by Nick Mamatas
Then, finally:
Yer gonna be in alot of pain when I rip yer face off, fag
At the time, I wasn’t concerned. Not overly concerned, anyway. It was just online banter from a man, or maybe a woman, who was trying to get a rise out of me, but who didn’t care enough to even sign the threat with a consistent pseudonym. It might have even been a friend who had seen my web browser history, who had heard my shoplifting story, who’d been to Cambridge, just fucking with me. But even my friends wouldn’t joke about ripping my face off, wouldn’t gleefully predict how much pain I’d be in when he tortured me to death.
And that prediction came true.
6. The Haunter of the Dark
Swan Point Cemetery wasn’t very interesting in the dark, but the moon was high and gibbous, so the path to Lovecraft’s family monument and author’s own smaller tombstone with its famous epitaph of I AM PROVIDENCE wasn’t a treacherous one. The brace of fans marched silently, knowingly, to the location, and then formed a loose circle around the monuments.
“So,” Panossian said to Colleen, “did you bring anything?”
“Was I supposed to?” she asked.
“People do.”
“Well, did you?” Colleen said.
“No, of course not.”
Bhanushali turned and smiled at Colleen. She leaned in conspiratorially and said, “It’s a ridiculous affectation. The caretaker has to cart so much shit away from Lovecraft’s grave—on his birthday, on the anniversary of his death, on All Saints’ Day. Nobody knows how many strings I have to pull to be allowed to come out here at this time of night every year.” She winked at Colleen, then moved on to mingle with the rest of the ragtag crowd.
Panossian turned to Colleen to say something, but Colleen spoke first. “Everyone knows about the strings she pulls because she reminds them every year, yes?”
Panossian shrugged comically, the oversized shoulders of his wool coat rising past his ears.
“Why are you wearing that? Aren’t you hot?”
Panossian didn’t say anything. Actually, several of the party resolutely refused to dress for the summer weather. Leather dusters were popular, and both Ms. Phantasia and Chloe wore crushed velveteen cloaks. Most of the rest of the…mourners? celebrants?...wore only black t-shirts and jeans. Colleen was comfortable in her denim jacket, but seemed increasingly uncomfortable otherwise. She chewed her lip and stood watching as the others left little tokens at Lovecraft’s stone, or shuffled around the adjacent monuments. She looked over at Panossian again; he was looking at his smartphone.
Ginger J was standing before Lovecraft’s tombstone, a slim chapbook in his hands, muttering what seemed to be a poem. Colleen didn’t recognize it, so decided that it was probably Ginger J’s own work. She only caught a few words, but the piece seemed to be a riff on “Herbert West—Reanimator.” One line had been lifted directly from the piece: “…devils danced on the roofs of Arkham, and unnatural madness howled in the wind.”
“Weird, huh?” It was Chloe. She smiled at Colleen. “I wanted to say hello for real,” she said. Then she glanced around and added, sotto voce, “Fanny tells me this get-together used to be a networking opportunity away from the nuts. Now it’s, well, you know…”
Colleen grinned. “Networking in a graveyard. Apropos, I suppose.”
“At least it gets people out of the hotel. Have you ever seen Providence? Parts of it are really nice. There’s a big river thing too—bonfires floating on barges and everyone strolls around admiring the view. Nobody here wants to do anything but sit in the bar and prowl around the dealers’ room though. A few of us are going out, for real, after this, down to the Riverwalk. It’s touristy, but fun.
“We can have a few drinks,” she added, as an afterthought.
“The ol’ mill and swill, eh?” Colleen said. “I’m in.”
Chloe pointed her chin past Colleen’s shoulder, indicating Panossian. “Don’t bring that guy!”
“Uhm…I’m not really with him. I mean, I am, but we’re just roomies for the con.”
“I’m sure he won’t even mind. He gets off on sulking by himself in a corner.”
Colleen hesitated, then saw a way to change the subject. “Oh God, look…”
Another troupe from the Summer Tentacular were picking their way through the graveyard. Leading the pack with a self-assured waddle was Norman, the Cthulhu cultist. He had changed outfits, and was now wearing an utili-kilt. Behind him were a handful of stragglers, most of whom Colleen recognized from various convention tables—they were the people who manned the registration booth, sold the official t-shirts, posted the signage and handled the A/V, and handed out program guides.
