New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird

by Michael Marshall Smith

  “No.”

  Charlie stuck the torch under his chin, demon-masking his features. He tried to snarl like his million-year-old carved portrait.

  “But I’m the Man, now. The Man of the Mountain.”

  “I don’t dispute that.”

  “The Old Lady has told me how it works,” said Charlie, pointing to his head. “You think I don’t get it, but I do. We’ve been stashing ordinance. The kraut’s a demolition expert. He’ll see where to place the charges. Bring this place down and let the waters out. I know that’s not enough. This is an imaginary mountain as much as it is a physical one. That’s why they’ve been filming crappy Westerns all over it for so long. This is a place of stories. And it has to be opened in the mind, has to be cracked on another plane. I’ve been working on the rituals. My album, that’s one. And the blood sacrifices, the offerings of the pigs.”

  “I can’t wait to off my first pig,” said Ouisch, cutely wrinkling her nose. “I’m going to be so freakin’ famous.”

  “Famous ain’t all that,” put in Junior. “You think bein’ famous will make things work out right, but it doesn’t at all. Screws you up more, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t, Mummy Man,” spat Charlie. “You had your shot, dragged your leg through the tombs . . . ”

  Squeaky began to sing, softly.

  “We shall over-whelm, we shall over-whe-e-elm, we shall overwhelm some day-ay-ay . . . ”

  Charlie laughed.

  “It’s the end of their world. No more goddamn movies. You know how much I hate the movies? The lies in the movies. Now, I get to wipe Hollywood off the map. Hell, I get to wipe the map off the map. I’ll burn those old Spanish charts when we get back to the Ranch. No more call for them.”

  Constant was the only one paying attention to Leech. Smart boy.

  “It’ll be so simple,” said Charlie. “So pure. All the pigs get offed. Me and Chocko do the last dance. I defeat the clowns, lay them down forever. Then we start all over. Get it right this time.”

  “Simple,” said Leech. “Yes, that’s the word.”

  “This happened before, right? With the Old Lady’s people. The menfish. Then we came along, the menmen, and fouled it up again, played exactly the same tune. Not this time. This time, there’s the Gospel According to Charlie.”

  “Hooray and Hallelujah,” sang Ouisch, “you got it comin’ to ya . . . ”

  The drip of water echoed enormously, like the ticking of a great clock.

  “I do believe our interests part the ways here,” said Leech. “You yearn for simplicity, like these children. You hate the movies, the storybooks, but you want cartoons, you want a big finish and a new episode next week. Wipe it all away and get back to the garden. It’s easy because you don’t have to think about it.”

  He hadn’t lost Charlie, but he was scaring the man. Good.

  “I like complexity,” said Leech, relishing the echo. “I love it. There are so many more opportunities, so many more arrangements to be made. What I want is a rolling apocalypse, a transformation, a thousand victories a day, a spreading of interests, a permanent revolution. My natural habitat is civilization. Your ultimate deluge might be amusing for a moment, but it’d pass. Even you’d get bored with children sitting around adoring you.”

  “You think?”

  “I know, Charles.”

  Charlie looked at the faces of Ouisch and Squeaky, American girls, unquestioningly loyal, endlessly tiresome.

  “No, Mr. Fish,” he said, indicating the mural. “This is what I want. This is what I want to do.”

  “I brought you here. I showed you this.”

  “I know. You’re part of the story too, aren’t you? If the Mummy Man is the One Who Will Open the Earth, you’re the Mysterious Guide.”

  “I’m not so mysterious.”

  “You’re a part of this, you don’t have a choice.”

  Charlie was excited but wheedling, persuasive but panicky. Having seen his preferred future, he was worried about losing it. Whenever the torch was away from the mural, he itched lest it should change in the dark.

  “I promise you this, Charles, you will be famous.”

  Charlie thumped his chest. “Damn right. Good goddamn right!”

