Through Dark Angles: Works Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft

by Don Webb

  There were the wedding rings and the jewelry and the guitars and keyboards and there were guns, guns, guns. Kids’ bicycles (when stealing the piggy bank just isn’t enough) and TVs and computers. And at the front, nearest the register, was a pillow.

  It was an old feather pillow with a yellowish cast to it. It had been white (or at the very least a light gray) years ago. There was small brownish spot where saliva had leaked on it, and a single brown-red dot marking blood from a nostril over-dry in the Rhode Island winter. And there was a price tag written in magic marker. $250.00.

  Now here had to be a story, and Wagner felt it wouldn’t lead to the story of two pillows that needed to wage a ghostly fight. Malcolm X and George Wallace. Just some overpriced pawn shop con.

  The owner of the shop (or at least the manager) was a slight gray man with thinning gray hair and liver spots and yellow teeth and a big goofy grin. His white shirt was gray, and his khaki trousers were gray, and Wagner knew even before he spoke that Mr. Gamble’s voice would be gray too.

  “What can I do you for, mister?” he asked.

  “That’s a highly priced pillow,” observed Edgar Wagner.

  “It is a genuine piece of Providence history,” said the gray man. “It is the pillow that Howard Phillips Lovecraft died on.”

  “Why would you own that?” Wagner didn’t believe, but this reeked of story.

  “My grandmother was a nurse at Jane Brown Hospital in ’37. She had written a few poems and Lovecraft had talked to her about verse. When he died, she took the pillow. I wanted to sell it to a comic book store, but they never made me a good offer. So I heard about the horror convention on Channel 8 and I thought I would drag it out. You heard of Lovecraft?”

  “I’ve heard of him.” All Wagner could think was how much this man’s dialect sounded like one of Lovecraft’s hicks. Wagner wondered how many pillows this relic had sold.

  “Wait a minute: you’re him, ain’t ye? Dean Koontz.”

  “I am not Dean Koontz.”

  “But yer face. I’ve got your face on a book. I love horror, because of my grandmother, she got us all hooked. You’re Lucifer’s Dive Bombers. What’s hiz name? Ramsey Campbell. No, he’s British. Wagner. You’re that guy from Chicago.”

  “I was glad to say goodbye to Chicago years ago.” After twelve years of writing, after pictures and TV interviews and panels, it had happened. Someone had recognized him. Please don’t let him say something stupid now.

  “I liked your book. I’ve read two or three things by you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You should buy this here pillow. You and Lovecraft. It’s fate. Oh, let me get a picture of myself selling you this pillow. I have bragged about this pillow for years, and nobody cares around here.”

  “Well, how do I know this is the pillow?”

  Mr. Gamble’s face fell. “Well, there is that. Lovecraft didn’t sign no certificate saying he was about to die. All you can see is the hospital’s name on this here tag,” He lifted the pillow out of the display case and showed off a tag inside. The pillowcase was definitely stolen hospital property.

  “Mr. Gamble, I believe you,” said Edgar Wagner.

  “Will you buy it then?”

  Edgar Wagner knew that his wife would kill him for buying the pillow. But she was off “taking a break” with her cousin in Meritt Island, Florida. There was no one waiting for him back in Dallas. No one to belittle his foolishness at being taken in by some urban artifact salesman.

  Edgar’s soul lay open at that moment. As a kid he had found arrowheads. In college he had minored in archeology. Every trip to a thrift shop, every antique he bought for his mother and later for his wife—it was all about owning the past. His love for Lovecraft was about owning the past. Holding it. Walking through its Cyclopean halls. This ridiculous pillow was exactly why he had done so many things in his life, and his son wouldn’t understand it and his wife wouldn’t understand it. But they were not waiting at home.

  “Mr. Gamble, would you like me to take some pictures with my phone of my buying Lovecraft’s pillow? Do you have an e-mail address that I can I send them to?”