Bhanushali trotted up to Norman, her hands balled into fists. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. David Cob was right behind her, silent but somehow menacing. His limbs swung just a little too loosely, like a boxer getting ready to fall into a stance and start throwing punches.
“Paying our respects,” Norman said. “It’s a public cemetery, isn’t it?”
“No.” Bhanushali was taken aback. “It’s not. Of course it isn’t. I mean, why would you think this was a public cemetery?”
“He means it’s open to the public,” said the man Colleen recognized as Asparagus Head. He’d taken Norman’s right flank, and glared at Cob.
“And you chose this moment to come to Lovecraft’s grave?” Bhanushali said.
“Oh no, we’re here to visit C. M. Eddy’s grave,” Asparagus Head said. “And perform a reading of his masterwork, ‘The Loved Dead.’”
Everyone gasped. Ms. Phantasia chortled. Even Panossian looked up from his phone.
Bhanushali drew herself up to her full height, which was not very high, and spoke. “‘The Loved Dead’ is not a masterwork, and to the extent that it is interesting at all, it is because Eddy wrote it in collaboration with Lovecraft. The portion of the tale you quoted was almost certainly written by Lovecraft!”
Cob said, “If you’re looking for Eddy’s grave, friends, given the direction from whence you came, you passed it on the way here.”
“We’re trying to get into the mood by touring the place a little first. Many famous people are buried here,” said Norman. “It’s not all about…” He shrugged toward Lovecraft’s family monument. “Him.”
“Several of the state’s most illustrious governors are buried here,” said Asparagus Head.
Then someone else said, “We love the dead,” and Norman’s crew all giggled.
“What is this all about?” Cob said plainly.
“We could ask you the same question,” Norman said. “What are you, a bunch of ‘cool kids’ going off to smoke behind the bleachers or something?”
“Does that make you jealous nerds,” Cob asked, “or truant officers?”
“Oh, let them stay,” Panossian said. “Who the fuck even cares?”
There was a change in the air. Bhanushali’s group turned and stared as one. Even Ginger J gaped at Panossian. But so too did Norman and his party, their pasty faces all scowling.
“What’s the big deal?” Colleen said. Panossian went back to his phone.
Bhanushali sighed. “If too many people attend this event, it’ll be discontinued. Not by me...by us, but by the caretaker and security. The police. Our friend Tomato can only do so much. This is a sub rosa get-together. We offer a Lovecraft walking tour of the city, and that tour includes a trip here.”
“You should have a sign-up sheet,” Norman said. “First-come first-serve.”
Ginger J spoke. “Norman, you live in Providence. You’re the first one at the hotel. You’d just sign your own name first every time. Same with all of you guys,” he said, gesturing to the men who’d arrived with Norman. “So, what’s the difference between what Bhanushali is doing and what you want to do?”
“The difference is that she’s actually doing it and we’re not!”
“Well, you’re here now.”
‘Thanks to him!” Norman said, poin
ting at Panossian. “He texted us.”
Panossian looked at his phone. “Oh, was that you? I was responding to a text—I didn’t recognize the number but I thought it was somebody in, uh, our group.”
“Really?” Bhanushali said. “Call the number back, see whose phone it rings right now.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I don’t believe you, Panossian. I don’t think you answered a text; I think you summoned our friends here simply to ruin this event.”
“What if I call and the ringer is off,” Panossian said. “What if I call and it rings where you can’t hear it. What if I call and it’s really one of the people you invited?”
“Hell, what if he calls some other number instead,” Colleen said. “What are you going to do, rip the phone from his hands?” Panossian smiled at her, but Colleen was looking at Bhanushali.
Panossian’s phone rang. The ringtone was loud, an old-fashioned bell sound. Asparagus Head held up his own phone up, triumphant. Bhanushali rushed Panossian, scrambling for his phone, but Panossian threw up his arm and danced out of her way.
