The Children of Cthulhu

by John Pelan

  Zeb paid no attention to the curious visitors at first; later, when people like Frank Cornell, who owned the grocery and filling station and was the closest thing to an entrepreneur the town had, began urging him to sell his artwork (or, in Frank's case, offering to be his agent), he discouraged visits by the simple tactic of not answering the door. This proved surprisingly effective, since most of the population of Harron's Notch viewed Zeb somewhat askance anyway, and his disturbing creations had only enhanced that impression. After a flurry of interest that lasted a couple of weeks, Zeb was largely left to himself once more.

  Only Walker Burnett continued to show interest in Zeb's new avocation, partly because he had been the first to discover it and felt a certain proprietary sense. But after a few more days even his visits to the cabin began to wane, because Zeb, never the most congenial host, had grown increasingly surly and uncommunicative.

  The necessity of dealing with an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth among his small herd of cattle kept Walker busy for the better part of a week. Then one evening, nearly a month after his initial visit, he determined to drop by Zeb's cabin and see if the latter was still pursuing his hobby.

  There was no answer to his knock. The property was even more overgrown than usual with jimsonweed and oak scrub. Flies buzzed around the partly open door, and from within a strange musky smell issued. Walker called Zeb's name twice; receiving no answer, and becoming somewhat concerned, he pushed open the door and went inside.

  The smell was much stronger inside, strong enough to cause Walker to wrinkle his nose in distaste. It spoke of dampness and mold, of blind writhing worms and long-decayed flesh. At first Walker's heart nearly jumped out of his chest because he thought he would find Zeb dead and bloated in this stifling hovel. But after his eyes adjusted to the dimness Walker saw Zeb sitting on a split-log bench by the fireplace, which was full of cold ashes. A quilt had been hung over the only window, plunging the room into shadow.

  Walker was shocked by Zeb's appearance. He had never known him to pay attention to personal hygiene overmuch, but the mountain man was in far worse shape than Walker had ever seen him. His filthy hair was matted with clay, and clay was smeared as well over the stiff and crusty garments that he had obviously been wearing for days. His eyes were filmed and bloodshot, and he seemed to have lost at least thirty pounds. Such a large weight loss in so short a time was unnatural, Walker knew. For a moment he suspected illness, but some dim, fearful voice in the far darkness of his mind whispered that the cause was much more sinister.

  Thus far his attention had been focused on Zeb. Now Walker glanced about the rest of the one-room shack, and was barely able to stifle the exclamation of horror and disgust that rose in his throat.

  Zeb's home was filled with clay sculptures. They crowded the few wood shelves on the walls and were arrayed in ranks on the floor and table. For one terrifying moment, in the murky light, they seemed to be alive. Then he realized that this illusion was caused by the uncertain light and the lifelike quality of Zeb's skill. But it was not a thing to admire now. It was a quality to dread.

  Their subject matter was varied: more of the twisted, skeletal trees that had been Zeb's first endeavor, as well as plants, oddly sinuous and lush of blossom; snarling wildcats, backs arched, claws unsheathed; bears and wolves rearing on hind legs; coiled snakes with fangs bared, ready to strike; and other things, things which, by the grace of the Almighty, had never stalked any forest during the time of modern man. Walker's nervous gaze passed over a saber-toothed cat, muscles bunched and rippling, fangs like daggers protruding from its upper jaw. There was a mammoth, its beady eyes full of animal hate, its tusks twisted like arthritic fingers.

  And there were other creatures as well, creatures that Walker did not recognize. He thanked Providence for his ignorance, for he felt instinctively that they were forms of life that had never existed in any sane universe; things born of mad, fevered dreams, perverted visions made solid in clay. He shuddered and averted his eyes from one such abomination: a bat-winged, claw-footed monstrosity whose face was filled with worms or tentacles that seemed to writhe sluggishly as Walker watched. He told himself again that it was an illusion caused by the dim light. But he did not look closely to make sure—to do so, he somehow knew, would be to risk having his sanity crumble like a levee before a spring flood.

