by Don Webb
“I am not sick, Mr. Felix,” she said. “I used to paint normal things.”
She pointed to two small canvases up in the corner of the room. One was a reproduction of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. The other was a somewhat insipid seascape.
“It was because of my brother and the book.”
And she told Felix Juan’s story.
Carlotta’s mom was a maid, her father a Zoot-suiter. A pachuco. Mom worked for Hollywood go-getters. Dad was in and out of jail. Sometimes Dad was Juan’s hero, hater of the Anglo culture machine. Sometimes Dad was Carlotta’s villain—drunk, womanizer, shit-disturber. Momma was Thanksgiving; Papa was Cinco de Mayo. Papa got a knife in the side, Momma got to dust an Oscar. Momma was the real world, working hard every day. Papa was Juan’s world.
As a teenager he was in gangs. He tried to find common cause with the blacks. Six years ago he had been in the Watts Riots. Then Juan changed. He buckled down. He went to school.
Juan Rotos wanted what every American wants: gold and knowledge. You go to school to learn stuff and get a good job, comprende? All good Americans want Faust’s deal. A Peruvian named Carlos Castañeda had found it. Carlos was an Angelino. Just a couple of years ago he had published The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Don Juan was a “Nagual,” which comes from the Nahuatl word nahualli, one who could turn himself into an evil animal-like being for the purposes of evil sorcery. He made a bundle off the books. In Aztec mythology the God Tezcatlipoca was the protector of nagualism, since he governed the distribution of wealth and the powers of black magic. Juan discovered that shortly after the Conquest, a certain “Black Friar,” Thomas de Castro, had written an account of the magic involved. Dioses Malvados del Laberintho. The book had litanies for invoking Tezcatlipoca in his forms as Cetl, the Night Axe; Huemac, the Double; Eihort, the Demon of the Labyrinth; Nyarlotothep-Metzli, the Messenger of the Moon. The book then explained how certain drugs could be smeared on the body in cemeteries, how teeth could be pulled, and how certain sex magic rituals could make one into a Nagual or Brujo Negro.
Juan had decided de Castro’s book could be his meal ticket. Anglos would love the drugs and sex—and dominant cultures always fascinate on the magic systems of the people they conquer. It was making millions for Castañeda and it would make millions for him. Now it seemed that the bad priest’s book had vanished, so Juan was forging one. Then he spotted a little article on the books that inspired a horror writer named H. P. Lovecraft. It mentioned de Castro’s book Dioses Malvados del Laberintho. There was a copy in LA in the Ackermansion.
Juan asked Carlotta to steal it. Borrow it at least until Juan made a copy.
Sure, what was the harm? Juan might make his millions. She picked up the book; she could return it after a copy was made. Juan wouldn’t be a jailbird like Papa; he could make good money for Momma’s retirement. Mr. Ackerman wouldn’t even miss it.
Then Juan decided that it was for real.
The hexes, the spells, the visions, the power. Juan wasn’t going to return the book. Juan was going to become one of Them. The shape-shifters. The flesh-eaters. The ghouls Mr. Lovecraft wrote about. It could be the vanguard of the Revolution. Juan found E. Duran Ayers’s report of the Zoot Suit Riots. The guy that the LAPD had as an expert witness against Papa and the other pachucos. He taped it to his mirror:
Mexican Americans are essentially Indians and therefore Orientals or Asians. Throughout history the Orientals have shown less regard for human life than have the Europeans. Further, Mexican Americans had inherited their ‘naturally violent’ tendencies from the ‘bloodthirsty Aztecs’ of Mexico, who were said to have practiced human sacrifice centuries ago.
Juan got a tattoo over his heart: ¡Yo soy un Azteca sanguinario! I am a bloodthirsty Aztec. He also had a white football-looking sigil added, the sign of Eihort. His momma decided that he was going to hell. She died a few weeks afterward.
Juan began reciting the litanies, buying the herbs. He got a few of his friends to break into a vault at Forest Lawn. Carlotta broke into tears at this point.
“One night he came here, very late. His face was all black. He had pulled his teeth and put black glass. Obsidian chips. He gave me the book. I don’t know if he was crazy, or not really human anymore. I never saw him again. But I have these.”
