by Edward Lee
Sary naively wondered if he intended to deposit these animals into the big house as he’d done with the dog, but, ‘A’course not. They’se for him ta put in the smoke-house, she realized.
“Hope ye have a likin’ for woodchuck.”
“Oh, I dew—”
“I got a old family recipe that make it taste like duck...” A pause, then his large dark eyes blinked on an afterthought. “Aw, but ye sure didn’t have yerself much of a nap, huh?”
Sary shook her head, admitting to the distraction of how glad she was to see him. “‘Tis funny. Tired as I was, the minute yew left, I couldn’t sleep a wink so’s I just kind’a walked abaout, lookin’ raound yer land. Hope ya dun’t mind.”
“Not one bit,” Wilbur said, but he seemed distracted as well, distracted by her simple presence. His eyes persisted on her: each time he was about to speak, he stalled. “I...uh. Aw, durn, Sary...”
“What?”
“I’se jess real happy yew stayed. Whole time I was aout, I thought sure ye’d be gone time I got back...”
She grinned at the absurd remark. “Wilbur, I wouldn’t just up’n leave withaout sayin’ goodbye.”
The huge man shuffled awkwardly in his big boots. “I know the way I look put gals off—”
“The way yew look’s just fine ta me, so’s I carn’t think’a what yew mean,” she tried to allay his faltering esteem. Yes, Wilbur’s physical aspect diverged a great deal from that of other men, but Sary only found this trait unique and interesting, not repugnant. She thought, The way my face look, no ear, all scarred’n pocked, nose mashed up by my pa? It be a blessin’ from Gawd Wilbur even turn a glance at me. Through the self-analysis, however, she realized that not only was she comfortable with Wilbur’s appearance, she felt progressively more attracted to him, this latter fact being betrayed then and there as she felt her nipples tingle and begin to stand up beneath the sheer cover of the dress.
I wonder if he notice that... However, these ruminations, though they expended only moments, left an uncomfortable silence, so she carried on her perky reply, “Yew been nicer ta me than...wal, anyone I can ever ‘member meetin’, and I’d never be rude so ta jess leave withaout me sayin’ so fust. Naow, let me help ya git them critters skinned and gutted. No reason yew should do all this work withaout me liftin’ a finger ta help.”
Wilbur’s colossal physique went from tense to lax. “Nup. ‘Tis my job, and I’ll have in done in a jiff. Why not ye jess wait fer me in the tool-haouse, take a rest?”
“Okay.”
Upon the instant of returning to the shed—and with no conscious mandate whatever—Sary’s hands slipped up the inside of her gown to further caress her sex. Even this long after her eruptive orgasm, the exotic pleasure lingered; she even felt as though she could masturbate again. Jess sumpin’ ‘baout Wilbur got me hotter’n the top of a Dutch oven..., but only then did she catch herself, and expeditiously withdrew her hands. What might Wilbur conclude were he to walk in suddenly?
Several minutes later, he indeed returned, ducking below the door’s transom.
“That’s shore a fast skinnin’ and guttin’ job,” Sary observed. Just looking at him, however, had her painstakingly sidetracked. Why this misproportioned giant kindled her so lickerishly, she could not appraise, but she recognized this: If thar ever be a man I’d want to lay me right daown and fuck me, why...it’d be him.
“Been dressin’ critters so long, I kin dew it in my sleep,” Wilbur’s voice wavered in its bizarre depth. “Say”—he stepped forward—“I bet’cher ear don’t hurt naow, huh?”
The question sparked in Sary’s head, as she realized his assertion was true. “Yew was right, Wilbur. I don’t got no pain a’tall no more.”
His huge hands rested on her shoulders, urging her toward the cot. At first, Sary’s loins made a steamy, spontaneous clench; her crudest impulses hoped he meant to immediately prostrate her on the cot and have her, just as per her fantasy—
“Set ye daown right here,” he said instead, gesturing the cot. “Gonna check it.”
When seated, Sary was surprised by the daintiness with which Wilbur’s enormous hands removed the poultice he’d previously applied. “Thar,” he remarked in a manner that seemed proud. “All healed up, jess like I say.”
Sary felt her remaining ear and easily discerned that even the dog’s bite marks were healed. “That’s amazin’. I carn’t thank yew enough, Wilbur.”
“Warn’t nuthin’,” he said, then loped toward the desk. But something caught his eye on the big table.
