Letters to Lovecraft

by Jesse Bullington

  Aunt Libby was still staring at me. With her real self.

  “Three shots,” Uncle Darren laughed, still holding himself, speaking directly down into the hot black rock. But I could hear him. “There were three shots in that rifle, Lib, three shots, three shots and three ki—”

  Aunt Libby kicked him before he could finish, but it was too late.

  Three kids.

  You don’t tell your children to run, not when the wolves are at the door.

  No kid can outrun a werewolf, much less a riled-up pack of them.

  What you do is you deliver the only kindness you’ve got left. What you do is you hold each of their little heads and kiss them on the forehead, and then replace your lips with the open mouth of a gun.

  But my grandmother hadn’t gone all the way through with it. Grandpa had come home right at that moment, or they’d slipped away out a side window, or the other crew had come through the door, or Libby and Darren had changed, and fought her back with their sharp baby teeth, or — or a hundred other things.

  None of which mattered.

  Once you make a decision like that, you can’t take it back.

  And, because Grandpa had loved her and not hated her, I guess — because he understood — he’d made a lie up about that day. He’d made it sound good.

  And it probably wasn’t the first time. Or the last.

  I could see it in the way Libby had slashed her eyes to me, tried to hold me with them. Tried to keep me from understanding. From seeing through.

  “Doc,” I said, in the new quiet Uncle Darren’s pained breathing was spreading all around. “There never was a dog named Doc. We’ve never had dogs. They would never shut up if we did.”

  “Don’t,” Aunt Libby said, her mouth tight, like keeping a secret.

  I turned, I ran.

  She let me.

  ♦

  The next few weeks were quiet.

  We were living in the panhandle of Florida, slapping bugs off our necks every few soggy breaths. Uncle Darren was working the boats at night, like Grandpa never had. There weren’t any cannons on them. Just contraband. It was why he had to work naked: so they’d know he wasn’t smuggling anything himself.

  Aunt Libby was taking coupons and making change at an oil change place. I worked down in the pit. I wasn’t old enough, but they didn’t have to pay me as much, so it all kind of worked out.

  Down there turning my wrenches, that liquid clicking of the ratchets swelling up all around me, I ran through Doc’s story from every angle I could, trying to peel it back to a different truth, a better truth.

  All I kept hearing, though, was what Grandpa had really been telling me, his one eye pressuring up to burst back into his brain.

  All I kept hearing was what he’d really been apologizing for.

  My mom.

  It had to be.

  If Aunt Libby hadn’t thinned her lips that night when I said Doc’s name, I probably never would have completely flashed on what Grandpa was saying.

  But she had.

  Still, there was some assembly required.

  Another story Grandpa told me, it did have proof, is maybe the only werewolf story in the whole history of werewolves to ever have proof.

  It was where dew claws come from. Why they are.

  On dogs, they’re useless, just leftover. From when they were wolves, Grandpa insisted.

  It was about birthing, about being born.

  Just like baby birds needed a beak to poke through their shells, or like some baby snakes have a sharp nose to push through their eggshells, so did werewolf pups need dewclaws. It was because of their human half. Because, while a wolf’s head is made for slip-sliding down a birth canal, a human head — all pups shift the whole time they’re being born, can’t help it — a human head is big and blocky by comparison. And the momma-wolf’s lady parts, they aren’t made for that. You can cut the pups out like they did for Grandma each time, just to be safe, but you need somebody who knows what they’re doing. When there’s not a knife, though, or somebody to hold it — that’s the reason for the dewclaws. So the pup can reach through with his paw. So that one claw up on the back of their forearm can snag, tear the opening a bit wider.

  That’s the reason for the dewclaws. So the pup can reach through with his paw. So that one claw up on the back of their forearm can snag, tear the opening a bit wider.

  It’s bloody and terrible, but it works. At least for the pup.

  And I’m reminded now each time I reach up to wrap the strap around a dull orange oil filter.

  On my forearm, there are two pale slick scars that I’d grown up thinking were from the heating element of a stove in Arkansas, when I’d reached in for toast before I understood anything. Two slick little divots in my life that I always figured were my secret connection to Grandpa: he had a scar from a stupid tick, I had one from some stupid toast. It was the story I’d been told. I’d never had to call it to question.

  Until now.

  It wasn’t a skunk-bit dog Grandpa dragged out behind the barn that night, to take care of in the most personal way.

  I can see it now, in his words.

  Some days it’s the only thing I can see.

  A woman starts to have a baby, a human woman starts to have a human baby, only, partway through it, that baby starts to shift, little needles of teeth poking through the gums months too early. It’s not supposed to happen, but the wolf’s in the blood.

  The thing about that night in Sprayberry, when Uncle Darren came up the road naked, when Aunt Libby slapped him down, the thing I hadn’t questioned at the time but couldn’t get over now, was that I’d heard him talking low into the asphalt, from all the way back at the house.

  I’d heard him without thinking, from farther away than a human should be able to.

  My mom, I didn’t just tear her open, I probably infected her.

  Werewolves that are born, they’re in control of it, or they can come to be, at least. They have a chance.

