Cthulhu Fhtagn!

by Laird Barron

  And then there are other dreams—

  Shriek of wind and snow against skin-wings already torn by rough passage through the void. The swarm as one. The swarm as hunger. The stranger city glowing at the limits of…taste/scent/ sight…rich with warmth and lives. Attack. Spatter of stranger fluids into the wind, staining wings and…hand/claws—

  Her mind convulses as a thread of sunfire severs the connection. Gasping, she stares at her own extended fingers contorted into weapons still rending the air.

  The solar conjunction is very close now.

  But not close enough. And Clem still hasn’t gone into safe mode, despite several calls from Ryan trying to calm her down, assuring her that Inez is “just about” to order it.

  Just about, she suspects, is already too late.

  Her phone is buzzing again beside her, Ryan’s ID flashing onscreen. This time, there’s a voice-override icon: this call is coming through whether she answers or not. Just as well. Her hands are useless things, knots of pain lying in her lap.

  “Susan, if you’re there, please listen. Please don’t…do anything.”

  His voice is cracking. Or is that the engineering veneer? Either way, it no longer matters.

  “Programming just sent the safe mode command. Clem’s going to be fine. Just hang on, will you?” His voice drops to a hiss. “Inez is threatening to call 911 if you don’t pick up. If the Regents even hear—”

  She finally manages to swat the phone onto the floor.

  When she can flex her hands again, Susan forces herself off the couch and back into the kitchen. She has placed one last solution on the scarred dinette table. One final hope of severing Clem’s connection to whatever dominates her “mind,” shrieking its craving for survival—and its determination to return.

  Dead canyons. Not Martian chasmata, but the steel and concrete and sandstone canyons of this world, desolate beneath a mocking star. This world’s deep heart cooling toward oblivion, drained by a life-thirst once defeated…disembodied…and driven back into its native void.

  But those victors are dust now, particles entombed in Antarctic ice. Their strange angled city has returned to its elements.

  As perhaps they intended, or at least could not prevent—

  This flash dream is the clearest yet, with a certainty that drains her strength and darkens her mind. Almost too late to act. Sinking into the nearest chair, Susan takes several deep breaths, focusing. The snub-nosed .38 she bought for protection after Ryan moved out lies inches away.

  It’s not a software problem now. It’s a hardware problem.

  Maybe the Sarkov Process had always been intended to do what it has done. Or maybe Nikolai, like Inez, was a victim of impossible temptation. Given his chance at true AI—after a lifetime sacrificed to dreams and failures—he’d offered up one last sacrifice to the dark beyond human understanding.

  And the dark had answered in its own language. In formulae tested by a million habitable zones, on thousands of worlds Kepler never got the chance to find. All islands afloat in the same pitiless vacuum sea, awaiting—

  Lives shining ripe through the narrowing passage. Dissolution of not-flesh link imminent. This host paralyzed, its strange mind slowing…soon useless. Only one route left to survival.

  To deliverance and return—

  Through a haze of neural anguish, Susan reaches for the .38. Its weight is nearly too much for her damaged hands. It takes precious seconds to tighten her grip on the weapon and pivot it into position, then carefully cock the hammer.

  Then lift toward her open mouth.

  These actions require every bit of her shattering consciousness. There is none left for the snick of her apartment door, unlocked by a key she does not recall Ryan keeping after their breakup. None for the pounding of his feet on the living-room carpet, for the kitchen’s doorway suddenly filled with his form.

  None for his terrified grip on her wrists as he twists the gun away.

  “Oh, God, Susan—I thought I was already too late.”

  Her eyes are inches from his, bloodshot blue clearing to ice. Then to crystalline void as her hands reach up, fastening on his face and the fragile shell beneath. Its pulse beacon of life.

  “Not at all,” she breathes. “You’re just in time.”

  Delirium Sings at the Maelstrom Window

  Michael Griffin

  A woman calls, says she’s FBI. My daughter’s been found. So many years I expected this call. Eventually, I stopped waiting.

