Cthulhu Fhtagn!

by Laird Barron

  The way she holds me feels wrong. Her body pressed against mine, nudging me away from the Victrola.

  “What are you doing?” Insinuations flash, a flash recap of memory. Abduction, life on the run, used and objectified too young, exposed to who knows what kind of occult madness? Of course she’s damaged. Is that why she came to me? Trembling, I pull back. “Bettine, no.”

  She grips me by the shoulders, pushes my face into the miasma’s seething depths. I try to pull back, against her wrestling my body, half of me wanting to give in to whatever she plans. For a moment I stop struggling. That’s enough. I’ve lost control, perspective.

  I don’t care. All I feel is my wanting.

  “Don’t fight. Come with me.” Her hands release.

  I pull back, inhaling fresh air. I want to say something. It’s hard to remember.

  She looks at me strangely, possessed of some overpowering intention. “That’s why I came here, to jump into heaven. Like Mother, like Daddy.” Her eyes lit with fervent desire. “These windows are gateways to that infinite paradise where they dwell. I knew you’d want it too.”

  Bettine lunges, knocks the Victrola off its stand. The record bounces off the platter, shatters on the floor. She turns back and for the first time without music, opens herself to the cloud, arms wide in acceptance. One hand grips my wrist, tugging me along.

  “They left me behind,” she says. “Then I knew it would be you.”

  I try to pull away.

  Translucent white strands, like ghostly ropes or smoke tentacles, reach into her mouth, penetrate her eyes, her ears, her nose.

  Her grip loosens. I pull free, scramble on the floor by the bed, trying to right the Victrola. The record lies shattered, jagged shards of brittle lacquer.

  More tendrils lash out from above. A pale cord whips around her neck, and lifts.

  Bettine’s eyes are wild, anticipating her greatest desire. Lips trying to form words, she pulls the cord free of her neck and rasps, “Don’t let me…go alone.”

  As it lifts her away I pull back, turn to the bed, find an intact record labeled, “Music of Zann.” Remember the book’s words, Songs of Zann to drive them away.

  The white membranous lump fully encompasses my daughter’s motionless shape as I place the record on the platter, set it spinning and drop the needle mid-song. I inhale a surge of ecstatic pleasure, a sensation both welcome and horrifying.

  There’s a visceral tearing as the music bursts forth, shrill in such proximity. Malevolent heat, not the sweet warmth of before. Tangy acidity, the unmistakable smell of burning. No screams. The veil covering my daughter smokes as it lifts her away. Flailing tendrils reach for me, only to withdraw from the music.

  The white membranous surface resounds, like a struck drum. The vibration dissipates, leaving only the music. No more struggle, no anguish. I delve my hand into the soft warmth, feel the familiar tingle. Taste the sweetness. My hands grope for anything solid, find nothing.

  Clouds thin, particles sucked quickly away, as if the glass is open to the sky.

  Alone. Just me, and the jarring music. Bettine’s gone, again.

  I drop to the floor, watch the record spin. When it’s almost over, I start it from the beginning. After some hours, I dare brief outings to check the rest of the house. Calling in anguish, knowing I won’t find her. Always I return, start the music again, at the beginning.

  The smoke can return, any time, night or day. I know I’ll feel more secure in daylight. As long as it remains dark, my resolve may slip. I might decide to jump. What did Bettine say? To leap in, give myself over to bliss. To follow, and never come back up.

  All night I sit by the player, starting the record over and over. This Zann’s music spinning, spinning. Well past sunrise, I remain within the music. Only when I’m sure I won’t break, in a room morning bright and growing warm, I finally stand and leave the Victrola behind. Across the hall, I pack the things I’ll carry away from here.

  Into Ye Smoke-Wreath’d World of Dream

  W. H. Pugmire

  I.

