy grin.

"As you can see," he said, "this is a very desirable property. Now. Let's go upstairs."