“Oh, I see ye took a look at the Necronomicon.”
“Huh?”
“The big book with the hinges,” he clarified, regarding the creepy tome she’d peeked at.
“Wal, yeah,” she confessed. “Hope ya en’t mad—”
“Naw.” He flipped to a few age-fattened pages. “Probably nuthin’ in it ye’d understant no ways, nor be interested in.”
Sary was relieved that he didn’t consider her “peek” a trespass into his privacy. “My mother teached me ta read a little, but I couldn’t make hardly nothin’ aout’a all them fancy words. I just thought it was a Bible.”
“Wal, it ‘tis in a manner.” Wilbur’s peculiarly dark eyes remained focused on the pages he scanned. “Been somethin’ I study quite a bit. Only problem is there be some flawed incantations.”
Sary cast a querying glance. “What’s that mean?”
Hinges creaked when he closed the prodigious book. “My grandsire tolt me that when this heer copy be translated inta English, someone monkeyed with the words—on purpose probably—so’s ta take away the book’s...what was that word he used? Efficacy, I think. Ee-yuh. The monkeyin’ took off the book’s efficacy, which means some’a its best parts wun’t work.”
By now, Sary’s not-terribly-formidable intellect had lost all comprehension as to what the giant man might mean; but, so not to feel stupid, she merely gave a nod, and said, “Oh.”
Next, Wilbur’s large-pored face glanced frustratedly to the map pinned to the wall.
That college in Arkham, Sary recalled. And sumpthin’ wrote on it abaout books...
“So’s naow I got ta go back to Miskatonic and get me another look at the unflawed copy they got thar.”
“Go back? Yew mean ya already been?”
“Ee-yuh. Onct.” In his tone, there came a negative inference regarding the excursion. “But the man runs the library thar, he en’t much. Armitage be his name. Treated me like I be scum’n sent me aout.”
Sary felt badly for her friend’s frustration, but all she could offer was, “Wal, then, ain’t it likely he’ll send ya aout again?”
Wilbur’s look to her might have been called desperate and pleading. But of her question, he added nothing.
Her generally unfired libido still raged betwixt her thighs, yet other questions battled with it, questions she burned to ask. Like: what was Wilbur keeping in the big house, and why had he deposited the dead dog in it? What could account for the extensiveness of the interior planks, timbers, wall- and door-frames, etc. that had been piled outside? And—
What be them weird white ball-things in the crook of the bush?
Better judgment prevailed, however, not typical of her. Why ask stuff that don’t be none’a my business? And in a moment, she felt her eyelids droop; a drowse was coming on with promptitude.
Wilbur had taken a seat at the big desk with all the slots. “I’ll jess be a little while heer,” and then he appeared—pen in hand—to devote his attention to the sheets of paper Sary had seen, those filled with writing whose words were constituted in an alphabet she’d never seen. But this was all she remembered observing before her fatigue pulled her down on the cot...
In the sweet, scintillant darkness behind her sleeping mind’s eye, she dreamed of Wilbur lying beside her, kissing her...
Some time later, when her eyes fluttered open, she could tell by the tiny windows that the sun had moved considerably. She yawned and sat b
ack up, surprised. “Why, I must’a been asleep.”
“Ee-yuh,” Wilbur replied. He remained scribbling at the monumental desk. “Ye needed it. ‘Baout an hour ye was out, I’d say.”
She felt energized now, in her mind, but also in her nerves. That dream, short and incomplete as it had been, left her nipples more gorged with excited blood than ever; it seemed impossible for Wilbur not to notice their swelling against the material of the fine, black dress. She returned her gaze to the arch-backed, intent figure at the desk...
Ever the more now, this man, Wilbur Whateley, was striking her as one of uttermost fascination.
“Must be quite a letter writer,” she said from her place on the cot. “All them neat little slots is mostly full.”
He replied without addressing her. “Been sendin’ and gettin’ lots of letters over the yeers. But this heer’s just my keepin’ a journal fer myself. If ye’d took a glance at it, you’d see it be writ in a secret way. A cipher ‘tis called. My grandsire teached me, so’s I could read what he left. Guess that’s what I’m doin’ too, leavin’ a record’a such stuff as pertains to family business, suthin’ that not jess anyone could read.”
This Sary hardly understood, either. But her eyes held fast on the high desk. “Ain’t never seen a desk so big’n interestin’.”