“Do you think Lovecraft cares who comes to his grave?” Panossian crowed. “Everyone wants to be a cool kid, eh?”
Norman shouted, “We don’t need your pity!”
Ginger J said, “I think I hear police.”
Everyone turned to where Ginger was looking and pointing. It wasn’t the police, only a single caretaker shouting “Whoop whoop!” and brandishing a powerful flashlight that illuminated the trees and cast a web of shadows across the ground. “What is going on here, Mandy!” he called out as he ran and skidded down the low hill. “You said a small, quiet group. Get the hell out of here now, and have a care not to kick over any sod. Stay on the paths. All of you!”
Bhanushali turned back to where Panossian had been standing, but he was already gone.
Back at the hotel, Colleen found Panossian sitting on his bed, muddy shoes and pants still on. He was texting someone again.
“So...what was that all about?” she asked, sitting on the corner of her own bed farthest from Panossian’s.
“I felt bad for those poor shitheads,” Panossian said.
“They thought you were making fun of them, like you had a bucket of pig’s blood ready to go.”
He shrugged. “That was part of it too, but really, those guys are their own buckets of pig’s blood. Perpetual Embarrassment Machines.”
“If you don’t like anyone here, why do you even come?” Colleen asked.
Panossian looked at her. “It’s a tax write-off. Also, they turned off the electricity and water in my apartment, so here I can get some stuff done at least, and take a shower. I pre-paid for the hotel and everything back when reservations opened on the convention website, and plus while I’m here I can sell something and make a few bucks. Check it out.”
He slid off the bed and went into the closet at the front of the room, bent over, and tapped out a combination on the room’s safe. He pulled out a box, and made a point of not extending his arms to show it to Colleen. Instead he sat back on his bed, held the box atop his lotus-folded legs, and opened it, but did not show it to Colleen.
“Holy shit,” Colleen said. “Is that what I think it is? How did you get it?”
“Turns out, he’s a fan.”
In the box was a book. It was a hardcover book, after a fashion, with no dust jacket. The title, simply Arkham, was scrawled in green, like a sloppy prison-grade tattoo on flesh. Which it was. Tentacles led to and from the word, almost like the roadways or rivers on a map of Lovecraft Country.
“Have you read it?”
Panossian shook his head. “I don’t want to touch it. Anyway, this is one of the five ol’ Skinner made out of himself. He mailed it to me. I was very surprised.”
Arkham had made a minor splash the previous year, when the anonymous author, who had covered his flesh in Lovecraftian tattoos, then skinned himself and integrated pieces of his skin into leatherbound volumes of his self-published novels. He had put four on eBay, but the dot.com’s proscription against selling human body parts and bodily fluids meant that the auctions were cancelled early.
“That’s why I’ve been on my phone all night. Trying to arrange a buy. I want nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars for it.”
“Christ, Panossian, go for an even ten,” Colleen said.
He waved a hand, “Eh, you have to fill out a federal form if you put ten thousand bucks in a bank account. I’d rather, you know, not have to.”
Colleen laughed. “Why not ask for nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents then!”
“I don’t want people to think I’m crazy,” Panossian deadpanned. Then he laughed. “Anyway, there’s all sorts of playground politicking in this community, and I can’t stomach it anymore.”
Colleen looked like she wanted to say something, to argue that most of the people she’d met so far during the Summer Tentacular were nice enough, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie. “Raul and Barry? R.G.?”
“Yeah, I guess they’re all right. They’re not long for the Lovecraftian world, though. They’re all working on thrillers, ghost stories—mainstream stuff. R.G. is even doing some magical realism, playing up the whole Chicana thing. Maybe she’ll end up with tenure in some university somewhere.”
“Beats trying to sell a human-leatherbound book to keep your lights on, Panossian,” Colleen said.
“Turn my lights back on,” Panossian said. “I’ve been sitting in the dark for a week, and charging my cell phone in the library. Hell, I’m not knocking leaving Lovecraftiana. You should get out too, before it’s too late. Write an urban fantasy novel, a murder mystery, anything but this Lovecraftian bullshit.”