  Even after the horror that transpired, the photos are still there on the Gamble Brothers PAWN Shop page. But of course Mr. Gamble had no way of knowing what happened.

  Edgar carried the pillow back to the convention hotel just as the sun set. He tucked it under his arm and he told no one. He didn’t want to be laughed at. It could be Lovecraft’s pillow. It was too odd a story to be false. He dropped it off in his room, carefully putting it in his suitcase, suddenly afraid that an overzealous hotel staff might wash away the eldritch stains.

  He had to ship some things home, books bought at the con mainly, but he kept the pillow in his baggage. Then it was Tuesday and he was home and he took it out. What should he do with it? He didn’t want it as a shrine, an item behind glass. No, he wanted to touch it. He threw his pillows off his king-size bed. Lovecraft’s pillow might not be the 300-thread-count pillowcases Sue demanded. It was cheap and used and reminded him of the pillowcases they had bought at the Goodwill store in Lisle, Illinois, that first year. Sue was waiting tables at Denny’s and he was riding the train into town every freezing morning. All day long Edgar was excited about sleeping on the pillow. So excited that he drove to a drugstore and bought sleeping pills, something he had never used.

  Lovecraft’s entire imagination might have been left in this pillow. All those nightmares chittering inside, waiting in the Gamble home. Had anyone slept on it? Wagner doubted it. The grandmother had been excited that a “real writer” had spoken to her about her poetry. Some dreary religious sonnets no doubt, words to keep the horror of nursing at bay. And Lovecraft, always the gentleman, giving every moment to the writers around him while every conceivable penny dried up—no, grandmother Gamble had let no one sleep on this relic. The next generation would have been grossed out. A bit of dried blood? A cancer patient died on this? Finally the shrewd pawnshop owner, knowing that the yellowing cotton and decaying feathers could be redeemed in coin. Edgar Wagner would be the first human to lay his head on the pillow since March 15, 1937.

  He expected amazing dreams. He expected night-gaunts and Kadath. He had instead a black dreamless night and woke with a tummyache. He went to his computer and checked his e-mail. It was that rather bothersome bookseller who wanted him to autograph all those copies of his first novel. The man was going on about the spiritual connection he had felt to Lovecraft by being in Providence. Edgar would normally have simply ignored the e-mail, but he felt it would be a good thing to challenge the man’s foolish beliefs. Just because one had a fondness for tales of the weird and the macabre was no reason to succumb to anti-scientific fancy. It took him over an hour to draft a response, but he felt glad that he had done so. He began re-reading his novel in progress, Satan’s Hot Wheels. The concept was grossly immature. It pandered to two sorts of slack-jawed numbskullery. First, any artistic concept actually reliant on a folk myth like Satan was too imaginatively weak. Second, the idea of an artistic endeavor centered on the automobile was certainly beneath the attention of a gentleman.

  About two in the afternoon he checked his e-mail again. His agent had news of a possible movie deal for Those Outside. Well, the man should do as he thought best; the making of motion pictures was fortunately not Edgar Wagner’s business. He also had a letter from a high school admirer asking his advice about writing. Now that was more like it, the passing on of the holy fire of imagination. Edgar spent four hours writing to the young man.

  Dinner came and Edgar opened a can of pasta. His stomach was defiantly sore; the traveling had not agreed with him. When bedtime came he was embarrassed by the pillow—what a ridiculous expenditure! However, he would make use of the pillow; despite its faint smell of ammonia, it was adequate for sleep. He turned down the heat and went to bed late, spending a goodly amount of time reading. He decided to lay aside his current project and seek something grander. Upon arising the next
day he received a phone call from his wife. He encouraged her to stay longer at her sister’s. He liked the Southern climate and suspected that she had grown tired of his uninteresting self. She seemed worried about him, but he pointed out that he was enjoying the long quiet time needed for artistic creation. He convinced her that their time apart was helping re-create himself.

