Lovecraft Ezine Mega-Issue 4 Rev1

by Price, Robert M.

  by Tom Lynch

  As he hurried through the doorway, Jared Fishman’s lanyard caught behind him. It yanked him back by the neck, and the stack of papers and folders in his arms flew out all over the bottom of the garage stairs.

  “Damnation!” Jared muttered to himself as he freed himself from the fire door’s clutches. “I can’t believe this!” He stopped suddenly, blinking.

  Was that a child’s laughter he’d heard?

  He dismissed it, and groaned as he bent over to pick up the mess of papers he’d been grading. He’d been in a hurry of course; he’d lost track of time while sipping coffee at the bookshop. Again. His girlfriend had promised… Well, she’d promised all sorts of things if he got home on time, and there was still a chance.

  Jared snatched up the last pieces of paper and stuffed them into the students’ folders. He’d sort them out later. Right now, he was answering to a higher calling.

  Mess cleaned up, he dashed up the steps, taking them two and three at a time all the way up three floors. As he neared his destination, he hopped up the last few steps, and missed.

  He hadn’t missed it completely, but he didn’t make it, either. His foot collided with the edge of the step and down his foot went. And down he went. And up the papers went.

  Again.

  This time, he knew he’d heard laughter. Children’s laughter.

  As a sixth grade history teacher, he knew children’s laughter when he heard it, and that’s what he’d just heard.

  He bolted upright, spinning in place. Where were those chuckling hooligans? Jared would teach them to laugh at another’s misfortunes! As his eyes scanned Stair C of the City Center Parking Garage, he spotted a familiar set of keys at the bottom of the stairs. His. He must have dropped them when he fell, and of course, they’d tumbled all the way back down.

  Jared scratched his thick brown beard, sighed, and trudged down the stairs to get his keys. Just as he crouched down, he heard more laughter. This time it clearly came from behind him, up the stairs. He whirled to face the little miscreants, but again there was no one there. He knitted his eyebrows and turned to retrieve his keys.

  As he did, he saw a small, skinny, dirty hand reach out from around the corner and snatch the keys. “Hey!” shouted Jared. “That’s not funny. Game’s over, kids. Give back my keys before I call the cops.” He leapt around the corner, but the stairs were still empty. Jared ran all the way down the stairs, searching. He was sure he hadn’t heard the fire doors open at any point, yet he saw no one.

  Jared reached the bottom of the stairwell in the basement, and stood there in the watery, flickering fluorescent light. The anger melted somewhat and was replaced by bewilderment. Where had they gone?

  Jared really was stuck now. He had no car keys. So much for making it home on time.

  He could call his girlfriend and ask her to pick him up, but the teacher in him was wondering why children so young were left to their own devices in a public stairwell. He started up the stairs, still finding no sign of the children and was just about to reach for his cell phone when he heard a lone young voice singing.

  “Come away,

  ‘Tween the day

  And the morning twilight.

  Drift with us,

  Ne’er be lost,

  On the shores of Hali.

  Towers fade

  ‘Tween the day

  And the evening sunlight.”

  Jared was hypnotized. The bell-like sound of the words reverberated off the concrete walls and steel railings. He was just standing, staring up the stairs, gaping.

  He closed his mouth and crept upwards. As he rounded the corner on to the flight where he’d fallen, there was a little girl who couldn’t be any older than six standing there, holding his keys. She wore a torn, short, white summer dress, despite the fall chill. Her shoulder-length hair was matted, and there were smudges of dirt on her face, arms, and legs.

  Jared could not move. Standing at the bottom of the staircase, he looked up at the little urchin while she gazed down at him. “Wh-who are you?”

  The girl blinked and tilted her head to one side. “I’m one of the children.”

  “One of whose children? Do they know you’re out here?”

  “Oh yes! This is one of the places we visit all the time.”

  “Visit? So where do you live?”

