After Midnight

by Joseph Rubas

  I snatched it up and hefted it. It was heavy. There was no good reason to just leave it, so I put it on my back. I went on looking, you know, but didn’t find anything. The rains washed most of the plane chucks and bodies away with everything else, so I guess it’s a double edge sword. Or what the hell ever.

  Anyway, I forgot about the knapsack until I got back to camp. I tried to sit up against a tree but there was something between it and me. I thought it was a spider, so I fucking jumped up and backed off. But then I remembered the bag and, feeling like a dumbass, took it off and sat down like a little boy with a Halloween bag.

  I only found some toiletries and a little photo album with a bunch of pictures of an idiot family at first. I was gonna cut my losses and ditch the damn thing when my hand passed over a bulging side pocket. I unzipped it, reached in, and pulled out two tarnished metal cases with twenty short cigarettes each. They were dry, and I was happy as a lark. I took three from one case and plopped them into my mouth at one time. I used to smoke, but I gave up on it before I met Carrie because the damn things were breaking my bread. I haven’t even wanted one in years. I just wanted to get stoned.

  See, Carrie, that walking encyclopedia, told me one time that Indians used to put big globs of tobacco in their pipes and toke up. She said it got them higher than hell. We tried it once, and it was pretty nice.

  So, I smoked about ten of the cigarettes in eight minutes or so and nothing happened…except I got really thirsty. Just my luck.

  July 4th 1979- I got up pretty late this morning, and haven’t been feeling really up to prancing around for no damn reason at all. I drew a few little doodles on some of the pages in this book and balled them up and threw them away. I tried to a dump today and nothing came out. I need to find some food. I think that’s why I feel so weak. I was thinking of hotdogs and cold Coke at Fenway earlier, and my chin got soaked with drool. Um. Ketchup, mustard, relish, onions, chili, a fry or two…God.

  You know, some people hate ketchup on their dogs. I dunno why. I saw a show this one time, and on it they had this hotdog place in Upstate New York where you aren’t allowed to put the red stuff on the food that you bought. Can you believe some shit like that? You buy food and they tell you how to eat it. What the fuck, is this Russia? I always wanted to go there with my own big bottle of the shit and see if anyone wanted to say something and get decked.

  God. I’m so fucking hungry. And I want something good, you know, no monkey dick or termites. Pizza, with fresh tomato sauce and melty cheese, pepperoni…

  July 5th 1979- I woke up this morning with a fever and chills, and coughed so hard my head started pounding.

  I haven’t moved much today, so there isn’t much to excite you guys. I took a dump earlier and had to drag myself away so the flies wouldn’t bug me. I think I wee-weed on myself last night; the crotch of my pants was damp and smelled like a baby’s diaper. I don’t have anything else to wear, of course, so I’m stuck stinking. But who the hell cares?

  It’s around sundown here, and all the freaks are coming out of the woodwork. I’m too weak to build a fire right now, so I’m just gonna close down shop for tonight. If you don’t hear from me anymore, I’m probably dead.

  I shoulda went in that cave when I had the chance. Am I stupid?

  July 7th 1979-I feel like shit warmed over. I’ve been lying around a fire, shivering and hacking my lungs up. My monkey meat spoiled. It smells ripe and flies are having a field day on it, doing the jitterbug and mocking me. I may eat it anyway before maggots come.

  I guess with nothing else to do, I’ll tell you a little bit about me.

  I was born at Arkham general hospital in February, 1950. My father was a real dick when I was growing up, and my mom was a weak-willed slug who vegetated on the couch as pop smacked me around. When he wasn’t practicing his swing on me, he and mom were fighting, fucking, or going out on the town.

  I ran away when I was seventeen and went out to Haight-Ashbury. I hung out with this group of rejects for a while, but they all got busted for stealing a car and ditching it in the Bay. Then this weird ass dude and some women he had clinging to him took me in for a few days. He had these crazy eyes that made you shudder if you looked into them. Name was Charlie Manson (no shitting).