  He rooted around in Michael’s room, finding some old partially empty composition books. Arming himself with a pen, he began writing with no clear plan, merely allowing images of an artistic nature to present themselves to him. He wondered if he ever truly experienced art rather than the copying of such artistic models that had presented themselves to him in his haphazard educational process. He worked late into the night. He realized that he had never enjoyed working during the day, but had adopted such a schedule to fit in with his wife and family. A true gentleman must keep his own hours. When at last he fell asleep he pondered the largeness of his home as opposed to the smallness of his needs. If he did not keep up such a large establishment he would not have to write so much for the masses. He tried to remember the last time he had written a poem, and discovered to his astonishment that he had never done so. This did not in any way seem correct, but he could not put his finger on what exactly was amiss with his recollections before sleep carried him away.

  The next day he could not recall his password to log onto his computer. It scarcely seemed a grave problem; a mechanical writing aid is scarcely the source of composition. He was saddened when the post brought no letters. It seemed as though the art of letter writing was falling into disuse; he must remedy this. He began writing a letter to one of the young men he had met on the horror-writing panel. He had had a rather lively disagreement about the importance of setting. To achieve the truly cosmic one must focus on the minute as a contrast. An ideal tale of cosmicism should be grounded in material detail. If one wishes to speak of the passage of millions of years one must begin with a scene marked by such commonplace phrases as “a quarter to eleven.” When Edgar had written ten pages, he sought to check a source in his library.

  This proved very disappointing. When had he bought so much rubbish? Edgar Scott Wagner had been raised Methodist, but he had never realized until now how long he had held on to such superstition. There were more than twenty volumes ranging from hymnals to trite sentimental religious novels to something titled Holy Humor. His disappointment turned into embarrassment: what would people think of him if he died and had such titles in his possession? Edgar had always been a strict materialist. At least he only remembered being a materialist; but the presence of these titles suggested otherwise. He gathered the offending books up. He recalled that he had spent several happy hours in the Half Price Bookstore. He would sell these books and purchase more flattering titles. He had not a single volume of Machen, not a book of Dunsany! This was intolerable.

  He marched to his garage and looked at his brown SUV. The thought of braving the Dallas traffic bothered him. It was nearing the rush hour, and as he had not driven in several days he suddenly felt unsure of his automotive prowess. It had been better when he lived in Chicago and there were buses and trains at his disposal. He placed the box of books in the back of his SUV; he would sell them tomorrow. At least this way he need not look at them.

  The newness of his house suddenly depressed him. Why had he bought such a silly modern edifice? Not that there were any buildings in Dallas that had any history of them. Dallas’ only claim to fame was the killing of that Irish president. Indeed, most of Texas had only the thinnest veneer of history save perhaps for San Antonio, which he had heard was quite picturesque. He should relocate to New Orleans. Now there was a town. Its cemeteries and its wrought iron!

  But Edgar felt something slipping away from him again. He could remember having made plans to visit New Orleans with his wife. They had talked about it before the hurricane, but he could not remember their actual visit. He shouldn’t have any memories of the city at all. Suddenly this false memory resolved itself into fear. He felt as he had felt when he had those dreadful night terrors as a child. He needed to go his bedroom, to lie down for a moment. He locked and double-locked all the doors of his house and buried his face in his pillow.

  He may have slept all the next day. He was unsure when he awoke what day it was. He knew the nurse should be coming soon. She was a cheerful lady who tried to distract him from the inevitability of his cancer. She was not a materialist like him and did not know that no terrors or bliss waited one after the organism failed. He felt too weak to move. The hospital was very quiet today.

  She would be along shortly.