  Morning mist engulfed the magnificent structure of the First Baptist Church so that I could not behold its stupendous steeple; and yet the clinging fog enhanced, in an eerie way, the aura of the venerable house of god, which has stood on College Hill since 1638. That was but twenty-nine years after Shakespeare’s sonnets had first been published, and only twenty-two years after the Immortal Bard’s death, the man who was my own God of Literature. This was one of the glorious aspects that overwhelmed me whenever I visited Providence—one could almost taste the hoary past. Finally, I turned away from the mist-enshrouded church, crossed Thomas Street, and walked slowly past the gaudy Fleur-de-Lys Building, pausing for one brief moment to touch that structure in which artists such as me lived and worked. I had been guided through the building once, on my first visit to Providence four years earlier, and the memory of the dusky lower rooms filled with implements of art, framed paintings, and so forth was like some happy enchantment, some pleasant dream. Perhaps Jacob could get me inside the building a second time.

  I had returned to Providence to spend time with the mad poet, Jacob Grall. Frankly, I was concerned about him, for his behavior—always odd—was becoming severely lunatic. He had sent me sheets of his newest poetry, which he had composed for a collection he planned on calling Sunken Dreams, and they were far more morbid than his usual gloomy work. How can I describe what bothered me? It seemed to me that the poems exuded a subdued hysteria that threatened to explode as screams of diabolic nonsense. It wasn’t just the dark undertone of the poems, but the way his handwriting had altered, as if the poems had been penned by one who suffered from delirium tremens, sonnets composed during fits of seizure. Jacob had refused to greet me at the train station, requesting that we meet at the Providence Art Club. I moved away from the Fleur-de-Lys and stalked up the hill until coming to the door of the lower Dodge House Gallery, opened the door and entered in.

  I was surprised to be greeted by a stern-faced security guard, to whom I nodded and said “Howdy.” He seemed especially interested in the two individuals who stood some ways from the door before an artifact that rested on a white pedestal and was encased inside a block of clear plastic or glass. I approached the couple and touched my hand to Jacob’s shoulder. He glanced at me with eyes that seemed on fire, and then returned his gaze to the sculpture inside its protective block. I read the card attached to the wall just above the artifact, and saw that the bas-relief was the work of one Henry Anthony Wilcox and was on loan from Miskatonic University in Arkham.

  Suddenly, Jacob began to speak. “The exhibit is dedicated to the work of students and others who once lived and labored at the Fleur-de-Lys. This particular beauty was fashioned in late February of 1925. Isn’t it fascinating, the way one’s eyes can’t quite fix onto the thing? It’s like the image isn’t solidly rooted to our own dimension. If I gaze on the thing too steadily, I feel as if I may lose my foothold on this terrestrial plane—the earth seems to tremble beneath me, and I am filled with a delicious dread that the ground will crack open and release some rising thing.” Although his language was so wild, Jacob spoke in a calm and quiet voice, as if in reverence.

  The woman standing near him bent so as to take in the contours of the idol. I saw that she was very young, and perhaps of Native American or Eskimo heritage. She was one of those Goth kids, attired in somber black and with a small hoop of metal piercing her lower lip. When, at last, she spoke, there was no mistaking the fervor of her emotions. “It shouldn’t be here, trapped beneath this fucking plastic or whatever it is. It should be elevated on a high pillar in some secluded place beneath the stars! Beneath the shifting stars where we can worship it with spilled blood and sweaty orgasm! We will be naked, braying and bellowing and writhing like the beasts we are! Murder and mayhem will be our religion, as we slaughter the world for the glory of Cthulhu! Ia! Ia!” Then, violently, she clutched at the block of heavy plastic and tried to move it from where it
had been secured. I was pushed away by the security guard, who grabbed the woman by her wrists and roughly escorted her from the gallery.

  Jacob’s mouth pressed against my ear. “She’s right,” he sighed. He leaned away from me and spoke in a whisper. “It doesn’t belong there, trapped within walls of plastic or whatever that stuff is. I know the legend of Cthulhu means nothing to you, but you can’t deny the effect of this dream-image. Yes, Nathan, this rectangular artifact was inspired by a dream. Indeed, Wilcox actually stated that he made the thing ‘in a dream of strange cities.’ You look bewildered, but it’s quite true. Those new poems that I sent you, on which you refuse to comment: I made them in a dream of strange cities that rose from depths of ocean beneath a red sun that turned water into blood. Do you see that suggestion of Cyclopean architecture that serves as vague background behind the horror in clay? That’s what I beheld through the crimson mists of nightmare. How could it not inspire verse?”

