* * *
“I’m telling you, there was no storm last night!” The proprietress exclaimed as she stood behind the counter the next morning. Jack was in the lobby, his hair standing up in wild corkscrews, feeling haggard and worn. Contrary to what he heard last night, it was a bright and sunny day outside, without a hint that the region had been hit with a sudden, violent storm. “It was a perfectly peaceful night except for you and your girlfriend making all that racket.”
“There wasn’t a storm, or an earthquake?” Jack asked, his voice rising in falsetto. “I can’t believe you didn’t feel it. It shook the whole building.”
“There was nothing!” the proprietress snapped, her gaze fixed steadily on his. “Now I suggest you and your lady friend check out now.”
“She’s gone,” Jack said, his mind still fumbling with what had happened. Carla’s strange singing, the sudden wind and rumble from the ground that knocked him out of bed, the sudden explosion, the bullfrog voice, that thing he saw before he blacked out. And then coming awake this morning on the floor with a nasty bump on his head, seeing Carla gone, her clothes scattered on the floor. “It took her. It came out of the sky and took her.”
“If you aren’t out of here in five minutes I’m calling the police!” the proprietress warned.
There was nothing else Jack could do. He wandered back up to his room and began gathering their things up. Maybe Carla climbed out of the window last night. He would check. He packed their things together, then headed downstairs, spending only a minute at the front desk to pay the bill, the proprietress giving him the evil eye the whole time. Before he departed he would go behind the house and see if he could find anything in the back. Maybe she had torn a piece of clothing in her mad haste to escape whatever it was she was escaping from. He didn’t give a damn if the proprietress called the police. He needed the police to help him look for Carla.
The proprietress was standing on the porch, watching him. When he started trudging to the side of the house she darted inside.
Screw her, he thought as he made his way around the side of the house to the rear, where their room overlooked. Let her call the cops.
He reached the rear of the house and looked up at their window and stood there, his mouth agape in shock and horror. He stood there for a full minute, not even hearing the proprietress call out in her shrill voice “I’ve called the police! They’ll be here any minute!” He simply stood there and looked up at the window, then looked at the wall of the home and the ground, letting his gaze trail down the rear of the property, then back up the wall of the house again.
There was a path from the woods that traveled all the way up the wall of the house to their second floor window, and it was coated with a grayish-green slime.
Just then the sky suddenly turned dark, and the sound of a great wind arose. And as Jack turned to look up at the sky for the source of the storm, he realized that the wind wasn’t blowing, and the dark shape wasn’t a cloud—
The Revenge of Cthulhu
While not the oldest story in this collection, this is the oldest published piece in this volume. I got to wondering what would happen if one of today’s modern writers of Lovecraftian horror had the mass appeal of Stephen King. So many knuckleheads read Stephen King and think that what happens in his stories is real, so I began to wonder if the same could happen to my imaginary Lovecraftian author. Imagine the havoc that would ensue if his tentacled Elder Gods could actually physically spring forth from his imagination and…
…well, you get the picture. Needless to say, this one was approached with a certain amount of humor behind it, which some editors of certain Lovecraftian publications didn’t get (Cthulhu forbid you have any kind of sense of humor with those folks…they take this Mythos stuff so goddamn seriously). Thankfully, Dennis Kirk, editor/publisher of a neat little magazine called Outer Darkness, did get it, because he published it in his Summer 1999 issue.
* * *
The autograph party at Dangerous Visions Bookstore was going smoothly when a voice announced, “A black Camaro parked in the back is being towed away. Anybody in here the owner?”
“That’s me,” Steve Walsh said, getting up jerkily from behind the table where he was signing copies of his latest horror novel Dark Gods. The line of people still clutching armfuls of books to their chests and cradling bags of books to be signed was of no concern to him now; the black Camaro was his friend Franklin’s, whom he was staying with for the week while he was in town for meetings with film people and this signing at Dangerous Visions. He’d borrowed it for the day and he was damned if he was going to let it get towed away.
How the Christ can it be towed away? he thought as he snaked down the rear hallway of the bookstore that led to the office, a small storeroom, and the backdoor that led to the back lot. That back lot is Art and Lydia’s space! He was still trying to sort through the logistics of how this could have happened when he burst through the rear door into the lot. Three cars were parked behind the store, with two others behind those. Frank’s Camaro was toward the left, parked behind a black Jeep Cherokee. A Triple-A tow truck was behind the Camaro, and as Steve snaked around the cars to figure out what the trouble was his thoughts were obliterated by a man standing with the tow truck driver.
“What the hell is the matter with you, you piece of shit retard!” The man was suddenly in his face; the anger pouring out of him and settling around him like a miasma. Steve recoiled from it; the man was obviously pissed and on the verge of enacting his anger through a physical confrontation. "I’ve been waiting for you to get this piece of shit from behind me so I can leave, and now I’m an hour late for a fucking audition!”
The tow truck driver had already hooked the rear of the car up to the contraption that would lift it on its front wheels. The tow truck driver moved the chains aside and settled back to wait for the verdict.
Steve pulled his keys out of his pockets, his thoughts spinning. “I’m sorry, man. I’ll move it.”