  “We live by the lake, of course!” Her tone sounded to Jared as if her subtext was “Duh, how could you not know these things?” The girl’s answers, though, only confused him further, forcing him to ask more. What lake? There was no lake in the middle of the city. He quelled this urge, though, and stepped slowly toward her. He wanted to get close enough to her to see if he could help her, get her home, or at least to some place safe.

  She made no move to dash away again, and held out his keys to him when he was within arm’s reach. She smiled as she did so, and her smile lit up her face and sang liquid notes. Jared took his keys and smiled back. He stood there, and the girl turned and walked up the stairs around the corner.

  “Wait!” Jared cried as she disappeared.

  “What?” she asked, popping back, worried. “What’s the matter?”

  Jared shook his head and ran his hand through his hair. “Well, shouldn’t you be home by now? It’s kinda late.”

  “Okay, if you think so.” She shrugged.

  “What?”

  “I’ll go home, if you think it’s late.”

  “Did you need me to get you there? I could drive you.”

  She gave him her mystified face again, clearly baffled.

  “O-only if it’d be easier,” Jared stammered. “You know, than walking.” He wished he could figure out what it was about this girl that made him nervous.

  “Oh, I don’t think it would be.”

  Jared marveled at the girl and wondered at children in general. It was, in a large part, why he’d become a teacher in the first place. He was continually amazed at how young minds could be so sure of something that was completely absurd. They believed unflinchingly, and held onto those beliefs. This little girl, for instance, clearly knew that it would be easier for her to walk home than be driven. “Look, you shouldn’t be here alone—”

  “I’m not alone!”

  Jared went cold.

  She was right. Now that he thought about it, he’d heard children laughing, not a single child. There were a lot of voices, more than just the one. Before he could voice this sudden realization, he and the little girl were no longer alone in the stairwell.

  Jared’s mouth went dry.

  All dressed in similar, lightweight tattered clothing with dirty, smudged faces and snarled hair, the children surrounded him. He had no idea where they’d all suddenly come from. They hadn’t walked up or down the steps. They had all just suddenly stepped into the stairwell.

  Jared gawked at the sudden crowd. “See? I’m not alone.”

  “But who—”

  “This is my family, silly.” She giggled. It was a beautiful, crystalline bell of a sound.

  And Jared saw the similarities among the boys, among the girls. It was odd, though. The boys looked nothing like the girls. The boys had wiry brown hair and sparkling blue eyes in their impish little faces, whereas the girls had blonde hair and soft brown eyes. The similarities the boys shared with the girls had nothing to do with genetics: it was the state of (un)dress and smudges of dirt all over their exposed skin. Their ages also varied very little.

  The more he stared at them, the less sense it all made. Jared’s breaths started coming in gasps, and he held onto the wall for balance. The first little girl grinned reassurance at him.

  “We’re from the Places Between, but we stay mostly in Stairsie,” she said.

  “Stairsie?”

  She gestured at their surroundings.

  “The garage…?”

  “Nooooo! Here!”

  “You mean the stairs?”

  “Sure!”

  Jared paused, wondering. And sudden
ly, he got it. “Oooooh!” he cried. “Stair C!”

  “Isn’t that what I just said? Geez, Jared.”

  Jared stopped. She’d just said his name. He knew how she knew his name, but realized he’d been resisting the crazy reason this girl knew him. This little girl made him nervous because she looked just like his girlfriend when she was younger. She’d shown him pictures of herself as a little girl and those pictures were of this little girl. The little girls all around him, in fact, were her somehow.

  The way she’d just emphasized the second syllable in his name and tilted her head as she did had opened his eyes. And twisted his mind.

  This couldn’t be her.

  How could it?

  She was waiting for him at home…wasn’t she?

  Not to mention she had to be at least twenty years older!

  This just could not, could not be!

  A chill ran through Jared’s whole body…the girl wasn’t the real problem, though.

  If this little girl was his girlfriend, then that little boy was…

  …himself.

  Jared turned and looked about him in the sea of selves and decades-younger-than-now girlfriends and started gulping air. He ran a clammy hand over his beard and tugged at his tie.