  I studied the “horror in clay,” as Jacob named it, as if through looking at it carefully I could comprehend its meaning. But, no, the thing was meaningless. The object was a bas-relief about an inch thick and six inches in area, carved on red-green clay. Bizarre hieroglyphics had been etched onto the bottom of the thing, and above them, in sharp relief, was what seemed an impressionistic portrait of a kind of monster. The creature’s strangest aspect was its pulpy, tentacled head, that might almost suggest some creature from the ocean if it wasn’t so damn wrong. The grotesque and scaly body had a pair of wings extending from its back, but they weren’t the wings of any earthly creature. That was it, actually—the thing was absolutely unearthly, like some mythical dragon or Cyclops of legend. Behind the monster were etchings that vaguely suggested a background of Cyclopean architecture, but the images were so queerly shaped that, the harder I stared at them, the less I could comprehend their outlines.

  Jacob glanced furtively at where the guard stood near the gallery’s front door, leaned nearer to me and continued whispering. “Gaze on it, Nathan, penetrate it with your eyes. Try to imagine the alien monoliths and sepulchers that were fashioned in tribute to the Great Old One and named R’lyeh. Drink its madness with your eyes and let it mould your dreams. They came from the stars, as is told in the Necronomicon, and they brought their unholy images with them. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.” The final word of his implausible chant was spoken with such emphasis that the sound of it made me dizzy; and in a state of uncanny emotion, as I stared hard at the sculpture, I saw a green-yellow mist rise from beneath it, a curling mist that easily filtered through the enclosure in which the art piece had been encased, that lifted to me and coiled through my nostrils. Overcome with vertigo, I backed away from the display, fretting that I was going to fall backward.

  The security guard was at my side. “Are you all right, sir?” I quickly assured him that I was, smiling sheepishly. “We have many other interesting things on display.” Gently, he took hold of my arm and guided me to another corner of the room. “Now these are fascinating. They were made by one of the more modern artists, Josephine Broers, inspired by something she had encountered in Kingsport, Massachusetts. She was a resident at Fleur-de-Lys in 1995. I don’t know if she found antique bottles or, through her skill as artist, made these three look so old. I like how the inside of the glass is streaked and foggy, as if something inside had panted against the inner surface. You see the pendulums inside? If you look closely, the hanging objects take on facial form. As I said, fascinating.”

  Someone took hold of my other arm, and Jacob spoke in a loud voice. “Such an interesting exhibition,” he sang to the guard. “I can’t seem to stay away. But let’s go, Nathan, I’m suddenly quite hungry, and you promised me lunch.” I had promised no such thing, but I allowed my companion to guide me to the door and out onto the red brick sidewalk of Thomas Street. “It was getting warm in there. No wonder you felt a little tipsy. We can breathe again.”

  I looked across the street as the sun, unsheathed by clouds, illuminated the spectacular church. “I love that building. Have you ever been inside it?”

  “Once, to listen to some Hindu fellow give an opening speech for some civic ceremony.” Jacob was silent for some moments. “I may have something to relate about that church, another day. I’ve been making secret inquiries. Don’t frown so, my dear, it’s unbecoming. Come on, let’s prowl Benefit Street. There’s a charming sandwich shop that’s not too far away.”

  The rest of my afternoon with Jacob was anti-climatic. We ate our sandwiches and drank our juices, and then we strolled along Benefit Street to a sequestered churchyard just below it, where we sat on tabletop tombs and quoted Poe. Finally my friend leaned close to kiss me, and I watched him wade through the gloaming, homeward. I rose at last and followed the path that took me to the steps that led to Benefit Street, which I crossed so as to climb the step way to College Hill and my small apartment. My room was in darkness, but I did not want to turn on any lights. Instead, I opened one of my bedroom windows, knelt before it and observed the moon. I could not see any stars, but the moon was glorious, its bright splendor surrounded by a ring of hazy white light. I looked for quite a while, until my eyelids grew heavy, and then I lowered to the floor, cradled my head inside my arms, and surrendered to slumber.

