But a deserving one?
No, not at all. With him, it’s literally a case of turning left when you should have gone right. That’s what eventually feels so arch and false about HPLs protagonists: they could stop researching anytime! Don’t read that horrible old book, dude. You know it’s horrible, you’ve read the insane journal of the guy who read it before you and he died in the asylum, put it away! Jesus. We feel no sympathy for the Danforths and the Armitages and their colleagues because they’re idiots on one level, they walk right into their fates with eyes wide. Same thing with some of Steven King’s characters. You always know which ones are going to get it in the end. Which is not how the world works.
So my characters are victims, mostly, and sometimes they walk right into it, but in the same way you or I would turn a corner, or make one bad decision. Eyes to the ground, or turned inwards. So there’s some sympathy for them, because we all do that to a greater or lesser degree. It’s the horror of the shoulda-woulda-coulda...
…
What’s next for you?
I’m still working on getting pieces into more magazines. That’s my main focus as far as my fiction is concerned. I’m also co-editing a “weird-erotica” anthology with another MMP author, strange-smut queen Justine Geoffrey. It’s called The Conqueror Womb: Lusty Tales of Shub-Niggurath and it is some seriously squelchy fun.
My latest project, however, is non-fiction, an auto-ethnographical book on R’lyehian spirituality. Basically, what would an actual spiritual practice based on R’lyehian principles look and feel like? And by that I don’t mean Lovecraftian principles at all, either the personal beliefs of Lovecraft himself or the nihilistic geekiness of his latter day followers. Turns out it begins to look a lot like a kind of “dark side Zen”. It’s actually been a lot of fun to write, and I’ve worked with some great people during the process. It’s called When The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R’lyehian Spirituality and it’s due out in both paperback and electronic book formats in early 2014.
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About Scott R Jones
Scott R Jones is a writer, spoken word artist, and naturalized sorcerer from Victoria, BC. His poetry has appeared in Broken City Magazine and Cthulhu Haiku 2, and his fiction has appeared in Innsmouth Magazine. He’s the author of a collection of Lovecraftian short fiction, Soft From All The Blood, and (as skawt chonzz) R’lyeh Sutra, an esoteric chapbook of poetry, prose, and illustration (both from Martian Migraine Press). His next book is an auto-ethnographical work of R’lyehian spirituality, When The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R’lyehian Spirituality, due out in print and electronic formats in 2014 from Martian Migraine Press.
Also by Scott on Kindle
Soft From All The Blood: 7 Surreal Tales of Terror
The Ecdysiasts
R’lyeh Sutra
(as skawt chonzz)
Seawater & Stars: The Last Novel of Gideon Stargrave
(with Justine Geoffrey)
Connect with Scott Online
Website: http://martianmigrainepress.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/PimpMyShoggoth
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/skawt.chonzz
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/SRJones
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/S-R-Jones/e/B007LVJUCK/
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Patiently Waiting
C.J. Henderson
The follow novella is a Tale of Inspector Legresse and first appeared in the anthology The Cthulhu Cycle.
“The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” — Eden Phillpotts
“Well, well,” smirked the grinning lieutenant, his feet up on his desk, “look who’s back.” Throwing himself out of his chair, he stood quickly and then bent low to make a sweeping, near-comical bow, ushering inside the man in the doorway.
“Sooooooo very good to have you back, el Grande.”
Inspector John Raymond Legrasse scowled at the bowing figure. The tall, thick-boned man was weary from both his long train journey and then the carriage ride from the station, delayed as it was by the monsoon-like storm pelting the city. Cold, tired and wet, the inspector was not quite in the mood for the shenanigans of his second-in-command. Dropping his rain soaked travel bag, but not the package under his other arm, Legrasse stepped aside to allow the older man behind him entrance.
“Professor William Channing Webb,” he said, stripping off his water-logged hat and gloves, “Lieutenant Joseph D. Galvez.”
Recognizing the elderly professor’s name from a wire his superior had sent ahead before leaving Missouri, Galvez’s clowning came to an immediate end. He snapped to attention, his voice losing its comedic edge.
“Quite good to meet you, sir.” He offered, “make I take your wrap, get you a hot beverage? Tea? Chicory coffee?”
“Oh, my,” answered Webb, gratefully shucking off his drenched overcoat, “I’ve heard tell of your powerful Louisiana blends—that they simply grab a man’s throat, pull it out of his body completely and then do a dance on it with pointed shoes before they stuff it back down his throat—usually wrong end first.”
“Tea, then?”
“Oh, no,” answered Webb, a twinkle in his eye indicating that he might be something of a jokester himself, “I’ve waited some twenty years since I first had the effects of Chicory described to me. At my age I don’t believe it good to wait much longer. Please, sir, a large one. Black, with two generous dollops of sweeting, if you could.”