  (For Stephen King)

  The Codex

  HISTORICAL NOTE: Robert H. Barlow began corresponding with H. P. Lovecraft at age thirteen. Lovecraft made several trips to Barlow’s home in Florida and collaborated on six stories with him. Upon Lovecraft’s death in 1937, the nineteen-year-old Barlow was named Lovecraft’s literary executor. Barlow turned from weird fiction to anthropology and became an expert in Mexican folklore and the Mayan codices. His zeal in tracking down obscure codices as well as working with living informants is still talked about. He became chairman of the Anthropology Department at Mexico City College. One of his last students was William S. Burroughs, whose studies of the Mayan codices influenced his avant-garde writing. Barlow killed himself with sleeping pills on January 1, 1951. Burroughs shot his common-law wife nine months later on September 1, 1951. He later claimed he was led to this act by an entity he called the Ugly Spirit.

  “Mr. Burroughs disagrees with some of the current thought on the codices,” said Professor Barlow. A couple of students sniggered. Burroughs was older, suspected of being a drug user and a homosexual, and had weird theories about addiction and control. Others were impressed with his cool mineral calm, Midwestern voice, and Ivy League vocabulary.

  A posterboard Christmas tree from Barlow’s far-off youth in Florida hung in the room marking the season. Its green had faded; its lights and ornaments had grown dim.

  “I make them for books of the dead,” said Burroughs.

  “But they deal with the extreme past, not some future state,” objected Miss Jimenez.

  “Exactly,” said Burroughs. “If reincarnation is a fact, you want to orient yourself toward the future. You do that by looking backward to before death. Not just your last death, but a time before death. Before the ball games and the biological courts. That’s why the codices stretch back four hundred million years.”

  “But that amount of time can’t have any meaning,” said Bill Peabody.

  “Why does time have to be ‘meaningful’?” asked Guy Smith. “Does ‘In the beginning’ have any meaning?”

  Professor Barlow smiled. “Now you’re beginning to think mythically. You have to drop your Western thinking if you want the Mayan world to open to you.”

  Smith, Burroughs, and Carsons smiled. The rest of the class looked angry. Maybe angry at having Western rationality spurned, but some were angry that the professor favored the queers. Well, there was a rumor at least.

  A bell rang and students ran from class.

  “Feliz Navidad!” yelled Barlow. “Remember to get your reading done over the holidays!”

  Carsons, Smith, and Burroughs remained. Barlow looked at them quizzically. He avoided the gay ex-pat community. It would be professional death. But he liked Burroughs. Burroughs was a writer, unpublished of course, but he had the kind of mind that focuses on anything without flinching. When details about Mayan or Aztec religion came up that made the other students shudder, Burroughs merely looked thoughtful. Barlow couldn’t help but think about Burroughs’s ideas of pre-death as reflecting the sort of thing that Lovecraft had written about. Of course, real anthropology wasn’t based on subjectivity. He had thought of sharing his prize, Lovecraft’s handwritten ms. of “The Shadow out of Time,” with Burroughs, but the sexuality question bothered him. It had been so painful when he had confessed to Lovecraft during the last visit. And there had
been—well—mistakes with students.

  Audrey Carsons asked him, “Dr. Barlow, you seem to hint at things sometimes. We’re interested in the real secrets.”

  “There are no secrets, Mr. Carsons, only speculations.”

  Burroughs said, “My uncle Ivy made millions on speculations. Speculations just mean you got there first. Poison Ivy they called him.”

  “Speculations are a more guarded for a scholar than a Wall Street type, I’m afraid. What speculations are interested in?”

  “We want to know about Death. Ah Pook and Zushakon. We want to know about Ix Tab or Yig Tab, the serpent goddess in charge of snares—catching a soul in her coils for its next reincarnation.”

  “Those names don’t appear in the official codices,” began Barlow.

  “We’re not interested in the well-thought-of translations,” said Guy Smith. “We’re interested in the ones that Work.”

  “You’re talking about magic,” said Barlow. His other vice, one that Lovecraft thought terrible. A vice that had to be hidden from the scholarly world.

  “Yes, that could be a word for the technology we’re looking for,” said Burroughs.

  “I won’t discuss anything like that on campus. Maybe you could drop by my apartment over break. There is another codex, one that has a problematic history that talks about the ideas you are interested in. Of course, I’d have to swear you to secrecy.”