  I came back to Massachusetts around the time Nixon was lying through his teeth about Watergate, and found myself in good ol’ Lawnwood. I stayed with my parents for a couple weeks. Mom was working her ass off for once and dad was dying of some kinda cancer. She kept him in a back bedroom, and I used to sit with him while she went off to the diner on Cotes Street. He looked like a little old man, thin and white haired. He reminded me of a baby, defenseless in its cradle. He couldn’t talk and wasn’t awake much; on morphine. I had to give him his daily lunchtime dose, but I never did. I let him lay awhile, feeling the cancer eating his body. He’d cry out, his voice echoing up and down the halls, and it was music to my ears. I’d give it to him just before mom came home, then the smug bastard sank back into his little druggie’s sleep.

  Sometimes I would sit at his bedside when he was awake and tell him what I thought of him, what I hoped happened to him. Sometimes I smacked him around a little or something. He would cry and look up at me like a puppy and try to talk. He used to point at his chest, hug himself, and point at me. He mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry’ once.

  Lying bastard. Trying to wiggle outta his payback. But he got what he had coming, alright.

  When he died, I was glad, even though repaying him was pretty fun. I came back later after they filled the grave in and danced on it. When I was done I pissed on the headstone.

  Knowing at least that he was in hell where he belonged, I left Lawnwood not too long after that and hitchhiked out to Arkham.

  In ’75 I met that bitch Carrie at Miskatonic U, where she was in some kind of stupid chemistry class mixing up little potions and shit and I was sweeping the floors after hours. For a geek she was pretty hot, you know, with long brown hair and nice ta-tas. She had glasses, but they actually added to her looks.

  I first met her when I came into the classroom one day to mop some cunt’s puke up off the floor. The professor was this little faggyfied shit, and stood by his blackboard waving a hand over his face the whole time I was in there, bitching and complaining. Instead of desks in there they had these long tables two and three science dorks sat at, and at the foot of the first one was a pool of nasty pink shit with brown chunks floating. The girl who couldn’t have the human decency to at least barf in the trashcan was leaning like a damn zombie up against her friend, this kinda good-looking chick.

  I saw her again a couple days later, on the commons. I was puffing a doobie under an old oak tree on my break, when Carrie comes across from Stratford Hall to Craig House. She walked like she had a steel pole up her butt, but her body, man, it was outta sight!

  She dropped one of her books close to me, and I sprang like a trapdoor spider (shudder!) and got it for her, saying some shit like Here you go!

  I caught her again coming back. I asked her for a date, hoping to get in those panties, and she said yes, just like that. I guess she was never approached by a guy as handsome as me.

  Anyway, that night we went to this little pizza parlor about a block from campus, and then to a movie (I think it was The Towering Inferno). I was kinda pushy when we got back to her place, but I ended up fucking the dogshit outta her, so it paid off.

  She was a virgin, but she was down for whatever I wanted. Anal, oral, all that. Man, it was a blast.

  She turned out to be more than just a one-night beauty queen. Hell, before I even knew it we were living together in a little house on Freedman’s Hill, overlooking the college. Man, that shit happened fast.

  We never got married, although she bitched at me about her biological clock ticking and shit like that. She stayed in school, and I had to go out and win the fucking bread. With the hours she was in class and the hours I worked, we barely saw each other. But, as it turned out, she was doi
ng more than just studying in my absence, a lot more.

  July 9th 1979- I found a nice big tree with a dip in front of it in cushy dirt, and have been just taking it easy, puking whenever I have to. I feel better today, but my throat is cracking and shit. I took a cupful of water from the river, and it tasted like hooker ass. I couldn’t keep that shit down if I was being paid. I got a little scared, too, you know. Who knows what the hell’s in there.

  My arms are bumpy with bug bites and I killed about a thousand mosquitoes. My feet are wet and I tried to take my shoes off, but as soon as I sat them down some little motherfucking spider pops out of nowhere and runs into one like it’s a disco, so I had to shake his ass out and put them back on. Oh, God, they ache. I’m probably going to have a first rate case of trench foot.