Galvez smiled. He like the tall older man immensely. He did not know who the professor was beyond his title, but the inspector’s wire had hinted at why the man had returned with Legrasse. And, if he was there for that, then taking care of his wrap and fetching him some coffee was short payment. Short payment, indeed.
As Galvez bustled off with the professor’s coat, Webb asked, “No coffee for you, inspector?”
Legrasse did not look up from his immediate chore. Still unwrapping the package under his arm, he answered, “Galvez, fetch coffee for his inspector?” Switching his voice to a fair approximation of the short Spaniard’s, he said indignantly, “I, sir, am a lieutenant. Not a waiter. What a suggestion ...”
“Let him get his own coffee.”
The interruption had come from a returning Galvez. His bit of a joke raised the corners of Legrasse’s mouth into something that actually resembled a smile. It was the first such moment the inspector had experienced in nearly six months. The muscles of his face, so unused to such treatment, stabbed him with mild discomfort as if to show their resentment. Legrasse merely rubbed at his cheeks, massaging the surprised muscles. An actual smile was too precious a thing to abandon merely because of an unexpected bit of discomfort.
The lieutenant handed Professor Webb his requested coffee. Deep, murky steam pushed its way through the rancid humidity hanging in the chilly air of the station house. The old man blew on the near boiling brew in his cup, then threw back a healthy slug. When the professor did not come away retching from the coffee’s thickly pungent taste or crying from the scalding temperature, Galvez expressed his admiration for a novice who could down his dense blend so easily.
“My boy,” answered Webb, “I’ve drunk brews made from tree bark moss, crushed wood grubs, and corn husks mixed with animal dung, to name only a few of the less revolting. In my field, you meet a lot of different people tucked away in all sorts of the world’s far corners. Why, to some of them, this little delight of yours would be considered nothing more than a cherry frappe.”
“Speaking of things revolting,” interrupted Legrasse, finally done unbinding the package he had so gingerly carried from Louisiana to Missouri and then back to New Orleans, “why don’t we get down to business, eh?”
All eyes turned toward the inspector. There was not a person in the room who did not know what was in the package, who had not seen it before, who would do much to avoid seeing it again—and yet, they looked. They could not help themselves.
Pushing back the slick oil paper wrapping, Legrasse discarded the box’s thin wooden top, drawing forth the wads of protective stuffing between him and the “revolting business” within. When finally the box’s contents were laid bare the inspector pulled on one of his drenched travel gloves once more. Then, with only the slightest hesitation, he reached in and extracted the thing which had sent him to Missouri in the first place—which had pulled Professor Webb back to New Orleans with him.
It was a statue, a diminutive figure between seven and eight inches in height. It was a piece of exquisitely artistic workmanship. It was also a thing whose utter strangeness and air of genuinely abysmal antiquity had sent the collective world of archaeology into unbelieving spasms when the inspector had shown it days earlier at the annual meeting of the American Archaeological Society in St. Louis. Indeed, Webb had followed him back for the chance to examine the site of its discovery, forsaking all on his already overcrowded schedule. Legrasse was happy to have him.
Setting the figurine on the desktop before him, the horror of the familiar piece assaulted him again—a blow he simply could not grow used to no matter how many times it was struck. Of course, as a mere piece of art, the statuette was not so fearsome on its own.
There was no doubting that it was an odd subject for a sculpture. The piece represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mask of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. The thing, whatever it might be, was designed with a somewhat bloated corpulence. It squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters. The tips of its wings touched the back edge of the block, its seat occupied the center, whilst the long, curved claws of its doubled-up, crouching hind legs gripped the front edge and extended a quarter of the way down toward the bottom of the pedestal. The figure’s cephalopod head was bent forward so that the ends of its facial feelers brushed the backs of the huge fore paws which clasped the croucher’s elevated knees.
But, it was not the unnatural design of the beast or any particular skill on the part of the artist toward the bizarre that gave the bit of stone its repellant aspect. It, itself—either the very stone of it, or some mark left upon it by some foul previous contact, like the breath of a drunk pulled up out of the gutter, or the hand prints of a muddy child on the linen suit of its father—it was simply a malignant thing. A sketch of it, or a photograph—even one of the Lumiere brother’s moving pictures—would never be able to convey the monstrous horror one discovered through simple proximity. Merely staying in the same room with it for any amount of time was to invite nightmare. Handling it flirted with damnation.
“Didn’t get any prettier,” whispered Galvez. “Did it?”
“No,” responded the inspector absently, “but then, neither did you.”
Galvez grinned sourly. Several of the other men in the vicinity chuckled. For anyone else the excitable young Spaniard would have had a ready response. But, rank having its privileges, the lieutenant allowed the crack to stand, knowing he would get his chance at Legrasse later. In the meantime professor Webb moved forward, more fascinated than repelled. He asked for the use of the inspector’s chair. When it was granted the older man sat and then leaned forward, taking up once more the study of the figurine which he had begun in Missouri.