  “But you might want to give this up. Write off this scripted Armageddon as just another fish story. You know, the one that got away. It was this big. I have other plans for the end of this century. And beyond. Have you ever noticed how it’s only Gods who keep threatening to end the world? Father issues, if you ask me. Others, those of my party, promise things will continue as they are. Everyone gets what they deserve. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet because what you give is what you get.”

  Charlie shook his head. “I’m not there.”

  Squeaky and Ouisch were searching the mural, trying to find themselves in the crowded picture.

  Charlie’s eyes shone, ferocious.

  “Our deal was to bring you here,” said Leech, “to this sea. To this place of revelation. Our business is concluded. The service you requested has been done.”

  Junior raised a modest flipper, acknowledging his part.

  “Yeah,” said Charlie, distracted, flicking fingers at Junior, “muchas grassy-asses.”

  “You have recompensed our friend for his part in this expedition, by ensuring that his employers finish their shoot unimpeded. That deal is done and everyone is square. Now, let’s talk about getting out of the mountain.”

  Charlie bit back a grin, surprised.

  “What are you prepared to offer for that?”

  “Don’t be stupid, man,” said Charlie. “We just go back on ourselves.”

  “Are you so confident? We took a great many turns and twists. Smooth rock and running water. We left no signs. Some of us might have a mind to sit by the sea for a spell, make some rods and go fishing.”

  “Good idea, George,” said Junior. “Catch a marlin, I bet. Plenty good eating.”

  Charlie’s eyes widened.

  After a day or so, the torch batteries would die. He might wander blindly for months, years, down here, hopelessly lost, buried alive. Back at the Ranch, he’d not be missed much; Tex, or one of the others, maybe one of the girls, could be the new Head of the Family, and would perhaps do things better all round. The girls would be no use to him, in the end. Squeaky and Ouisch couldn’t guide him out of this fish city, and he couldn’t live off them for more than a few weeks. Charlie saw the story of the Lost Voyager as vividly as he had the Drowning of Los Angeles. It ended not with a huge face carved on a mountain and feared, but with forgotten bones, lying forever in wet darkness.

  “I join you in fishing, I think,” said Constant.

  Charlie had lost Constant on the mountain. Later, Leech would formalize a deal with the boy. He had an ability to put things together or take them apart. Charlie had been depending on that. He should have taken the trouble to offer Constant something of equal value to retain his services.

  “No, no, this can’t be right.”

  “You show Charlie the way out, meanie,” said Ouisch, shoving Junior.

  “If you know what’s good for you,” said Squeaky.

  “One word and you’re out of here safe, Charles,” said Leech. “But abandon the deluge. I want Los Angeles where it is. I want civilization just where it is. I have plans, you dig?”

  “You’re scarin’ me, man,” said Charlie, nervy, strained, near tears.

  Leech smiled. He knew he showed more teeth than seemed possible.

  “Yes,” he said, the last sound hissing in echo around the cavern. “I know.”

  Minutes passed. Junior hummed a happy tune, accompanied by musical echoes from the stalactites.

  Leech looked at Charlie, outstaring his Satan glare, trumping his ace.

  At last, in a tiny voice, Charlie said, “Take me home.”

  Leech was magnanimous. “But of course, Charles. Trust me, this way will suit you better. Pursue your interests, wage your war against the dream factory, and y
ou will be remembered. Everyone will know your name.”

  “Yeah, man, whatever. Let’s get going.”

  “Creighton,” said Leech. “It’s night up top. The moon is full. Do you think you can lead us to the moonlight?”

  “Sure thing, George. I’m the Wolf Man, ahhh-woooooo!”

  Janice Marsh had died while they were under the mountain. Her room stank and bad water sloshed on the carpets. The tarpaulin served as her shroud.

  Leech hated to let her down, but she’d had too little to bring to the table. She had been a coelacanth, a living fossil.

  Charlie announced that he was abandoning the search for the Subterranean Sea of California, that there were other paths to Helter Skelter. After all, was it not written that when you get to the bottom you start again at the top. He told his Family that his album would change the world when he got it together with Dennis, and he sang them a song about how the pigs would suffer.

  Inside, Charlie was terrified. That would make him more dangerous.