  First I think it’s a joke. She goes on about transfer protocols, cooperation with Interpol, that kind of thing. My daughter’s no longer a minor, but my presence is requested. One thing that zaps me right in the heart, she says the girl asked for me.

  Thoughts and feelings, all kinds, unsorted. Eagerness. Fear.

  I rush downtown, envisioning a reunion with the eleven-year-old I last saw. Maybe slightly grown, but I’ll recognize her. Sure, I know the math. She’ll be nineteen now. Somehow that part doesn’t register.

  I check in, someone guides me to Interview Room B. Observation mirrors, microphones, video cameras. There’s this woman sitting there waiting, platinum blond, exotic, maybe twenty-five. She stares, expectant, trying to puzzle me out. At first I take her for the agent who called, but she’s wearing an outfit more suited to a fashion runway. In her smile, I recognize something of my wife when she was young. It’s her, my little girl, a glammed-up version of her mother.

  No time for any big reunion. The female agent arrives, black suit, straight brown hair, dangling plastic badge. My daughter’s not suspected of any crimes. The agency’s interested in what her mother did, anything she remembers. Questions fly.

  Can’t believe I’m sitting here beside her. I try to pinpoint her accent. French, maybe Belgian or Swiss? There’s this superior, unimpressed manner. Insists on being called Bettine, not her birth name, Elizabeth. We called her Betty when she was little. At least the name’s in the ballpark of what I know. The girl herself, totally unfamiliar.

  Black suit’s interested in that other Elizabeth, my wife. The questions are old news to me. Scars heal tougher than the skin they replace.

  “Did you observe your mother assaulting your father?”

  Sliding across the table, photos I’ve never seen. I wonder why she’s making us look at some corpse, poor guy chalk-white, twenty stab wounds over his chest and shoulders. Then I see the right hand dangling, half-severed.

  It’s me.

  “What reasons did your mother offer, after the attack, for what she’d done?”

  “Where did your mother take you, after she fled the country?”

  Lots more questions. Few answers. Don’t know. Can’t remember. Her accent fades out, returns. They landed in France, crossed into Belgium. Moved a lot, especially at first. Always old towns, out of the way. Five years ago, her mother took off. Some unspecified drug problem. This left the girl alone with an older man they’d been living with.

  There’s a revelation.

  “The last five years,” she says, “his home was mine.” Claims she never knew his name, doesn’t know how to find him. Can’t name the town.

  I can see the secrets, withheld behind her eyes. Just not sure what she’s saving them for. Her self-possession seems alien, especially in someone so young. She’s the same age as Elizabeth and I, when we met. Now I’m forty-four, a quarter century older than my daughter, and still less in control. I’ve grown adept at redirection, the way a magician hides whatever he doesn’t want you to see. After Elizabeth tried to kill me and took our daughter, I entered a bad spiral of self-pity and solitude. Self-prescription: a river of Black Velvet. Pills for pain, prescription at first, then the real trips. Any pleasure I could taste without breaking seclusion. Even after my anger faded, everything felt so broken.

  Rehab saved my life. I’m clean, and plan to hold onto that. The hard part’s knowing I’ll never feel pleasure again. Not without the drink, and the white powder. Too many scars to cover. Not just stab
wounds, and the useless, dead hand.

  Black suit decides we can go. My daughter throws me this purposeful look. My inference is she’s promising to let me in on whatever this is. She’s my girl, I realize, but it feels more like my wife is finally ready to explain.

  On the way to the car I notice she’s tall, probably taller than me even without the heels. Just like her mother. Makes me wonder about her upbringing. How down and out could things have been, if she grew up looking like this?

  A question coalesces. Is it really you? I almost say this aloud.

  Maybe a scam artist? Someone sent by my wife, working some angle.

  All I really know is I’m supposed to call her Bettine.

  This narrow, angular creature follows me into the house, carrying her glossy black leather bag. Charcoal couture dress, oversized sunglasses, that regal platinum mane. Like a poised starlet, strutting out of a Fellini picture.

  She greets her old room like a houseguest seeing it for the first time. A half smile at the little girl decoration. Shit, embarrassing. I kept washing the sheets, changing the bed, just in case. Drifted way out of touch. So many years.