“Oh no, you won’t. It’s gettin’ towed.” The man was a ratty-faced blonde dude with a white T-shirt, faded jeans, and a white baseball cap that sat on weedy blonde hair. He was wearing sunglasses. He turned to the tow truck driver, who appeared to be of either of Hispanic or Middle Eastern descent. “Go ahead and tow it.”
“No, you’re not towing this car,” Steve said. Now his heart was beating wildly and his adrenaline was thrumming through his veins; it was in response to the tension that rippled the air and emanated from the blonde man. “I said I’ll move it.”
“You’ve had an hour to get the hell out of here, asshole!” The man stepped menacingly forward. For the first time, Steve noticed that he clutched a clipboard with paper in it. “Where the hell were you? In the dry cleaners?”
“I was in the bookstore,” Steve said, without even thinking. Why am I even telling him this? he thought. After all, the small lot directly behind Art and Lydia’s store was reserved strictly for Dangerous Visions patrons. When regulars and visiting writers double-parked it was with the understanding that you move your car whenever another person wanted to leave: Hey, whoever parked the red Mustang in the back, could they please move it real quick? I’m leaving. And then whoever was in possession of such a car would fish into their pocket for keys and say, hey, no problem. That was always the beauty of Dangerous Visions and the people who frequented the store. The general politeness and respect toward one another’s person and property. Steve had known Art and Lydia for over fifteen years and had parked in back of the store today with pretty much the same expectations, thinking everything would be hunky dory.
“And you were in there for a whole hour?” The man yelled again, assuming that menacing stance again. His eyes bored holes in Steve, his features a grimace of hate. “What the hell were you doing in there for a whole hour knowing that you parked me in, made me late for my audition—”
“Okay, okay, what’s the problem here?” Art Dover, co-owner of the store with his wife Lydia, had
come outside and Steve felt a small rush of relief.
“It’s none of your fucking business, asshole!” The man spat. He turned back to Steve. “I don’t give a shit if you’re here now or not, you can pick up your car later. It’s gettin’ towed!”
“No, it’s not,” Steve said, feeling ineffectual at his conviction of this fact. The man before him was taller than him, and his anger alone could tip the scales in favor of him becoming a raving psychopath should Steve say the wrong thing. He didn’t want a fight. He just wanted to get his car out of there so this raving dickweed could leave and he could get on with his signing.
“Yes it is!” He stepped closer to Steve, thrusting his finger at him. “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that? You made me an hour late—”
“I’m sorry I made you an hour late—” Steve began.
“Listen,” Art said at precisely the same time, overriding Steve. “Nobody’s towing this car away. We’ll move it.”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” the man said, turning to Art. “I called this guy,” he motioned to the tow truck driver, who was standing behind the Camaro watching what appeared to be a brawl in the works, “I have final say.” He turned to the tow truck driver. “Tow it.”
“Now WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE!” Art shouted, and Steve could tell he was royally pissed. “You cannot tow this car. This is my parking space! You have no right to call a towing company and have them tow my guests’ vehicles!”
“I do when they make me an hour late for an audition!” the man sneered at Art.
“Where you in the store?” Art asked him. “No, you weren't. Can't you read?” He motioned toward a sign posted quite prominently in front of the first row of cars: PARKING RESERVED STRICTLY FOR DANGEROUS VISIONS PATRONS ONLY. ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOWED AWAY. “You should be the one getting your ass towed.”
“Fuck you! I was waiting for this idiot to come out of here and move this piece of shit!”
“All you had to do was come into the store and ask to have the car moved,” Art said calmly.
“Hey, I tapped on the window, but—”
“You tapped on the window?” Art exclaimed in that I-can’t-believe-you’re-such-a-fucking-idiot tone of voice. “How the hell was anybody inside supposed to know you wanted to get out if all you did was tap on the window?”
Steve had his keys out and began making his way toward the tow truck driver. “Take that shit off the car. I’m moving it.”
The man suddenly looked at Art and Steve. “Hey, fuck you guys! I’ll kick both your asses!”
“Then you’ll have to handle three of us.” This came from Jim Rockett, who had just sauntered out the backdoor of the bookstore. Jim was an ex-employee of Art and Lydia’s and was now employed at Fox; Steve had lunched with him and another writer friend a few days before. They went back a long ways. Steve felt a hundred times better with the odds stacked further in his favor.
“Fuck you! I called to have it towed, it’s getting towed!”
“No, you’re not,” Art said. He motioned to the tow truck driver. “Hey, buddy? This is my property, you aren’t towing this car. Otherwise you’re in deep shit.”
Almost as suddenly as the problem had arisen, the situation seemed to reverse itself. Knowing that he was outnumbered three to one in an actual physical confrontation, the man turned angrily to the tow truck driver. “Okay! Unhook it.” The tow truck driver bent down and removed the chains from the rear of the Camaro as Steve disarmed the vehicle’s alarm system, opened the driver’s side door and got in.
“Back up and when he gets out, you park right back in here,” Art told Steve.