She went into her tiny kitchen and pulled open a drawer. She had a handful of newspaper clippings. Graveyard vandalism. Disappearing children. Bodies stolen from morgues. A criminal gang in Halloween drag.
“So I read this horrible little book. At least the parts in Spanish.”
She handed Felix the small volume. A reprint from 1863 Mexico City. Biblioteca de la Luz Oscura.
The black and white illustrations were crude but effective. Ghouls among Aztec ruins. Ghouls eating corpses. Orgies on the roof of the National Cathedral. There were a few notes in Lovecraft’s handwriting; Felix recognized it from the other book. God names were underlined. One section had been labeled “Changelings.” One of the most horrible illustrations had the underlined note: “Drawn from LIFE.” The last section was in Latin, “Ordo Novo Astrorum.” It was full of dates, and latitude and longitude tables and astrological symbols. Again Lovecraft’s note: “De Castro says when the stars are RIGHT check alignments monuments of Tullan.” There were a few strange sketches of buildings; one did look like Wright’s Maya House. Another, perhaps a giant door, was labeled Paseo de Ya-R’lyeh.
Carlotta had broken down. Rivers of mascara ran down her brown face. For the first time Felix realized how young she was. She was his age (or just a few years older). And how sad. And what nice breasts. She lunged on to him, and he stared at demonic lustful Carlotta in the painting. Her tears fell hot on his chest, and there were black stains on his light blue cotton shirt. He knew that if he understood why she had to keep painting the thing she feared, he would understand fear. He would be the next Karloff, the next Lugosi. He held her. He patted her. He hoped she couldn’t feel his hard-on.
When the storms of emotion passed he took her to Chabelita’s. Tacos. Burritos. Hamburgers. Mexican food. He had a burger and coffee and asked if he could borrow the book.
After the litanies and the offerings the book was a makeup guide and acting manual. To become a ghoul, you had to cover yourself with a blue-black mixture. It was partially graveyard dirt (to make yourself pleasing to the Lord of Worms), ground Seer’s Sage (pipiltzintzintli), “magic” mushrooms, soot, and turkey fat. There were useful suggestions on how to make the jawline appear more doglike, how to make the hair ropy. The book really suggested replacing teeth with obsidian chips and making an incision at the base of the spine for the tail to grow. There were a few notes on the language—“meeping” Lovecraft had glossed.
The ghoul not only ate the flesh but the memories of the deceased. Wizards and priests were highly prized. It had limited powers of invisibility. It was immortal, although de Castro was unclear about this. It faded from the world of the “tonally”—the everyday world made from parts of the sun. The ghoul lived in a dream-world untouched by the healthy sun of earth.
No wonder Juan went crazy. De Castro’s informants had been drug-crazed Otomi shamans plotting to throw the Spanish out. Their post-Conquest oppression had been great; if bullets couldn’t be had, magic could.
Felix had a week. He began with regular makeup products. He painted his teeth black, thinking the obsidian would be overkill. He even scared himself in the mirror.
He didn’t call Carlotta during his preparation time. He knew he could fall in love with her, and she would be scared shitless that he was using the little book at all. He had sort of, kind of, suggested that he would just drop it into Mr. Ackerman’s mailbox. Besides, she was probably crazy too. She had had to rationalize Juan’s actions. She must at least partially believe that he had become a ghoul. Felix wondered if she worried about her momma’s dead body; one of the clippings had been about a Mexican graveyard . . .
Anyway, it bothered him how hot he got th
inking of the naked many-breasted Carlotta in the painting. He wanted to be scratched by the long gore-stained nails, rub his tongue down the rows of canine teats.
Three days before Night Gallery would be casting the ghoul for “Pickman’s Model” Felix had a breakthrough. He had an honest-to-god gimmick. He could claim to have Aztec sorcery on his side! Man, how cool is that?
The magic-using personality can always find omens of confirmation. That night’s “Late Late Show” was The Time Travellers, in which Forrest J Ackerman played a bit role. The gods were in favor.
Getting the Seer’s Sage or the “magic” mushrooms wasn’t easy; he used Crisco for turkey fat, but he did scoop some real live cemetery dirt. He had to add some more routine pigments to make his blend. Then he called the NBC studios in “beautiful downtown Burbank” and asked if he could be allowed to do his Aztec ritual before the casting call. This was California, so the “yes” was a foregone conclusion.