  Oh, well. Those spics oughta be coming soon.

  July 10th 1979-The fly bite turned out to be where the nasty little son of a bitch laid its eggs in me. Yesterday they hatched and started to crawl out of my arm; I spent three hours picking them out, and there are still more in there.

  You ever hear of Karma? That shit the Hare Krishnas talk about all the time? You know, what goes around comes around. I never paid attention to that crap before, but I been thinking a lot about it these past couple days.

  See, it was Friday…I can’t remember the date, and I’d been drinking at the bar down on Phillips Street. I had a hard day, you know. I was training this new guy to work under me, this nigger about as dumb as a box of rocks, and I was stressed as shit.

  I usually stayed until around closing time, two or so, but that night I was feeling really loose and wanted to go get something to eat, go home, watch some tube, and fuck Carrie.

  I stopped by this burger joint, got some chow, and ate it real quick before I got home. Carrie would have hated me going out with my money and getting some grub without picking her something up, and I didn’t feel like fighting. I stopped again at this little convenience store near our building and picked up some beer. Then I went home.

  Freedman Apartments is a huge…complex, you know, with three buildings arranged in almost an upside down U.

  So, I go on up, and before I even get through the door, I hear some shit going down inside. Screaming and bedsprings creaking.

  I opened the door and poked my head in. It was dark, except for a spill of light coming from the bedroom. I had a direct line of sight on the bed, and I saw this huge motherfucker with back rolls and long greasy hair on top of Carrie, going to town, his shit flapping everywhere like a pan of Jell-O.

  I fucking lost it then. I kept a little Saturday Night Special under my seat in the car (I bought it after some weird looking gook tried to carjack me at a red-light in Innsmouth). So I ran down, got it, came back up, and joined the party.

  When I calmed down a little bit I started to panic, you know. There were two bloody sacks of shit in my bed, and the neighbors probably heard the shots. So without even packing, I left. I withdrew my entire savings and hid out in a dirty motel room in Hyannis, about as far as I could get from Arkham. After a few days it dawned on me that I had to ditch the U.S. and go somewhere where they don’t care who the hell you are. I remembered something I saw on the news about Nazis laying low in Argentina, and the rest, as they say, is history.

  Okay, I’m gonna go see if I can find something to eat. You know, there’re these big maggot looking grubs that pop and squirt when you bite them in the trees. I dug a few out with a piece of metal yesterday. They taste terrible, but at least they’re there.

  July 12h?-Man, this flu is kicking my ass. I haven’t moved or eaten in…I don’t know. I just been laying here, sleeping and burning up. I been having strange dreams, too, about that monkey I ate coming outta the ground and coming after me like something from that Dawn of the Dead movie. It’s horrible, matted fur, fangs glistening with drool, fucking shrieking like monkeys do, you know, OUOU-AHAH! Scares the shit outta me.

  I’m thirsty too, but I can’t find anything to drink. I dragged myself down to the Amazon and stuck my head in. I was so thirsty, my lips dry and sticking together. I don’t have the energy to go all the way back down there now. It’ll be dark soon. Maybe I can sleep.

  July 14th?-Why won’t they come? Why? Don’t they know a fucking plane went missing?

  July18?-Fever’s worse.

  July?

  I hear Beatles songs in my sleep. I am the walrus Goo goo g' job

  August 99

  How many days has it been?

  Goo goo g' job

  Too many in the sun. I dont know where I am but its getting darker and thicker all the time. My fevers back and I’m soooooooo cold.

  Where am I?

  Goo goo g' job.

  Who am I?

  IM THE EGGMAN GOO GOO G’MOTHERFUCKING’JOB!

  1979

  Theyre outthere I hear them plotting against mee talkin in monkee language.

  dday

  They came for me today. They wear people clothes and carry machetes. I jumped out of the bushesand bashed ones headin.they never catch me

  Iam the eggmangoogoogjob.

  The Men Who Raised The Dead

  First appeared in the January 1945 issue of Amazing! magazine, by Yuri Zenin

  In June 1936, I defected from the Soviet Union by way of Poland. I won’t tell you how I did it, but I will tell you why.