Wilbur nodded, his fountain pen scribbling. “‘Tis nice, all right. I used ta use that old bureau over thar for my desk, but then one time I were in Osborn’s general store tew buy me a valise to hold papers”—without removing his eyes from the sheet, his long, stout finger indicated said valise in the corner—“ta take with me to Miskatonic that fust time I went. But out front, I spied Zech Whateley’s wagon a-settin’ thar with this desk in it’n a For Sale sign. So’s I bought it off him. Naow, he charged me a peck, for sure, but that’s ‘cos he knowed we got money. Same man used ta sell us cattle, and the bugger always upcharged my grandfather.”
Sary found it curious: the reference to money. She’d believed the country offshoots of the Whateleys to be as poor as her own family.
“Never thought much’a Zech; dun’t matter he’s blood. Lotta the Whateleys en’t no good, ‘specially’s after the way they treat my grandfather. Thiefs, liars, the bunch of ‘em. But when I espied me that thar desk, I took a fancy to it, so’s I say what the hey, I buyed it.” Wilbur frowned in a half-smiling way. “Wun’t surprised when Zech charge me extra fer takin’ it to the tool-haouse in his wagon.”
Zech? Sary wondered. “Oh, you mean Zechariah,” and instantly Sary’s spirits darkened. “I dun’t think mutch’a him neither, nor his son Curtis. One time...,” but then her revelation dwindled. Why tell Wilbur something so unpleasant? The fact was, Zechariah and Curtis had once paid her a dime each to partake in intercourse with her near the old collapsed Hoadley house, but when their semen had been drained, they’d then seen fit to drain their bladders as well, all over her till she was sopping. Many customers, in fact, had felt obliged to urinate on her in her professional past, an impulse she never understood. “They’s talk mean ta me fer no reason,” she said instead, “so I say ta Hades with ‘em.”
Wilbur nodded in approval.
“‘N fact,” she carried on, “I dun’t think much’a any of thems that lounge about Obsborn’s store. Can tell jess by the way they look in their face they ain’t nice folk.”
“Naw, most of ‘em en’t, I’se afraid.” The ciphered scribbling continued. “Suthin’ ‘baout this whole area seem ta be all growed up with bad folk same way a field’s growed up with weeds.”
Sary rambled on, as she was wont to do when in the midst of someone she liked (which was woefully infrequent). “I went in thar onct ta buy me some rock candy, which be my favorite, but t’was a penny short, and that awful Joe Osborn say he won’t give me none unless I fuck ‘em all. Over a dang penny.”
Wilbur paused again, but looked at her this time in a quelled distress.
“I didn’t, a’course,” Sary added with some haste. “Gawd. I know I got me some pride... Then I tried to buy some another time when that old man Tobias Whateley was workin’, and I give him a dime but he only give me a nickle’s worth.”
Suddenly Wilbur was tapping the end of his pen in some remote calculation. “So ‘tis rock candy ye like? Wal, I do too.” His long arm maneuvered awkwardly until he was able to reach into a pocket. He withdrew a dollar bill. “Seein’ haow I’ll be writin’ a bit more, why dun’t you go on up thar’n buy us a big bag?”
Sary thrilled at the prospect and also Wilbur’s excess of generosity. Why’s he so nice ta me but en’t tried ta git to my pussy? The instance seemed unfathomable. “Thank yew, Wilbur!” she expressed, jumped up, and took the dollar.
“No point’n ye settin’ heer bored whiles I do this—”
“I won’t be long!” and she was already directing herself toward the door. “I en’t had rock candy is soooo long! Thank yew double!”
Wilbur turned to look at her; his own delight at seeing her so happy appeared muddied by some private distraint.
But Sary knew at a glance. “And don’t worry! I’ll be back!”
Wilbur smiled an interior relief as Sary scurried out the tool-house door.
Six
July 28, 1928 latur
After Sary wake up, she git all excited wen I give her a dollar for rock candy. Make me feel real good to see her happy like that. She didn’t nap atall when I go out earliur, tired as she was, but dozed off after I take off her bandige. Now she be on her way to Osborn’s. Few minutes after she leave, I just had to go out to the bush and have at myself with my hand again. Seein her beauty, an just the way she be, and her eyes and smile, leeve me no choice. Saw the pile of my jack-off look disturbed, thogh. Couldnt be a animal on account no critter come neer the house. Hope it weren’t Sary who found it and diddled with it—can’t imagine what shed think. I probably just mistaken is all.