  “It’s okay, Jared,” the first girl said as she rested a hand on his forearm. Jared couldn’t tie the face to the name. He wouldn’t. Jared turned away.

  He’d resist.

  He had to.

  His quavering stomach couldn’t take it.

  His wobbling mind couldn’t, either.

  But the voice was right now.

  It was no longer the little girl’s voice. The children around him all started humming a tune softly. It was the same tune he’d heard the first girl sing in the stairwell. The older voice spoke. Jared squeezed his eyes shut, trying to dissociate the young face from the older voice.

  “Jared,” she said. “Look at me.”

  “I can’t,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “It’s me, Jared. I’m here.”

  The hand on his arm was no longer a little girl’s hand. It was the delicate, sculpted hand of his beautiful girlfriend.

  “Cass?” he quavered, eyes still closed.

  “Yes, dearest. It’s me. I’m so sorry. I’ve wanted to tell you forever, but I wanted to be sure, first.”

  “Sure?”

  “That you were who I thought you were.”

  “That doesn’t…what?” Jared opened his eyes. There was his Cassie in all her beautiful glory. Oddly, she was still wearing the little tattered white dress. The effect on the young woman was quite different than when it was on the little girl, and despite everything that had just happened (and was still happening), his body started to react.

  And they were alone.

  And she was holding him.

  “Don’t you recognize the tune, Jared?”

  While the children were all gone, he could still hear them humming. He suddenly remembered, and looked at Cassie wide-eyed. “That tune you play!”

  “Yes,” Cassie said, smiling. “The one you didn’t like at first.”

  “I called it ‘haunting.’ And I’m still right.”

  Cassie laughed, and so did all the children. Jared pulled away and tensed.

  “No, no…don’t worry, Jared. Relax. Come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s time to meet the family.”

  “Come away,

  To between

  The mind’s sleep and waking.

  ‘Twixt open

  And closed

  And off the side of eyesight.

  Come with me,

  To land between

  Your birth and dying,

  Time does fade,

  And light does bleed.

  Won’t you join Cassilda?”

  Jared took her hand, and she led him to the towered city on the shores of the ethereal lake.

  Tom Lynch is thrilled to be making his second appearance on Broadw—er, in the Lovecraft eZine.

  Tom is a longtime devotee of the art of the weird tale, and is descended from a line of family that enjoys a good nightmare, so is it any wonder he writes stories with a darker twist? Tom has stories in Horror for the Holidays, Undead and Unbound, Eldritch Chrome, and Tales of the Talisman volume 8, issue 4, and will soon be appearing in Atomic Age Cthulhu: Terrifying Tales of the Mythos Menace and Dark Rites of Cthulhu. There are others, but the ink is not yet dry enough to share details.

  By day, Tom is expanding young minds as an elementary school teacher and spends what little spare time he has hunched over his keyboard coming up with more stories for his readers’ enjoyment.

  Story illustration by Jason Wren

  Return to the table of contents

  No Mask to Conceal Her Voice

  by Michael Griffin

  I'll go anywhere I want. I'm Lily Vaun. Just try telling me No.

  Heard enough Yes, that's all you hear any more. I've got enough Yes stored up to last me.

  Sure, you know the Lily Vaun story, the ups and downs. My glamor years, the envy of Hollywood. My later crashes, humiliations.

  Once you're a star, though, once you've shined bright enough, that never fades. A certain level of fame, that sticks. Every time I disappear into some place like Alderberry Hospital, I get out and find the world's still hungry for my story.

  Agents can drop me. Studios can nullify contracts. After that shit, maybe you give up.

  Not me. Demand may be on the decline, but I'm still Lily Vaun.

  I haven't had a screen credit in five years. I'm still worth eleven million.

  I've wasted more luck and money than most people get in a lifetime. I still haven't run through the last of it.

  I'm forty-two years old. Men in the eighteen-to-twenty-four demographic still want to fuck me.

  So you go ahead, just try telling me No. I'll be heading for my next big Yes.