Steve started the car and waited for the tow truck driver to move his vehicle so he could back up. Art and Jim stood by as the man walked past the driver’s side of the Camaro to his Jeep. As he walked by he grimaced menacingly and pointed his finger at him, as if to say I’m gonna get you! I’m gonna get you for making me late! The tow truck driver moved and just as Steve was backing Frank’s Camaro out he heard Art tell the man who’d started the fiasco not to park there ever again. Steve missed the obvious angry retort.
He pulled out of the lot, drove down the alley and around the block. His heart was still racing wildly in his chest and his body felt light; his mouth was very dry. The adrenaline was running so high in him that his foot had become lead on the accelerator. He eased off on it and the car slowed from sixty to a safer forty.
He drove around the block and was lucky enough to find a spot in front of the store. He turned the engine off and sighed. The ticking of the cooling engine was loud in his ears as his head pounded with the rushing of adrenaline. That asshole, Steve thought.
By the time he got back into the store, Art and Jim were at the front counter in a little huddle with Lydia. The line of fans that had been waiting to get their books signed had broken off into splinter groups to talk; when Steve came back into the store, they found their places in line. Steve walked up to the counter and Lydia gave him a smile. “What can I say? I bet you don’t have to put up with these kind of morons back east.”
“Oh, we have stupid people in rural Pennsylvania, too,” Steve said. “They’re just not prone to get violent.” He motioned for the can of coke Jim was drinking. Jim handed it over and Steve took a hearty drink. The cold drink felt good. He passed the can back to Jim, who was grinning and shaking his head in astonishment. “Man, what was wrong with that asshole?”
“I don’t know,” Jim said. “You’ve got to wonder how a person like that gets through life.”
Art got him a cold drink from the back office and the signing resumed. And while the line of fans gathered in front of him smiled and joked about the incident, Steve could not bring it upon himself to join their festive mood. The more he signed books, the angrier he got. Art had been pissed too, and was in front of the store calling the other businesses in the building, asking if they had had a patron who fit the Raving Asshole’s description. Art came back later and reported that he believed the guy was from an actor’s studio five doors down. Steve grimaced. He hoped the guy didn’t get the part he was complaining about being late to. Furthermore, he hoped horrible things would happen to him for the rest of the week—
The more he thought about the incident, the angrier he got. While he normally liked to chat with his fans and jot witty inscriptions in the books and magazines they offered for signing, he did none of that for the last forty minutes. He was too upset. All he could think about was that raving asshole, that loser who’d taken it upon himself to call a tow truck to move a vehicle just because he couldn’t muster up the energy to walk into the store and ask if the owner was present and would they please move it. He would have done so in a hurry. And to have the balls to do so in a lot he shouldn’t have parked in anyway! And to think that if Art and Jim hadn’t been there to back him up the guy probably would have sucker punched him and Steve would have been hurt, probably not bad, but with the way people were nowadays you never knew. The guy could have beaten him to death just because—
The more he thought about it, the more upset he got, the angrier he became until he began wishing the signing would end and he could hightail it out of there.
Thirty minutes later it was over. He signed the store’s supply of books that would be sold with the AUTOGRAPHED BY THE AUTHOR sticker on the jacket, and tried to make small talk with Art and Lydia. By then the only people left in the store were Art, Lydia, Jim Rockett and a few people who had drifted in for other things. Despite the fact that the signing was officially over, Steve still felt on edge. Chalk that up to the adrenaline running through his system.
He glanced idly at his watch as he finished with the last book. “Listen, guys, I gotta get going. I’m meeting Frank at six for dinner and it’s five-thirty already.”
Art walked him to the door and Steve promised he would drop by later in the week before he flew back home to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “And listen,” Art said. “Don’t let what happened today bother you. When you co
me back later this week, park in the back like you always do.”
Steve smiled. “I will.” They shook hands, and then Steve was walking to his car, his anger over the incident still simmering in his brain. He had a dinner engagement with Frank, true, but he also had a burning desire for something else as well. There was a story he had to write before the inspiration left him.
* * *
Herman Alexander wasn’t having a good day. To start things off, his ex-girlfriend had sued him in small claims court for some bullshit claiming he owed her $2500; the sheriff had awoken him at six-thirty that morning with the court summons, and when he tried to get back to sleep he couldn’t. He’d finally gotten out of bed at seven thirty, tried to make coffee, and the percolator short-circuited and died. He’d had to drive down the hill to the Burger King on Ventura for his breakfast, and that’d tasted like cardboard. Then he’d slipped in the bathtub and bruised his hip, ripped a shirt accidentally as he took it off its hanger, and was late to his actor’s workshop that morning and had to park halfway down the block. His instructor had chastised him in private in his office for failing to show up to the last three workshops—hey, he was paying the bastard, wasn’t he? If he had to be late or absent, he’d do it if he felt like it! His instructor suggested that perhaps he didn’t care enough about his craft to actually make something of himself. That criticism started a slow burn in him that lasted all afternoon and had finally blown up when he’d left class for the audition and found that his Jeep was parked in. He’d tried waiting for the asshole who owned the car and when he didn’t show up after thirty minutes, he’d called a tow truck. And then the guy had the nerve to come out and try starting shit with him!
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