  All of these creations, even the recognizable ones, were unsettling in the extreme because of the subtle poses and expressions that somehow infused them with sinister purpose—a malice, deep and implacable, toward all humanity. Looking at them, Walker felt confronted by the utterly alien life-forms with which man had shared this planet in uneasy coexistence. A memory from his childhood rose within him, nearly causing him to break into hysterical giggles: a cartoon seen in flickering black and white of some hapless soul lost in darkness, surrounded by peering, malevolent eyes of all shapes and sizes. That was how he felt staring at Zeb's creations.

  Walker took as deep a breath of the foul air as he could stomach. There was no question that Zeb's newfound talent had gotten the better of him; the man's mind had been unhinged by it. So Walker told himself, ignoring the deeper, certain knowledge that it wasn't that simple. He turned back to Zeb, intending to try to convince him to leave the house, to go with him to see the town doctor.…

  “I cain't,” Zeb said in a husky, lifeless voice, as though sensing Walker's intentions. “I cain't stop. I get that clay, and I jus' haveta mold it.… Cain't sleep nor eat without I do it…”

  He struggled to his feet. “It's almost gone now,” he said, his dried lips cracking in a caricature of a smile. “Maybe when I've dug the last of it, I c'n rest.…”

  So saying, he lumbered past Walker and out into the purpling dusk. For a moment Walker was frozen with horror; he could not shake the feeling that he had just seen a dead man rise and walk. Then he realized that he was alone with the statuettes, and he nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to exit.

  Outside he saw Zeb disappearing into the woods, heading up the mountain. For the first time it occurred to him where the poor damned soul must be getting the raw material for his work. The horror that Walker Burnett had felt inside the shack was nothing compared to what filled him now.

  He turned and ran back down the slope toward the town.

  Zeb pushed through the brush and clawed his way up the steep rocky slopes, heedless of thorns and scrapes. There was nothing in him now but the need; the driving desire to plunge his hands once more into that silken-textured mud, to shape it, feel it come alive in his grasp with baleful, corrupt purpose. Why he was so driven he could not have begun to articulate; he felt no pleasure, no sense of creation in this work. On the contrary, the compulsion was a black and frightening thing, an overwhelming force that blotted out all other thoughts. Whatever meager peace there was in that was mitigated by the horror and loathing he felt for his creations. Each new one was more fearful than the last; each sculpture he completed seemed to leach from him more of his strength, his thoughts. And yet he could not stop.

  Full night was just beginning as he stumbled into the small meadow. Before him yawned the pit—the patch of clay that he had, over the past several weeks, mined away until he had been forced during the last few visits to lie flat and plunge his arms into it full length to scrape up the hideous substance.

  This he did now, sprawling on the thick grass at the edge of the grave, stretching his arms down until it seemed his shoulders must dislocate, clawing up the last vestiges of the red dirt with his fingernails. He couldn't see what lay at the bottom of the pit, for darkness pooled within it, thick and tenebrous, seeming to flow up his arms as he worked.

  At last he could tell by touch that he had amassed enough for another sleepless night of fevered work. But he found himself unable to rise. He lay in a position which required him to use his arms to lever himself up, yet he could not do so without letting go of the clay he had so laboriously gathered. He lay there in a quandary, sobbing dry, harsh sounds. The e
erie stillness of the meadow intensified his cries.

  Zeb did not know how long he laid there in a semiconscious state. Gradually he became awaie that his fingers were moving as though independent of his will; smoothing and shaping, forming by touch, while he lay with his face pressed into the damp ground.

  He managed, with a great effort, to raise his head; it seemed as if all his strength had flowed into his wrists and hands, leaving the rest of his body leaden and useless. Silvery light flooded his eyes; for a moment he was confused, and then he realized that the moon was rising.