  But not as dangerous as Derek Leech.

  Before he left the Ranch, in a requisitioned buggy with Constant at the wheel, Leech sat a while with Junior.

  “You’ve contributed more than you know,” he told Junior. “I don’t often do this, but I feel you’re owed. So, no deals, no contracts, just an offer. A no-strings offer. It will set things square between us. What do you want? What can I do for you?”

  Leech had noticed how hoarse Junior’s speech was, gruffer even than you’d expect after years of chili and booze. His father had died of throat cancer, a silent movie star bereft of his voice. The same poison was just touching the son, extending tiny filaments of death around his larynx. If asked, Leech could call them off, take away the disease.

  Or he could fix up a big budget star vehicle at Metro, a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, a final marriage to Ava Gardner, a top-ten record with the Monkees, a hit TV series . . .

  Junior thought a while, then hugged Leech.

  “You’ve already done it, George. You’ve already granted my wish. You call me by my name. By my mom’s name. Not by his, not by ‘Junior.’ They had to starve me into taking it. That’s all I ever wanted. My own name.”

  It was so simple. Leech respected that; those who asked only for a little respect, a little place of their own—they should get what they deserve, as much as those who came greedily to the feast, hoping for all you can eat.

  “Goodbye, Creighton,” he said.

  Leech walked away from a happy man.

  I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed, worshipping their ancient stone idols and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite.

  “Dagon” · H.P. Lovecraft (1917)

  • HEAD MUSIC •

  Lon Prater

  At 1:02 a.m., Diego’s eyes snapped open. The haunting, tuneless music was in his head again, louder than ever. Mournful tones rose and fell, reverberating between his temples. Throughout his eighteen years he had heard them: occasional, faint and inviting whispers tugging at his innards. Now the deep, echoing hornsong was louder, more insistent; it had control of his body.

  Bare-chested and shoeless, he burst through the painted screen door. The cool autumn night welcomed him with a clammy marsh-salt embrace.

  The flimsy wood frame squealed and slammed shut behind him. The keys to his father’s work truck jangled in one hand.

  On the horizon, a prowler moon crouched fat and yellow behind a low fence of backlit clouds. His naked back pressed against the chilled vinyl seat. Diego would have shivered, but the music moving his body prevented it. He was glad that he had worn sweatpants to bed.

  Bare feet, wet with dew and grass clippings, pumped the gas pedal and pressed in the clutch. He watched—calmly, serenely—as his right hand twisted the key. The stubborn engine roared indignantly to life.

  The truck lurched onto the empty road, headlights darkened. Diego was completely out of control: a passenger within the truck as well as within his own body.

  The rusty old heap hurtled down the empty blacktop, landscaping tools clattering madly in the bed. Diego felt content. He rode the swell and crash of a forlorn internal symphony; he was not afraid.

  The beach was part of a state park and nature preserve. Red and white signs threatened after-hours trespassers with fines and jail time. The penalties were even steeper for those foolish enough to take animals, glass, or vehicles onto the sand.

  The renegade truck bounced over the benighted dunes. At the same time, the plaintive wailing began to recede; a cacophony of lesser tones gained in strength. He realized with a start that his body was his own again.

  Diego squinted through the dirty windshield. A curtain of dense gray clouds blocked most of the moon’s reflected light. This far from town the stars shone with a rare luminosity. Their light was mirrored in the phosphorescent foam and sparkle of the cresting waves. Wet sand glimmered at the water’s edge.

  A shadowed hump lay in the blackness just yards from the lapping waves. Leaning forward, Diego flipped on the headlights.

  The head music erupted into skull-splitting shrieks. His hand shot out automatically, killing the lights. The return of darkness stifled the blood curdling screeches as well—but he had already caught a glimpse of the thing on the beach.

  He wiped the sudden cold sweat from his face and took several calming breaths. Steeling himself, Diego opened the door and stepped trembling onto the sand.

  He shivered. The night had grown mute and windless. Even the tuneless music had faded to a soft mewling; his brain was full of newborn kittens.