He decided it would be better to say the incantation in English, so he translated the chant 93:
Lowly Father of Worms, whose moon face is disfigured with rotting death,
I am you and you are I. Behold, I wear the dead skins like my uncles the Priests. Behold, my teeth are the stones of Tezcatlipoca like my uncles the Priests.
You taught that to walk, which should not walk.
You have fatted me on the bodies of wizards!
You are Eihort. I feast with Thee! You are Nyarlatothep-Metzli! I mock with Thee!
You make liquid my flesh! You make dead my mind! You make long my bones!
Yr Ngg Eihort Ebloth Yetl! Yetl! Shinn-ngaa!
I am you and you are I! I am your flute. I am your teeth!
Felix practiced the chant, trying to make it look American Indian—that is to say, like every cowboy movie he had ever seen. He fell asleep at three in the morning. He awoke with a terrible hangover. The door of his apartment was open and there was blood on his lips, but Felix Ramirez was not an imaginative man.
On the big day it seemed that everything that could go wrong did. Someone had locked the studio and the key couldn’t be found. Then they couldn’t get the air turned on. Then Mr. Serling had to go to another set, and they had to wait. Some of the wannabe fiends left. The audition was supposed to happen at three. At six-thirty they got to their dressing room. Felix had tried to tell everyone about his new-found religion. The black security guard listened with the “I’ve heard it all” look. The white receptionist seemed interested in the sex magic part. Two of the ghouls-to-be had joined a new religion that month also. One was about UFOs, the other had to do with screaming.
There was another delay. The goop on his face had made it numb; now it was making him a little dizzy. Felix didn’t know what “Seer’s Sage” was—but it came across as pot from hell. It defiantly gave him the munchies. Weird thoughts kept creeping into his mind. You know, if I was high on this shit I could pull my teeth out. That would feel real good, like coming. I wonder if Chinese people taste like Chinese food? I bet I could jump really high. There’s probably not much human left in Juan Rotos; I bet worms pooped in that graveyard dirt. I am probably wearing dead people. I want to say to Rod Serling, “I submit you for Eihort’s approval!” I am really hungry. I shouldn’t have thrown away that pizza; the mold might make it taste better, who knows? I want to bite that white girl receptionist.
Felix got up and paced. This was getting too weird. Juan had probably got a bunch of his angry young Mexicans to try this, and then do a little graveyard vandalism in some rich white cemetery. Probably Forest Lawn—what an emblem of what’s wrong with white America! That would have set them way over the edge! He took a deep breath. He would sit down and focus on the chant. The room was a little too bright, a little too hot. The eight other guys done up as ghouls were beginning to bug him. He wanted to meep at them.
Two more ghouls left. Felix saw through the open doors that the moon had come up. The Otomi said the moon was once the equal of the sun. Then the sun threw a rabbit in its face. All the craters astronauts visited were an insult to the moon. The moon gave his flesh to worms, which became people. It was people’s job to revenge the moon’s insult. The messenger of the moon mocked other gods. It was people’s job to get with the program. Felix closed his eyes. The moon called to him. Revenge me! Make red!
Mr. Serling strolled in with his big Dane bodyguard. Felix jumped up and said he was going to do his chant now.
“What’s that clown doing?” asked Serling.
The words were coming out all wrong. It had started in English, but it became something else. The bodyguard pushed Serling backward. “If this is a publicity stunt it is stupid.”
Felix felt his arms growing/lengthening. He should have made the cut for the tail. That was going to hurt. The security guard had dropped his comic book. One of the ghouls was yelling about the space brothers.
The smells! The room was full of the revolting smells of living things, all hot and shiny smelling like the sun. Like Tonatiuh! The insulting sun, enemy of the thousand-faced moon. Felix grabbed the arm of the space-brother worshipper. He yanked hard. It didn’t come off the first time, but tore free the second. Make red. He squeezed the forearm as if he would have squeezed a toothpaste tube. He loved the taste as it squirted into his mouth. But his teeth were wrong. They were white like the sun. Something hot burned into his chest. The guard was shooting him. Serling was screaming as the big blonde pushed him into an elevator. Felix yelled, “I submit you for Eihort’s approval! You are entering a place between substance and shadow, things and ideas! I am filing you under ‘S’ for snack!”