  At that moment Zeb felt strangely content. He sensed a nearing completion, a feeling of accomplish-nent that was unlike any he had ever felt before. A sense of having done something worthwhile. His life had been shallow and meaningless, making no more of an impact on the cosmos than the life of a woodchuck or squirrel. But now, in these final few days, he had changed that. He had made a difference. Just how this had been accomplished wasn't quite clear, but it had something to do with the statues… something to do with creation, liberation.

  His tears flowed again, moistening the dirt, but now they were tears of gratitude.

  He could no longer feel his hands; could only vaguely sense that the work continued. Zeb managed to look up again and found that the moon was halfway toward zenith. And now a sudden terror seized him, as abrupt and intense as his happiness and gratitude had been moments earlier. He realized that the moonlight was gradually creeping down the side over which he was hanging, moving slowly down his arms. Soon it would illuminate the entire pit.

  He did not want to see what was in there.

  Zeb tried to pull back, to worm himself away from the darkness below. But he could not move, except for his helpless and frenzied thrashings. He had no idea whether or not the sculpture in the pit was finished, or what held him there. He only knew that the moonlight, creeping inexorably down the sides of the pit, would soon ieveal its depths to him.

  He became aware that he was screaming, pleading, gouging the ground beneath his face with his teeth. It did no good. He was caught like an animal in a snare. At last, exhausted, he was still except for waves of trembling.

  “Why?” he moaned, barely aware of his voice. “Why? I did what you wanted. Why …?”

  The silence held no answer. The moon continued its climb, seeming to balance, for a moment, like a silver ball on the branch tips of an old dead tree.

  As the cold white light reached the bottom of the pit, Zeb moaned one final word.

  “Beautiful…”

  Walker Burnett was able to persuade only three other men to come with him to the gravesite, and none of them would go until the morning sun was high.

  What they found would be food for hushed discussion in Harron's Notch for years to come. Zeb Latham lay dead at the edge of the grave, which had been dug clean to a depth of nearly four feet. His mouth was full of dirt and roots, as though in his final struggles he had pitched a fit.

  What they found in the pit was even nore disturbing: a small amount of clay, sculpted by Zeb into a statuette. There was disagreement among those who saw it as to exactly what it was. One said it was the image of an old crone, hideously ugly; another said it was a young beautiful woman; and Walker said it was the icon of something not even remotely human. He refused until his dying day to describe it. No one else ever saw it, for the statue crumbled when they tried to pry it from Zeb's fingers, locked around it in the rigorous grip of death.

  PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS

  Meredith L. Patterson

  The fluorescent lights are blinding me, and I'm walking through the largest toy store I've ever seen. If i don't look up, the light isn't quite as strong, so most of what I sec are people's knees and shoes. Beside an endcap of bicycle tires, a cluster of children are playing a card game on the floor, and it occurs to me: There are an awful lot of adults here. Some older kids, teenagers, but a surprising number of twenty- and even thirty-somethings, arguing over movie action figures and who gets the next turn at testing a video game. I keep my head down. When I look up I can see their eyes narrowing: What the hell are you doing here?

  I don't want any of this. Why am I here?

  Farther back in the store, now, the crowds ere just as thick but the toys are different. Through a knot of guys in suits, I can glimpse a flash of shiny rubber and gleaming red fiberglass—a sports car? Just beyond them, damp sand spilh across the scuffed linoleum, spreading into the distance off to the left of me, and tall middle-aged women in bathing suits and enormous sun hats walk back and forth across it, barefoot.

  It's all boring as hell and I need to find the bathroom.

  There's not going to be one on a beach, so I head to the right instead, ducking and weaving through aisles full of golf clubs, stereo speakers, expensive kitchen gadgets… nothing that I want. It's hard not to bump into people, and every time I do I get another angry look. But no one talks to me.

  Finally, just past the end of the aisle, in what must be the far right comer of the store: a stairwell. I brush past the shoppers at a display of boat horns, head down to the first landing and follow it around.

  Sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy steps to the bottom. And in fact there is a door, complete with woman-slash-man silhouettes, and it's even unlocked. Probably the employees'—

  Or possibly not.