  It all goes back to 1921, when I was still a boy of fifteen in Petrograd. My father was a loyal Communist Party member, and had fought in the October Revolution alongside Stalin (a fact of which I am quite ashamed). Our accommodations were comfortable (we lived in a house on the western fringe of the city), and we hardly wanted for anything.

  The year I turned fifteen, I began working in a grocery store. It was there, in January of the aforementioned year, that I met Professor Villy Zyrnof.

  The Professor was a local resident, inhabiting a nearby slum tenement, and was in the store quite often. At first, I thought that he must be a mountain man, for he was short but very solidly built, his wide, flat face covered in coarse black hair. I was surprised, then, to learn of his position with the university and of his love for science, a passion which I shared.

  Professor Zyrnof and I quickly became friends, and he invited me to his building, where he conducted experiments in the boiler room.

  At first, he showed me only his most elementary work; in his rooms, I was awed to find, was a Venus Fly-Trap who could speak, repeating simple phrases Zyrnof had taken great pains to teach it. Shortly, however, he began taking me deeper and deeper into his studies, until we reached the darkest pit.

  In 1919, Zyrnof had lost his beloved mother to tuberculosis. Devastated by her death, he began working on an unspeakable program to raise the dead.

  The first time I beheld the boiler room, I nearly screamed, for there, laid out upon a table, was a dead man, his groin covered with a white sheet. Next to him was a shelf boasting an array of instruments. On the other side, at his left hand, was an odd contraption that appeared to be nothing more than a mess of rubber tubes.

  Zyrnof believed that by removing the blood, warming it, and putting it back in the body, you could restart the heart. He admitted, though, that his success had been limited to a few wanton twitches here and there.

  I was horrified, but also intrigued. Zyrnof invited me to assist him, and I jumped at the chance.

  Now, the first three years were characterized by total and utter failure. The first time a body twitched during the “recycling” process, I was exhilarated, but by the millionth, I was blasé. Then, one wintery night in 1924, after Zyrnof slightly altered his formula, we progressed.

  Professor Zyrnof’s type of work was frowned upon by the Soviet establishment, so procuring bodies meant stealing them, typically at the height of freshness. We took that particular body from a potter’s field in a village several miles outside the city; a man, slight, scrawny, and Slavic.

  Zyrnof hooked him up to the machine and we waited.

  And waited.r />
  Finally, just as we were preparing to write it off as another failure, the man’s eyes opened, he sucked a gulp of air, and screamed.

  That scream. That awful scream. There was something Satanic to it, something sour. This was not a man, we knew in our souls, but a thing from Beyond in a man’s body.

  Petrified above all reason, Zyrnof and I fled the horrid boiler room and crashed out into the night. I was so terrified that I must have blacked out for a period, for I have no memory of things until we were surrounded by police in the middle of the street.

  We were taken to the city’s jail and left for nearly a week. I was certain that we were going to die or be banished to Siberia. Surprisingly, however, we were liberated by government officials. From what I gathered, my father, furious that I had “been led into ghastliness” by Zyrnof, talked to the Professor, who told him everything.

  It was later that I learned with a shiver of horror that the thing we had resurrected was alive and well, living with its family once more. I told the Professor that that thing was not human, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Concepts such as souls meant nothing to him. To him, bodies were but machines.

  After 1924, Professor Zyrnof and I were heroes of Soviet science. In the papers, we were called “The Men Who Raised The Dead.” And raise we did. In just three months, we revived over fifty people from death.

  We were national icons.

  Then it started happening. The dead we restored began to kill, and rape, and set fires, and steal, and kill again. We don’t know why. The Professor and I spoke about it at length, and he came to the conclusion that the specimens, as he called them, were returning brain damaged from lack of oxygen, and that this damage manifested itself in the form of violence. I was of the opinion that the bodies, alive without their souls, were playing host to...something. Of course, Zyrnof laughed and called me a fool, but all I had to do was bring up that first revival, and he would fall silent.