  Sand and bits of dune grass scrunched beneath him as he approached the creature. It had the length and girth of a small killer whale, but that was where the resemblance ended.

  Diego walked around it, unable to fathom what he was seeing. It had slick, warty gray-green skin flecked all over with lambent orange jewel-like scales. There were no eyes to speak of. Either end of its tube-like body presented a fleshy pucker of skin surrounded by a forest of supple whips and barbed tendrils. Near the center of its girth there were three great vein-lined fans pressed close against its body.

  The creature stank of window cleaner.

  Whatever it was, it had called him here to this beach with its hornsong. The same sounds he had heard over the years, only stronger now, more desperate.

  A lonely dirge-like cry sang inside him. It engulfed him in waterlogged sadness, drowning out the soft whining chorus. He felt a strange kinship with this thing, one that he could not explain.

  Ancient intuition clawed its way into his awareness. The creature—no, she—was stranded, beached here in the alien air. Unable to return to the sea, she knew she was dying.

  Tears scorched his eyes. He rushed at her, vainly throwing his weight into an attempt to roll the immense cylinder of her body back into the sea.

  As reward, Diego’s bare chest, arms, and back were scored with tiny nicks from the scattered orange scales. His torso was smeared with a gritty, viscous film that made the open cuts swell and burn like bee stings. He cried out in frustration, looking around for a way to save this bizarre and wondrous creature.

  His eyes came to rest on the abandoned truck. He strode toward it, for the moment ignoring the piteous lament in his head. A search of the truck revealed a lawnmower and gas can, hand tools and pruning shears, shovels and rakes, a wheelbarrow and some clear bags—but nothing that would help him return this behemoth safely to the sea.

  Despair filled him like freshly poured concrete. He returned to her side. The inky waves were almost washing up against one puckered end.

  The kitten-like mewling started up again in earnest. He put a hand on her, careful not to let the sharp orange speckles cut him. On some primitive level he felt the squirming fluted mass of life within her.

  They could have been her brains as easily as they were her you
ng. It didn’t matter to Diego; he knew that they needed to come out of her.

  He gulped, approaching her ocean-side sphincter again. The dank smell of salt and rotting seaweed mixed with her ammonia odor, an unsettling combination. He carefully pushed the waving tendrils away from the opening. This would not be easy.

  Diego plunged his arm into the unearthly creature, straining to keep down his gorge. His heart beat fast and loud in his ears. Something skittered across his foot and he jumped—a ghost crab.

  His arm was buried to the shoulder. The keening in his head was louder, more frantic. He grasped the end of a slippery fat hose and pulled. It came out with a slurping noise and a geyser of foul liquid.

  Diego dropped the greasy pus-thing and vomited all over it. It writhed there, celebrating the glorious emptying of Diego’s guts. Then, like a slow but enormous blond worm, it inched its way into the waves.

  The mother’s song was faint now; the chaotic internal cries of her young continued to gnaw desperately at him.

  He jabbed an arm into her again, feeling nothing but the pain of his burning cuts and the squish of her organs. He removed his arm and went to the opposite end. This time it was easier. Diego eased two of the worm-things from the orifice, each over six-feet long. He deposited them gingerly into the lapping water.

  They lay there motionless. Diego could suddenly smell their corruption, even over the ammonia and beach scents. Stillborn. As were the others still rotting within the dune-side womb.

  He had saved one of the disgusting things. Wasn’t that enough? The wailing chorus of those still in the sea-side womb disagreed, begging for release. One day they would grow into creatures as beautiful and alien as the one dying here before him. But not if he left them inside her to die.

  He went to the back of the truck and returned with the pruning shears. Sticking the bottom blade into the sphincter at the water’s edge, he crossed himself, preparing for what he had to do.

  Diego squeezed the rubber coated handles together with all his might. The blades weren’t as sharp as he had hoped. They did not cut so much as chew slits into her, widening the puckered hole. She did not bleed, at least not so he could tell it, but the ammonia smell nearly made him pass out. What kept him conscious was the soft saxophone moan of her pain—her fear—echoing through his head.