Was calclating the new Alko passages (I didn’t like them at first) I larned as I walked back to the pasture where that fat Rufus boy do all them bad things to Sary. Folks never lern it seems. Also thought hard about what might be wrong with page 751 of the Dee, like exzactly. Cud it be its not the wurds theerselves that was writ in flawed but maybe just the angles of the planes? Frum what I read, the unproper angles would muss up the Dho and the Dho-Hna and make it impossible to send word to the city between the magnetik poles. Just don’t know fer sure. Got ta stop worryin and just git reddy.
So anywaye I get back to that old shitty pastureland whitch used to belong ta Elmer Frye, I think, and pick up Hutchins ded collie and sling it over my back. Had to wunder, though, what ole man Hutchins look like on his face (and asettin in that wheelchar I put him in) when his fat son come in all ablubberin and wailin and holding a empty sack that was previous fulla his balls. Bet ole Elam raged shakin his fist and avowin to kill me like he been dewin all these years. I kind of chuckle at the thought cos he know he cant do nuthin to me even if he possess the curage to try. Tis a rule my grandsire teech me long ago when I first started understanding talk, that bad folks don’t nevur turn good, they always be bad, and most of em be cowerds too.
But along my walkin root back home, I run into that Kyler fella—who Sary say she never heer of—and he look at me that funny way he look sometimes and kind of smile and tell me, “Aye, Wilbur. Ye be cheerful today, and I am appraised as to why,” so I ast him “How ye know why—ah,” (and then I smile too), “on account you’re a soothsayer, huh?” Then he tell me, “The love ye most seek out with thine heart, ye’ve already just got. Nay?” Funny thing for him to say. Always like him, and just about him only in this cursed place, but it come to me that he must mean Sary, and theer aint no way he could know bout her being at my place. So I just tell him, “I sure hope so, Kyler, cuz youre right, I am a might cheerfull today and it be on account of a gal.” Then he just nod, still smyling. Not once did he ask why I done had one a the Hutchins dogs over my shoulder, neither, and there aint no way he didnt notice. So I bid h
im a good day but befor I can walk off, he say, “And it mite pleese thee much to know that what it is ye most strive for, ye shall achieve by way of them ancient books ye keep.” I stop right then and their and turn bak, knowin full well that what I strive fore most, even more than Sary, is to open the Gate. Wanted tew ask him why he think that but no words cud make their way passed my lips.
Then he say in the end, “Nay, though ye’ll not achieve it by the manner in which ye hope most.”
And then he nodded with that smile and that was all.
Got me thinkin as I walk back. Like maybe he be a reel soothsayer and not just pretend. And if this be, I don’t keer if I kant open the Gate the way I hope long as I open it one way or anothur. But acourse he is likely not a reel fortune sayer.
Walk back double fast to be agin with Sary, even thogh I figure she be sleepin. First, though, I had to feed that One inside so I throw the ded Hutchins dog in the house. Could sense in my brain how close it is all getting and how smart it become. But my biggist worry still be its size, which is why I ben feedin it smaller food. I did the Voorish Sign so to look at it and it seem to have grown mutch since last time. Grandsire were right but the proper time still be far off. Mite have to start feedin it hardly nothing cos I cant ferget my grandsire’s dyin’ words about how it can’t be let to bust quarters afore the night.
Then I fetch what were in the traps and see Sary already out awaitin for me. Made me feel good.
Inside, we talked mutch, and I seed she took a gander at the Dee but I know she wudn’t ever be able to understand. If she got religion atall, it be the Christian one. Grandfather always say I should mind my tongue about the Old Ones, so I did. I reckon she had even less lerning than me so how can I spect her to calclate things like what my grandsire call the “Holy Adjudicata and Protocall” bein tampered with purposeful by folks in the past who translayted from other langwiges? When I tell her about how I have to go back to Miskatonic, she say a right smart thing, that sinct Armitage throwed me out that first time, he’d likely do the same a secund, and I got the impression that a stick in the dirt like him wouldnt give me what I want even for alla Grandsire’s gold. But I be glad Sary say such, cos it got me thinking bout a better way, and I’m surpized I didn’t think on it afore this. But in the name of Him Who Is Not To Be Named, I just HAVE ta git the proper translation of page 751. Ef I don’t, like my grandfather warn, it all be no use.