  This time, my recovery's for real. I'm ready to kick ass again. All the king's horses, all the king's men, they finally wrapped up the unravelling threads of my psyche. This morning I ended a nine month stint in Alderberry, which despite abundant luxuries, is a dreary place. All beige, not a single pleasure. No sharp edges.

  Walk out that door and the very same day, I'm on a plane for Paris.

  De Gaulle's a weird airport. Countless times I've seen it, always wrecked on something. Seeing it sober is a first. I mean sober, not counting my one prescription, Doc Sennett approved.

  The place is all white lines and glass, the desolate futurism of a 2001 space station. Or Ballardian, that's a word I haven't thrown around in a while. Back in ‘99, I co-starred in Concrete Island. Used to drop Ballardian into interviews all the time.

  I walk the long hall, past yellow lights which flick by, evenly spaced in hypnotic rhythm, like staring into a dream machine. Something I've noticed, just since I'm sober. The rhythms of the world sort of rub off on me. Brain waves fall into sync. Not sure I like it. The last thing I want is to be too susceptible. You won't survive this world, being too influenced by what's around you. Always waiting to be done-to.

  For so long, I was always in demand, even after hospital stints, rehabs. At some point, one crash or another became too many. How do other people get jobs without an agent? I've never had to try.

  Still in Alderberry, I got an envelope from the director, Leer Aster. Serious A-list, but strange, reclusive. French postmark.

  A brief note. "The new Aster production needs Lily Vaun's magic."

  A cashier's check. US dollars, lots of zeroes.

  No signature. Just "NO TIME FOR WORRY," hand-scrawled across the bottom in lavender pen. Fucking weirdo, no question. The money's exactly what I needed. The flattery aspect, I mean. I don't exactly need the funds.

  Paris sounded just right. Doesn't Paris always sound like that? A solution?

  Now that I'm here, there's this little voice whispering, "Uh oh! What the fuck are you doing?"

  I bloc
k out the voice. Na na na, not listening. By the time I'm done, the trades will announce Lily Vaun's out, she's working. Then I'll fly home, interview agents. Keep pushing, moving forward.

  First thing, la livraison des bagages. That much French I remember. Baggage claim.

  A side-lit chauffeur awaits glittering, decked out in yellow-gold sequins, jacket and pants, hat and gloves. A real Siegfried and Roy vibe, typical Leer Aster bizarre. He holds a sign, my name beside some three-armed yellow symbol, the same that appeared on Aster's letterhead. Must be the production company logo.

  I walk past without stopping. The chauffeur grabs my rolling tote, carries it easily, and surges ahead. He's no taller than me, narrow through the shoulders, but his movements are confident. Strong. On him, the spangly outfit seems theatrical, not fruity. I catch no more than a glimpse of his face, which registers no expression. He says nothing, just keeps walking so fast I have to hurry, trying to catch up.

  "They gave me a hard time at customs," I say to the back of him, really projecting so he can't pretend he doesn't hear. "I mean, snotty, like, quelle purpose was I for visitez to la France. Anyway, what do you think I gave her right back? Just the shitty answers she deserved. But she wasn't having it, and I start thinking uh-oh, is this bitch seriously about to turn me away? I mean, they're going to border-block Lily Vaun? Luckily, the next booth agent recognizes me, comes over all grinning, both thumbs up. You know what she says?"

  The chauffeur doesn't slow, doesn't turn. Doesn't answer.

  "Guess it's time to hit the road!" My voice rises, delivers the famous catch phrase in a girlish pitch. "The whole world still loves my Amber movies."

  He turns toward me, still walking. I think he's about to speak. Instead he offers a slip of paper, a folded note.

  "’Inform the chauffeur of any chemical support required,’" I read. Then the little symbol, and Aster.

  He flicks a glance back, again so quickly I get no sense of his features.

  "Avoiding that shit, that's half the reason I'm here. Just read the trades. If I had access to my old scripts, I'd be dead in a month. Ha ha, scripts, that's funny, right? Actors, we read scripts. Then to get drugs to fuck our lives up, we need other scripts."