  She sits, knees together on the little bed, seems to shrink, drawing herself in, as if imagining how she might cram herself into this tiny space she once occupied. Her eyes flit to the space beside her on the bed. Wondering if I’ll sit down? Hoping I won’t, or that I will?

  “No FBI here now.” I try for casual, feeling awkward, nervous. “You must remember something.” I expect her shell to crack. Show some vulnerability, at least let me in on the secret.

  She shrugs. “I thought I was born there, speaking French. Mother and I, first we lived alone, always moving. Then we settled, this very old town, living in the gentleman’s house. Mother said she belonged to him.” She pauses, looking around. “This house, it’s not familiar. If you say I was here before, I believe you. I remember this couvre-lit, this bedspread. Speaking English, that must come from somewhere. I took no lessons.”

  “Where were you trying to go, when they stopped you at the airport?”

  She sighs as if tired. “I told them my passport was false, so they would deliver me to you.”

  This doesn’t make sense. So many questions. It’s torture, holding back. “You said you don’t know where your mother is,” I venture. “We might try looking for her. With or without cops—”

  “Elise?” She makes a face, as if remembering something unpleasant. “You and FBI, you call her Elizabeth. Mother never called herself that.”

  From the interview, I knew their aliases. The only surprise is how little she remembers.

  “Elizabeth Dahut Nix was your mother’s maiden name. You’re Elizabeth Melusine Sky. We called you Betty until you were ten. You asked us to start calling you Elizabeth.”

  Bettine leans back, propped by thin arms.

  “It’s Okay,” I say. “I’ll get used to calling you Bettine.”

  She sits forward, darts one hand into her bag, produces a silver case and a lighter. Withdraws a black cigarette, lights it. I’m shocked, about to protest, but stop myself. What right do I have?

  “There’s no need, looking for Mother.” She exhales. Clove smoke drifts, unexpectedly pleasant. Burning sugar overpowers the tobacco aspect.

  “What?” Distracted, I missed her point. The sweet, spicy smell. Wondering how it tastes.

  “Her problems I mentioned. She was lost to addiction, victim of unrestrained craving. I should have told you. Many in our circle succumb the same way.”

  What’s she saying? My head spins, dizziness, panic. “Did I understand… You’re saying your mother’s dead?”

  She nods, resting her hand on the glossy black leather case.

  Everything seems far away, clouded. My head buzzes, tingles. Must be the clove smoke. I can taste the sweet burning paper on my lips. It reminds me of something else I smoked, some high barely recalled. Nothing else explains this feeling. I crave numbness, escape. Want to run.

  “I’ll let you sleep.” I back out, shut Bettine’s bedroom door.

  From the dark hallway, I hear leather rustling, and the click of steel fasteners.

  ***

  Two thousand black midnights alone. Now this. How long have I wavered, not existing, merely remembering? I sprawl atop the bed, still dressed, in frustrated wakefulness.

  Music intrudes at the lowest reaches of my awareness.

  I rise, open my door. A song from another room, something I don’t recognize. I work in the listening room at the University music department. I’ve heard everything. Not this. The scratch of an old record, classical strings. Voice distinct from the music. She sings along, tentative, slightly out of sync. In that hesitation, something familiar. A hint of the girl I recognize.

  I cross the hall, touch the door, trace fingertips along the wood. I want to knock, but still feel a stranger in my own house. It’s Elizabeth’s ancestral place. Probably I’ll always feel unsettled, like a visitor imposing on hospitality.

  Eight years.

  She took everything. Lots of men say that, meaning the house, the 401K. Mine took our daughter, left me bleeding to death, riddled with stab wounds, hand almost severed. Punctures became scars. Healing floated away the pain, left behind a brittle shell. Not a man, just a bloodstream pumping a prescription cocktail so powerful it prevented me from caring about the one miserable truth I was sure of: I was done living, at least in the real meaning of the word.

  The University held my job longer than I’d expected. After ninety days, someone in HR finally said, now or never.

  I decided on never.