“So what’s with the genius, J.R.,” asked Galvez under his breath. “He know something about this thing?”
“Maybe,” answered Legrasse. “It seems the professor came across something like our bunch of crazies before. He won’t really know for certain until we take him out to the swamp to inspect the site where we found the statue.”
Galvez crossed himself involuntarily. On the first of November, the previous year, he, Legrasse, and nineteen other officers had filled two carriages and an automobile and headed down into the usually quiet lagoon country to the south of New Orleans to answer a frantic summons for help. When they had finished, it appeared the squad had easily handled the crime they had rushed off to investigate. On the surface, anyway.
The swamp squatters who had begged their assistance were of a breed that usually desired as little contact with the outside world as possible. But, their people had been disappearing in a mysterious and bloody fashion and all those left behind found themselves in the grip of an unknown malevolence none of them could withstand.
The police had gone in, pressing off into the swamp when their local guides refused to take them any further, finding the source of the disturbance on their own. A group of naked men had taken over a grassy island in the middle of a natural glade. There they—or some unknown group before them—had erected a great granite monolith. Using it as their central focus, the savage troupe had built a monstrous ring-shaped bonfire around its base, which they themselves circled, dancing wildly. And, around them stood a wider ring, one made up of ten scaffolds set out at regular intervals. From these hung, head down, the oddly marred bodies of the missing squatters.
Legrasse and his forces routed the near hundred celebrants without any losses to their own numbers. Although those captured did not—indeed, could not—give the police any useful information, the operation had been considered an unequivocal success by the inspector’s superiors. Legrasse and his men had solved the disappearances, captured scores of those responsible, and all with no loss of life except for that of five worshippers slain during the melee. The officers had returned with forty-seven prisoners, the statue which was discovered atop the monolith, and an unsteady feeling that they had concluded their operation with far more luck than they actually deserved.
As the months went on, however, the supposed “open-and-shut case” proved to be an incredible baffle to Legrasse in particular and the law enforcement agencies of New Orleans in general. First, their prisoners turned out to be worse than useless. The men all proved to be of a low, mixed blood and mentally aberrant. Most were seamen, but there were enough Negroes and mulattoes—mostly West Indians or Brava Portuguese—to give a coloring of voodooism to the heterogeneous cult.
But, before many questions could be asked, it became manifest that something far deeper and older than mere African fetishism was involved. Degraded and ignorant as they were, the prisoners held with surprising consistency to the central idea of their loathsome faith.
They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the Earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died. The cult had remained constant, and always would, its practioneers said, hidden in the distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R’lyeh under the waters, should rise and again bring the planet under his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would be waiting to liberate him.
And that had been all the inspector, his men, or anyone else who made the attempt could wring out of any of the prisoners. Most of the miscreants had already been dealt with by the courts, routed on to the appropriate mental institutions or the hangman, whichever had been deemed the more appropriate. And, if the horrific crime had been in any way even one step closer to a thing of normalcy, that might have been the end to it. But too much of the strange had continued on since that night in the swamp for the police to simply mark the case satisfactorily complete.
Even though Legrasse’s superiors considered it a job well done, the inspector, himself, had not been able to close the books on the incident in the swamp. Of the many odd occurances of which he had made note, the most powerful of these observations had been the fact that none of the prisoners sentenced to execution protested the judgment. In truth, they almost seemed relieved at the prospect.
Legrasse and Galvez had attended the first, an action prompted more by empty curios
ity than anything else. Sitting in the back courtyard where the sentence was to be executed, they watched as the condemned was led to the scaffold. Polite and acquiescent in his brutish way, he climbed the stairs eagerly, his eyes gleaming with the fierce triumph of a boxer who had just taken a great world prize, or an early Christian awaiting the release of the lions.
Having refused a last meal, and then either a smoke or a blindfold as well, the swarthy individual asked only to be permitted the opportunity to speak a few last words. Because of his genuinely calm nature which those in charge of the proceedings mistook for some form of repentance, the request was granted. His hands still tied behind his back, the noose around his neck, the man stood over the trap, smiling, nodding his gratitude. Then, throwing back his head, his wild hair whipping with sweat, he bellowed in a clacking tongue,
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”
There may have been more to his speech, but the small crowd was not to hear it. The hangman, a Godly man of a stern order of harsh Protestantism, released the trap pin sending the jabbering prisoner on to the next realm. He did so on his own initiative, without orders to do so. No one saw fit to reprimand the usurpation of authority, however.
Legrasse and Galvez had left a bit disturbed, as had most of the crowd. More than simple curiosity drew the two officers to the next execution. That time they waited with dread holding a constricting hand across their breath. Once more, a model prisoner was brought forth who had but one request, a few last words. Smiling, he went to his end spewing the same incomprehensible billage. When a third and fourth execution brought forth exactly the same results, Galvez suddenly decided he had seen enough hangings for one year.
Cthulhu Mythos Writers Sampler 2013 Page 16