  If you’re bit, though, then it runs wild through you, it burns you up fast, and hurts the whole time. All you can do is feel sorry for those wolves. They never understand what’s happening to them, just run around slobbering and biting, trying to escape their own skin.

  That skunk, it did have rabies, Grandpa.

  That skunk, it was me.

  And so, the real story, it’s that a father carries his oldest daughter out past the house, he carries her out and she’s probably already changing for the first time, but he holds his own wolf back.

  This is a job for a man.

  He raises the hammer once but isn’t decisive enough, can’t commit to this act with his whole heart, but he has her by the scruff, and she’s on all fours now, is snapping at him, her infant son screaming on the porch, her twin sister biting those baby-sharp dew claws off for him, and for the rest of that night, for the rest of his life, this husband and father and monster is swinging that little ball-peen hammer, trying to connect, his face wet with the effort, the two of them silhouettes against the pale grass, going around and around the house.

  We’re werewolves.

  This is what we do, this is how we live.

  If you want to call it that.

  The Lonely Wood

  Tim Lebbon

  “But the sensitive are always with us, and sometimes a curious streak of fancy invades an obscure corner of the very hardest head; so that no amount of rationalisation, reform, or Freudian analysis can quite annul the thrill of the chimney-corner whisper or the lonely wood.”

  I think part of being human is the ability to wonder, and, whatever one’s beliefs, I think there’s always a part of our brains that revels in the unknown. Whatever our thoughts on the supernatural and religion, when we reach into the darkness, it’s rare to find someone who isn’t at least a tiny bit afraid that something out there will take their hand… and maybe pull. In this story I wanted to play with proof and doubt, and explore what happens when the two collide.

&n
bsp; ♦

  The timing was perfect. Some might have called it divine. But as far as Guy was concerned, he was just in time for a song.

  On his own in London with a couple of hours to kill between meetings, he’d headed to St Paul’s Cathedral. Marie had always wanted to go, but for some reason they never had.

  He hadn’t been there since a primary school trip when he was ten years old, and thirty-five years later he wondered how much it had changed. In truth, not much at all. Buildings as old and grand as this wore their age as a disguise from which time slipped away, years passing in a blink, centuries in the space between breaths. It bore scars from the war, its walls were stained with decades of smog and exhaust fumes, yet it stood almost aloof amongst those far more modern structures surrounding it. It had existed before them, and it would likely persist long after they had fallen or been demolished. The cathedral was timeless.

  Guy found that funny. Not humorous, but in an ironic, isn’t-it-typical kind of way. He saw the building as a vast folly erected to superstition and vanity. That it would outlast them all only gave its uselessness a deeper melancholy.

  Yet it fascinated him, and he found the building truly beautiful. It was the same with any old building — castles, churches, old houses or hotels. They dripped with character and history, and he’d come to realise that it was the hidden things that fascinated him. St Paul’s revelled in its beauty and majesty, but he knew that it had more secret places than most.

  He’d toured the crypt, pausing beside Nelson’s tomb, hurrying past Wellington’s tomb when he’d found it surrounded by a gaggle of school children, resisting the lure of cake in the café, and, upon returning to the nave, he’d seen a girls’ choir preparing for song. Tourists milled around, many of them listening to recorded information and looking at handheld gadgets that told them the history of this place as they walked. Guy thought that perhaps they might enjoy it more if they experienced it for real, but he wasn’t the one to tell them. Others stood staring at the incredible architecture, graceful statuary, and vivid mosaics. But he decided to join those others who had taken the time to sit and rest.

  That was another strange reaction that he was comfortable with, and had never felt the need to analyse. Even as a non-believer, he found such places of worship incredibly peaceful and contemplative.

  A moment after he sat down, the organ breathed, and the singing began. The whisper of a dozen headsets, the mumble of feet, the swish of coats, all were swept away. Guy sat quite a distance from the choir, but he could see the conductor clearly enough, and the first few girls in line, with their red gowns, flexible lamps, and song sheets. His vision became focussed and narrowed upon the choir as the first sounds soared, and a thrill went through him.

  The organ notes and the caress of voices filled the cathedral. Guy shivered, a tingle that rose to his scalp and down his back. Calmness descended, a type of tranquility that he was not at all used to in his busy, full life. Not since his teens had he listened to music for music’s sake — it was always background to something else, whether he was writing a report, cooking, or working out. Now he could not imagine doing anything other than listen. It was beautiful. It was art splashed across the air, perfection given voice and then allowed to fade away. He mourned every note that vanished, but then revelled in the new ones that sang in afterwards.

  I want to hold onto this forever, he thought. He leaned back in the chair, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. He could not make out any words. The hymn was probably in Latin, but meaning was unimportant.

  Wonderful. Beautiful.

  He opened his eyes. Above him was St Paul’s huge dome, the Whispering Gallery encircling it at a lower level. There were several people up there now leaning on the handrail, looking down, swallowing up the transcendent song rising to them. On the walls lower down were immense paintings or mosaics of the four disciples that had supposedly written the Gospels.