  Bathrooms usually echo when the door bangs into the wall. This one booms, reverberates. I flinch and let go of the door. The wall it hit is like all the walls—either uncut or badly cut rock, greeny-grayey-brown. Around the corner to the left, where I'm still thinking there should be stalls, something must be casting the orange glare that lights up the—some part of my brain insists—bathroom.

  Okay. I'll go with it. It's a bathroom.

  Such a simple realization, but such perfect sense. At least from where I'm standing. So I head into the (cavern? bathroom!) proper. And stop just before walking face-on into a column of fire that reaches from floor to ceiling. Not a column of burning wood: a translucent flaming cylinder that burns without heat, without sound.

  “K'neseshti, kulayr,” says a man's voice coming from just past the pillar. I look up: no, not a man, two men, in layered, flowing robes and small, flat caps. With long, oily-shiny beards, tied with cords partway down and again at the ends. Egyptian?

  “Ph'n elukuri v'ni trP tsak'n?” says one of them, extending a hand, and I don't know what to say.

  He's just looking at me, they both are, as if they're expecting me to tell them something, but that language doesn't register as anything I've ever heard. Babylonian? Cushuic, maybe, but the morphology's all wrong.…

  Is it getting hotter in here? The room's starting to swim, but I don't feel warm.

  The vowels sound like Greek; I suppose it might derive from Indo-European, though with all the glottal stops I'd think it would have to be Semitic in origin.…

  “Putoru, nasht,” says the second man, shaking his head. He looks disappointed, like an upset teacher, but he also looks so insubstantial, as if he's mapped onto the wall behind him. I sidestep around the column for a better look—or try to, but it seems to follow me. The whole room does, and the only change in my perspective is that everything looks flatter. I try running forward, toward the men, but my steps take me nowhere while the figures flatten out more and more, pasted on the wall now, like portraits, stretching rubberlike into caricatures, icons, meaningless markings on a sheet—

  And then I woke up.

  Which was why I was doing my damnedest to catch at least a little nap during my office hours the next day. For once, none of my Introductory Theoretical Linguistics undergrads felt compelled to try to talk me into just a few more points on the last pop quiz, nor did any of the educational sciences graduate students need a shoulder to cry on about the strict department regulations that forced them to take either Fundamentals of Propositional Logic or my generative-syntax course.

  Even the one applied-linguistics Ph.D. candidate who genuinely enjoyed my Thursday mor
ning computational methods seminar had disappeared right after class, rather than dropping by for a chat like he usually did. Which was a shame; last week we'd had a really interesting discussion about language acquisition and whether, as Chomsky argued, it would be impossible for a computer or a nonhuman species to fully understand human language, or for us to understand a nonhuman one. But he'd just smiled and said, “Catch you next week,” leaving me to enjoy a quiet afternoon.

  So I was awfully prouc of myself for not screaming when Dr. Latour barged in without knocking.

  “Oh, did I catch you with a few minutes free? That's great!” she crowed. She had a bulging manila envelope with her, and wore a far too friendly smile. “I'm flying out to Orlando this afternoon for the Women in the Humanities conference, so I wanted to pass this on to you before I left.” She pushed a stack of Lingua back issues off to one side of my desk and spread the folder out in front of me. It was open to the middle of a manuscript printout. From the top of the page I read

  which signify the not dichotomous, but rather holistic hermeneutics of the pre-Aryan indigenous people. In specific, the author posits the case of a nonbinary logic which was later suppressed by the patriarchally imposed social constraints. The author's methodology will be substantiated with exemplary passages drawn from the heretofore unsuccessfully translated documents which…

  Then Dr. Latour picked up the first half of the manuscript and flipped it to the top of the stack. The new face-up page was covered in hand-copied symbols, interspersed line-for-line with characters from the International Phonetic Alphabet. The symbols looked vaguely familiar, but not exactly like any script I'd ever seen before. At the lop of the page was the title “Pnakotic Manuscripts.”