Colleen plopped back onto her bed, hitting the pillows hard. “Why don’t you take your own advice?”
Panossian spoke plainly. “I don’t have any ideas.”
Colleen snorted. “Oh, come on. Everyone has ideas. Ideas are cheap.”
“I don’t have any. I had one idea. I’ve said all I have to say, I guess.”
Panossian picked up the box. “To be perfectly honest, I’ve spent hours daring myself to open this book, just to steal the plot of whatever Mr. Arkham happened to write about. I’ll be glad to be rid of it.” He got up, and then stopped at the door. “Did you want to flip through it first?” he asked, brightly. Then he laughed at his own little joke, and stepped out, letting the door to the room swing shut behind him.
Colleen reached for the TV remote control, almost by reflex. It was one of those adult joys, watching television alone, without parents to frown at her choices as when she was a child, or roommates to talk over the shows as when she was at home. But she was at the Summer Tentacular. This was supposed to be fun, intellectually and creatively stimulating, an adventure of sorts. There had to be something better to do than sit in bed and veg out in front of an episode of Friends, for Christ’s sake. There was always the fitness center, she supposed, but it probably didn’t have a heavy bag or kettlebells.
For Cthulhu’s sake, pretty much anyone else at the Tentacular would have thought. Not Panossian though, who would have rolled his eyes.
Colleen slid off the bed and strode over to the door. “Hey Panossian, wait up! I gotta see this,” she called out as she stepped into the hallway. Panossian was gone, and Colleen didn’t know whether he had taken a left or a right. Colleen picked left and turned the corner and didn’t see Panossian by the elevator bank, but she did see a swirl of black and a flash of flesh as an elevator closed. She could have sworn it was H. P. Lovecraft himself.
7. The Terrible Old Man
Colleen’s first visit to the morgue was a brief one. My face was gone, I hadn’t been to the dentist in twenty years so there were no easily accessible records, and I’d never been fingerprinted. It was up to someone who saw me that night to identify me based on my clothes, my size. The cops already knew it was me, since I’d been missing for a while an
d the Tentacular had the run of the house—so the cops took a roll of the guests and I was the odd man out. But for the sake of paperwork almighty, I presume, someone had to sign off, and Colleen came for me.
I barely knew her; I doubt I made a very good impression. I stopped trying to make good impressions years ago. Any impression would do. My background is straight out of central casting: funny-looking kid, scrawny, poor, awkward, unusual surname and smelly home-packed lunches, and then, one day…Ghostbusters.
If you’re not a Lovecraftian, you won’t get the reference. After the big hit movie came a cartoon on TV called The Real Ghostbusters, and one episode of that show was entitled “The Collect Call of Cathulhu.” I suppose that extra letter a made all the difference to some attorney somewhere. In the episode, the infamous plot device known as the Necronomicon goes missing and “Cathulhu” is summoned. Then a bunch of the usual cartoony stuff happens, and one of the ghostbusters explains that the Necronomicon is too dangerous to read, but that he has read “H. P. Lovecraft” to learn about it.
And something about the name seemed real. I went to the school library the next day, checked out the card catalog—there still were such things then—and there was a paperback called The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Other Stories of Horror, featuring what I thought to be a very cartoony-looking and green vampire. (It was actually a degenerate hybrid fish-person.) Honestly, the stories meant very little to me: the language was archaic, the paragraphs cyclopean, the New England settings only vaguely familiar. But I stuck with it. I renewed the book twice, and then just kept it after that till the school librarian actually called my mother. The impenetrability of the stories heightened their allure. I was the little class smartypants who had read through all the stories in the textbook in the first week of sixth grade, so I was unused to not instantly mastering material. My parents had no idea what the word squamous meant, nor did my teacher. Eldritch I’d encountered in a Dungeons and Dragons rulebook, and Sisters of Mercy—with lead singer Andrew Eldritch—had their fifteen minutes of fame at around that time, so I was pretty solid on that word. Tenebrous was in the school library’s dictionary, at least. So was febrile. I was getting somewhere with these stories, but success and happiness was not to be, as the story went.