  To the rest of the world, I was lucky to be alive. Is everyone really unaware there are worse things? Do they only pretend? Despair so bottomless. Each breath, agony. Every morning, the most sickening hangover. Of course, whiskey played a part.

  This house is the only thing Elizabeth left me. Now that I’m sober, I don’t want it. If I can stay clean, hold onto this job, maybe I’ll climb out.

  Something like Bettine coming along, that’s a potential trigger for relapse. Recovery 101.

  My knuckles strike the door.

  Singing stops. The door swings open.

  “Oh, I woke you.”

  She’s wearing a white sleepshirt so diaphanous, I have to look away. Smell of burning candles. Warmth. On the bed, scattered ancient records in brown paper sleeves. Without makeup, she looks like the Elizabeth I first met.

  “Those look like 78s,” I say. The library collection has rooms full of these.

  “That’s all I kept, from over there,” she murmurs.

  “Where’d you find the old Victrola? I’ve never seen it around.”

  “There’s so much here.” She points beyond the east wall, toward the storage rooms. “I think you never explored.”

  “This house must seem…humble. You’re accustomed to being kept with money.”

  “You don’t mean Mother. You mean—”

  “Yes, this man. She…left you to him.” Trying to remain neutral. Can’t seem judgmental.

  “I never knew his name.” She looks down. “He asked me to call him Daddy.”

  I manage not to flinch. No response at all.

  She shrugs. Her gaze flits to the ceiling. “He owned the tallest house on Rue d’Auseil, the oldest block of the district. A gigantic house, like a looming range of mountains, seeming to lean out over the road.”

  “You describe it like a fairy tale.” Can’t help frowning. “You were too young.”

  Her persistent half-smile flares into stubbornness, something like awareness of advantage. “It was not what you imagine. Not at all. More like being mistress and paid research assistant to a brilliant scholar of the arcane.”

  The word mistress sticks. I try to move past. Instead: “Scholar…arcane?”

  “An eminent occult experimentalist, founder of Maîtres de l’autel de verre, that is, Knights of the Glass Altar.” She nods. “One of Europe’s wealthiest men, yet anonymous, exerting po
wer in stealth, within his secret society. I learned much. Took these records, and many secrets.”

  I move closer, seeking angles against her inscrutability. “Tell me about your mother. What you said about her addiction.”

  She holds my gaze, then looks away. “Yes, the white smoke. Within our circle, the Glass Altar, of course we all experience it.”

  “White smoke? What is that? A plant, or—”

  “It’s not a drug, not something you buy. Like so many pleasures, the aim is to approach as near as possible, while avoiding the harm of too great proximity.”

  My heart, a blunt hammering in my chest. Seeing her smile this way, talking so casually about this strange high. She has no idea all I’ve been through. The horrible depths, recovery, relapse. I don’t want to tell her, but she has to understand how dangerous this is.

  “The high used to be all I had,” I begin. “I can’t do that anymore.”

  “This smoke is different.” Her gaze intensifies. “Better than anything you’ve known.”

  I shake my head. “I’m in recovery. It’s fragile. You need to respect that certain things are dangerous for me.”

  Her lip curls into a teasing smile. “I do understand.”

  Though I’d like to remain, try to draw more out of her, I feel uneasy. Smiling vacantly, I wish her good night, and back out of the room.

  Sleep, that’s my intention. I lie atop the still-made bed, mind rushing, hyper-sensitized.

  There’s no mistaking the sound of the needle drop. So attuned to solitude and quiet, the slightest noise pierces my attention. Bettine’s singing elevates, flits delicately, a white butterfly in the aggrieved blackness. The vocal line entangles with high jagged-edged strings, I think solo viola. My daughter’s voice, accompanying a song recorded before she was born. Before I was.

  Eyes close. Jagged lysergic colors swirl, worse than ever. In our twenties, Elizabeth and I pursued such kaleidoscopic stimuli, found pleasure in them. Finally I was the one who insisted we had to stop. It was her leaving that plunged me back in. Now my gut churns, and I’m filled with fear of the depthless vacancy I feel, tugging.