  I wondered, when I floated to my feet, why the world had fallen so completely silent. The wind that had lifted me to a standing position made no moan, and the black haunted trees of the surrounding woods, though moving in that wind, were hushed. Becoming aware of a subtle pounding beneath my feet I looked downward, and it shocked me to realize that I was naked, with wet crimson streaks adorning my ebony flesh. Aware of movement, I raised my eyes to the psychotic scene before me. As if some sleeping sense awakened, I became aware of sound; but only poetry or madness could describe the din that echoed in my ears, the shrieks and yelps and snatches of diabolic chanting. I felt again the pulsing beneath my feet, and from some hidden portion of the black haunted woodland I became aware of the muffled yet steady beating of drums. Patches of flame rose here and there, and I became aware of the thing that the devils pranced around, the tall pale pillar of pockmarked stone that towered eight feet above the earth. Sitting on the pillar’s flat apex was a statue of the monster I had seen depicted on the bas-relief in the art gallery. The monster’s outline was crazier than ever, blurred, unsteady, expanding and diminishing. And then the sight of the pillar and its occupant was blocked as the Eskimo freak I had met in the gallery shuddered in ecstasy before me. One of her eyes was missing, replaced by a sickening slit, and she licked the bloodstained dagger that she held. Before I could protest, she pressed her wet red mouth against my own; and then her lips moved to my ear, into which she chortled “Cthulhu fhtagn.”

  I pushed the fiend from me as, all around, a red mist rose from dark earth; and with that mist erected nightmarish monoliths that were draped with seaweed and littered with human corpses. The scene began to resemble something that Gustav Doré might have drawn to illustrate Dante. And I saw the tentacled icon expand impossibly; and the silhouette of its evil clawed hand ripped into the fabric of heaven; and from that cosmic wound a rainfall of gore plummeted upon us.

  I awakened on the floor of my bedroom, reclined beside an opened window through which a heavy rainfall, driven by daemonic tempest, assailed me.

  II.

  Jacob Grall was a very small man; indeed, had he been any shorter he may have classified as dwarf, and his stature and effeminate mannerisms sometimes made him a target for mocking laughter. No one laughed, however, when he was with me, the very tall and muscular black man with shaved head and short fuse. I wasn’t his “protector,” however, because he was oblivious to the jeers and sneers of the public, especially when he performed his poetry. Those who set aside their prejudices and actually listened to Jacob’s verse were almost always moved to a kind of disquieting admiration. Jacob’s vision was dark and remorseless, callous toward everything that regular folk held
sacred; and although one could not call his subjects supernatural, he had a way of looking at reality that filled it with a bleak and nightmarish quality. It was as if he gazed at the common world through some dark distorted glass that revealed aspects that, however warped, convinced. Jacob was especially fond of the past, and his verse often extolled the bewitching mysteries of New England history. It was the performance of his verse, spoken in his high nasal voice as his raised right hand seemed to stroke invisible inhabitants of the air, that earned him the nickname of “the mad poet.” People may have mocked him behind his back, even they who pretended to be his friends, but everyone listened when he spoke his verse. Really sensitive folk often came away from his readings shaken by emotions and fears they could not comprehend, profoundly troubled by the images he had evoked.

  Jacob and I shared an aesthetic link, for my paintings, depicting scenes from Shakespeare, concentrated on the bleakness of the plays, of which there was an abundance. I had learned much from my obsession with the Boston artist Richard Upton Pickman, whose morbid work I had studied incessantly when younger, who was an artist who shared the fondness for New England’s murky past that so exhilarated me and Jacob. One of Jacob’s finest chapbooks collected his series of sonnets that sang of Pickman’s art, and it was that early book that alerted me of the mad poet’s existence and inspired my move from Boston to Providence. Jacob was inspired, by our friendship, to organize a hand press edition of new poems, printed on hand-made perfumed paper, bound in delicate boards and illustrated by myself. He now rarely went anywhere without a copy of the slim volume in his small sallow hand.

  Some few days passed, and then I received a late phone call from Jacob, requesting that I meet him at an all-night coffee shop on Federal Hill, requesting that I dress in black attire. He was reclining in a booth when I arrived, and I wrinkled my brow at the bulky knapsack on the seat beside him. “You don’t intend to drag me onto a camping trip, I hope.”