Then Felix could see it. A big crack in the world. He could see it, the place between substance and shadow, things and ideas. He could see the nagual, the dreamlands. He could see a long stairway of onyx or obsidian hanging off the crack, which both was and was not in space. The guard threw his gun at Felix. What did the fucker think was going on? That this was Dragnet!
Felix knew he had to re-establish order. These people weren’t focused. He yelled out, “Ninoyoalitoatzin inic nehuatl inic chicnauhtopa! Nimoquequeloatzin Niehort! Yo es Nyarlatothep-Metzli! I am the Father of Worms!”
No one bowed. They were supposed to bow. The Mocker Moquequelaotzin had made worms walk to make fun of the gods. Religion was the black joke. He charged at the screaming receptionist. He grabbed her fat little cheeks like tamales. He stuffed them in his mouth. Her screams were laughter.
He could see into the earth now as though the floor, the ground were purest crystal. He could see Eihort. It was a bloated white football resting on tiny legs. The ghouls were feeding on bodies. When it moved it made the countless little earthquakes LA suffered. The entire Pacific Rim shook when it shook. Eyes formed in its jello and they looked at Felix with love he hadn’t felt since Momma died.
Police were running in the door. The moon looked about twenty times as big. Moonlight sounded so sweet. He loped toward the door. The cops were shooting, and then they were running. Out in the parking lot was a big white van. It was open.
Inside was Carlotta, her sixteen tiny breasts displayed. There was a ghoul driver. Juan, no doubt. She meeped and barked, but she clearly meant, “¡Vámonos!” Felix ran to his mate. The van careened out of “beautiful downtown Burbank.”
The night the press called “Attack of the Ghouls” was one of the closest calls I had with the boss. He had been having fits filming “Cool Air” and was on set for many extra hours. There was an audition for the ghouls for “Pickman’s Model”—and like always with NBC the message to call off the audition was lost in the main switchboard. The boss decided to go over. He felt sorry that the poor actors had been waiting for so long. As soon as we walked in, one of them—clearly some kind of hophead—began mumbling some weird stuff. I tried to push the boss away, but he was all irate as usual. Then another one of the ghouls runs up to the first one. The hophead pulls the other ghoul’s arm off. We all thought it was a publicity gag. Then the security started s
hooting. I got the boss out of there. NBC put a big hush on the story. They decided that people would think it was a really stupid ad campaign. Of course, some of the story did leak out in the town of “It bleeds, It leads.” Some reporter tried to connect the incident with some graveyard vandalism, but I tell you it was just another snapshot of how people act in Hollyweird.
—Tycho Johansen, I Was Rod Serling’s Bodyguard
(North Hollywood Books, 1983)
(This is my thank-you note to the late Forrest J Ackerman for many things, including the tour.)
Acknowledgments
“The Man Who Scared Lovecraft,” first published in Postscripts Nos. 22/23 (2010).
“The Megalith Plague,” first published in Black Wings III: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, edited by S. T. Joshi (PS Publishing, 2014).
“Lavina’s Lament,” first published in Deathrealm No. 23 (Spring 1995).
“The Gold of the Vulgar,” first published in High Fantastic, edited by Steve Rasnic Tem (Ocean View Press, 1995).
“Wilbur’s Song,” first published in Deathrealm No. 23 (Spring 1995).
“Sanctuary,” first published in Cthulhu’s Reign, edited by Darrell Schweitzer (DAW, 2010).
“Wilbur’s Brother,” first published in Deathrealm No. 23 (Spring 1995).
“Platinum Hearts,” first published in The Stake No. 5 (1994).
“Plush Cthulhu,” first published in Dead But Dreaming II, edited by Kevin Ross (Miskatonic River Press, 2011).
“Emily’s Rose Window,” first published in Cyaegha No. 4 (Spring 2011).
“Looking Glass,” first published in Pot Boiler 1, No. 10 (Spring/Summer 1985).
“To Mars and Providence,” first published in War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, edited by Kevin J. Anderson (Bantum Spectra, 1996).