  “Come on, then,” Guy muttered, surprising himself. He had no wish to disturb the music, but something was settling around him. At first it was a playful notion, an idea that if he was ever to receive the touch of Christ, or to find his heart opened to the God he had never believed in, now would be the time. He’d never thought himself an on-the-fence doubter, was comfortable in his convinced unbelief. Yet he’d often had that discussion with Marie — If God exists, why doesn’t he just tap me on the shoulder and show me the smallest sign?

  “Come on, here I am,” he whispered. “Do your worst. Do your best. Just do anything.”

  Proof denies Faith, was always her reply.

  Why?

  “I’m waiting.”

  Nothing happened. Guy chuckled. Of course not. He stared up at the amazing ceilings above him, the incredible artwork, and marvelled at the dedication and commitment of those who had created it hundreds of years before. To build this place now would be almost impossible. The cost would be into the hundreds of millions, the skills all but vanished in a time of steel-and-glass altars to commerce and excess.

  And suddenly, in that place of wonder and grandiosity, he felt a flush of disgust. How many lives had been lost building this place? He doubted they were even recorded. How much money spent while the rest of London had lived in conditions of poverty, filth, and plague? The true cost of places such as this was never known. The music and singing soared, and it felt like the only pure thing. He appreciated the beauty of the architecture, but he could no longer admire it.

  Guy stood, chair legs sliding against the floor. One of the choir girls glanced at him — it must have been the sudden movement, she can’t have heard his chair move from that far away — and he tried to smile. But she had already turned back to her music sheets.

  The conductor waved, body jerking like a marionette.

  The organ groaned and moaned, exhalations of distress given wonder.

  Guy turned his back on the choir and walked away. He headed for the front of the cathedral and the impossibly high doors which were only used when important people came. Not people like him. But somehow he drifted to the left, and then he found himself at the entrance to the staircase that wound its way up into St Paul’s massive dome, and the famous Whispering Gallery it contained.

  He started up the wide spiral stairs. The risers were low, the stairs wide, so it almost felt like he was walking on the level. Each stair was identical to the ones just gone and those ahead — smooth concrete, narrow to the left and wide to the right, a dark line drawn along the stair’s edge. His blood started pumping, heart beating. But Guy was a fit man, and his level of exertion was low.

  The movement seemed smooth and almost distant from him, as if it was someone else walking. The steps passed beneath him as the tower turned and he remained in the same place, pushing the stairs behind and below him with his feet, turning, moving the tower while he himself remained immovable.

  Nothing can move me from here, he thought, and a man ran past him down the stairs. He wore jeans and a leather jacket and was gone in an instant, but Guy caught a glimpse of his wide eyes and slack-jawed mouth, and smelled the rank odour of sweat.

  “Everything all right?” he called after the man, but the figure was already out of sight. The muttered words in French that echoed from stone walls seemed disassociated from anything, mere phantom pleas.

  Guy carried on climbing, soon entering that hypnotic rhythm once more. And he heard the music again. Each pulse of its rhythmic heart seemed to match a footfall, and he found himself humming along, an inaudible vibration that seated itself in his chest and travelled out through bones and sinews, veins and ligaments, kissing his extremities. How can I hum to music I don’t know? he wondered, but then realised that he might know it after all.

  All her life, his wife had wanted to hear him sing her own song. It had never been a big thing between them — no pressure, no major disagreements — but her devout faith and his lack of it had sometimes felt like a repulsion pushing them apart. He believed that she’d felt it much more than him.
Sometimes waking up in bed, he’d wrapped his arm and leg around her, drawing her close, holding her there.

  Thinking of Marie now almost caused him to trip. But the steps kept moving, and he felt himself rising.

  Firmly though he did not believe, he couldn’t help thinking of Marie still watching him from somewhere. Looking down. Being his guardian angel.

  He chuckled, and even that seemed to match the music and singing he heard. How foolish, he thought. She’s dead, and the only person that matters to now is me. She’s gone, and I’m the one hanging on. But he couldn’t shake that fanciful idea. Sometimes in the dark, alone and cold in bed, tears drying on his face, he spoke to her. He supposed it was very much like praying.

  Footsteps approached from above, and they were breaking the rhythm. Sometimes they hurried, sometimes they dragged, and, just before he saw who made them, he heard a soft impact. He continued walking, rising, and a woman appeared on the steps before him. She was holding her hands against her stomach and repeating something over and over.

  Guy paused and lifted the hair hanging down over her face. She looked up at him, still speaking, her words lost in a language he could not place. She looked terrified.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What’s happening?”

  Because something was. Something had been happening since he’d sat down and started listening to the choir. He thought of the girl who’d looked at him then looked away again as he waved, and wondered whether she’d even been there at all.

  “It’s… all… real,” the woman said, struggling to form the unfamiliar words before muttering again in her own language. She lowered her head and kept her hands clenched to her stomach. Maybe she was hurt, but Guy could not tell. He didn’t want to touch her again. Something about her terrified him.

  He moved on, and soon he came to a sideways branch in the stairwell that opened out into the Whispering Gallery. There were others there, at various points around the walkway. Some sat on the stone steps, heads back and eyes closed. Others hung over the cast-iron railing and looked down.