There were no other cars on the road. In all of Dunwich, there was no 24-hour business.
Peter Post parked at the curb in front of 180 Cold Spring Glen Road. He schlepped the canister across Wheeler’s nearly barren lawn to the porch, and then up the two steps and onto the porch.
Strangely enough, the delivery instructions had very specifically (and most emphatically) indicated that no notice was to be given of delivery. Do NOT ring the doorbell. Do NOT knock at the door. Do NOT stand outside the door and sing “My Way” or “California Girls” at the top of your lungs. That was fine by Peter, who was not crazy about the idea of ringing someone’s doorbell at 2:00 in the morning.
He was, however, supposed to remove the canister’s lid. Turning the handle to the left, as instructed, he heard the sort of hissing sound one gets when one first turns the cap on a new two-liter bottle of carbonated soda. The pressure level was equalizing. Not knowing what else to do with the lid, Peter placed it on the porch beside the canister itself.
The interior of the canister was filled with a light blue liquid resembling a dishwasher detergent, but with bubbles. There was an almost overpowering smell of ammonia, undercut with something else, the scent of decaying organic material.
He jumped when something within the canister stirred, and broke the opaque blue surface. It was a length of tentacle, greenish-blue, with burgundy-colored suction cups. Then the thing disappeared beneath the surface.
The delivery instructions had said that the contents of the canister would slowly begin to expand once the canister was opened, and they instructed the driver to not stick around after making the delivery.
Peter Post, Postmaster, did not stick around. He ran across the sickly lawn in a sprint that would have done proud a man a full two decades younger than Peter’s forty-five years.
He started the postal van, and made a three-point turn that would have pleased any police-academy driving instructor.
Back at home, Peter found June waiting on him. She sat, still nude, in front of a dark and silent television set, a bottle of Sheet Metal Blonde beer in her hand. Mr. Kitty Fantastico snoozed beside her. She placed the beer on the coffee table, stood up, and walked over to where Peter was locking the door. They embraced.
They sat on the sofa, and Peter told June all that had happened. Then they went back to bed, and were almost immediately asleep again.
At work later that day (although Peter somehow thought of it as the next day) he thought of little but the special delivery.
He decided that Wheeler had placed an order with Dimensional Delicacies. This was like some bizarre variant on the idea of Omaha Steaks. It had been a form of marine life, which Wheeler intended to slaughter and eat.
Peter had no explanation for himself as to what manner of fluid had been in the container. Certainly it had been neither saltwater nor fresh.
Dunwich had no law enforcement agency or agent of its own; not even a solitary constable. Thus it was that the Massachusetts State Police investigated the mysterious and brutal death of Hank Wheeler. Wheeler’s screen door and front door had been obliterated. So had the door to the master bedroom on the second and uppermost floor of the house.
The body (what was left of it) had been found in that room. A shotgun lay nearby. It had been fired. There were shotgun pellets in the wall near the door.
Wheeler himself had been largely devoured, after a very particular fashion. His internal organs, or at least some of them, had been eaten: liver, kidneys, even his appendix, that vestigial organ famed for its absolute uselessness, and its potential hazardousness.
The consumption of Wheeler’s heart had been facilitated by a massive blow to the chest, delivered pre-mortem, which had shattered his rib cage in the same dramatic fashion that a dropped bowling ball would crush a model house constructed out of toothpicks.
The Chief of Pathology at the Miskatonic University School of Medicine offered to perform the autopsy for the county coroner, an offer gratefully accepted.
Peter realized that he had misconstrued the nature of the relationship between Dimensional Delicacies, Incorporated, and whatever it was that had been inside that shipping container. Whatever that creature was, it had been the cargo, but it had also been the client, a discerning carnivore, indeed, which had had itself delivered to the habitat of its prey, its livestock. How had Hank Wheeler been selected as the entrée?
Peter was pretty certain that living in Dunwich had not helped.
Something catastrophic had taken place in Dunwich back in 1929, involving several deaths and the absolute destruction of some buildings. Dunwich residents still spoke of these events as though they had occurred only the month before, instead of generations before. Current Dunwich residents had heard about these events from their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents.
From what Peter could gather, these events either involved a rampage by an invisible entity of huge proportions (obviously a preposterous idea), or…or there was some other, impossible-to-conceive explanation.
Was Dunwich the focal point of the attentions, and the malignant intentions, of entities from another dimension? Did such things even exist, outside of The National Enquirer?
Peter did not know. He intuitively felt, however, that he potentially stood on the brink of becoming less of an outsider in Dunwich. He noticed locals paying close attention to him, possibly assessing his reaction to the brutal death and partial devouring of Hank Wheeler.
No one actually spoke to Peter about that death, however. No representative of the Massachusetts State Police ever questioned him regarding any unusual deliveries to the Wheeler residence, or any deliveries from CTH Shipping to the post office in Dunwich.
No one ever mentioned a strange silver shipping container, and, to the best of Peter’s knowledge, that canister was never recovered. He wondered in a vague sort of way what had happened to it.
He wondered in a much less vague way about the thing that had killed Wheeler. Had it gone home, wherever that was? Had someone, possibly either from CTH Shipping or Dimensional Delicacies, Incorporated, repacked it, and sent it back to wherever?
Or was the thing still out there somewhere? If so, where was it? How long would it be before it decided to, or needed to, feed again? How would it go about deciding who was on the menu?
Hank Wheeler’s death was finally officially listed as a “death by misadventure,” which was certainly true, as far as that went. His next-of-kin donated what remained of his remains to the Miskatonic University School of Medicine, and what that esteemed institution did with them was anyone’s guess.
Shortly after Wheeler’s death, his house burned to the ground in a fire of mysterious origin.
Would Peter telephone the state police detective in charge of the death investigation and start talking, either about CTH Shipping, or Dimensional Delicacies, Incorporated? Would he blab about brown trucks that looked just like UPS trucks? There was a driver named Corey. Detective Levine should question him. Would Peter run off at the mouth about that 2 am delivery, but state that he had only been following orders? Would there be talk of tentacles?
Or would Peter accept life in Dunwich for what it was? Would he become a part of the Dunwich curtain of silence? Would he encourage people passing through to keep on passing? Would Peter deliver whatever it was given to him to deliver, not only without question, but also without even curiosity? Would he begin ordering anchovies on his pizzas from Rich Man’s?
Peter knew that, never having been born in Dunwich, he would always be an outsider to some extent, but he could take a step closer to being a Dunwicher. Dunwichite? Or would he choose to make waves, and rock the boat?
He chose to do neither.
Peter Post put in with the United States Postal Service for another transfer—a city this time—the bigger, the better. He had had it with small towns.
There were no administrative positions immediately available, so Peter accepted status as a mail carrier in midtown Manhattan. He asked Ju
ne if she wanted to move to New York City with him. She did. She soon obtained a position as desk clerk at the Hotel Paramount.
They bought a one-bedroom condominium in Brooklyn together, and commuted to and from Manhattan every day on public transit. Mr. Kitty Fantastico lived with them in domestic harmony.
Though he never became devout, Peter started attending an Evangelical Lutheran church every now and again, a couple of times per month.
Tim Scott is a 23rd-level Scribe/11th-level Bard who lives in Chicago, where he writes freelance and safeguards his Precious, a Ring of Protection From AD&D Editions After the 2nd, and attempts to balance his fascination with AD&D with his love of Lovecraft, even while making occasional forays into the so-called "Real World." Work of his, fantasy, horror, and mainstream, have been published in such magazines as AOIFE'S KISS, TALES OF THE TALISMAN, TRAIL OF INDISCRETION, DREAM FANTASY INTERNATIONAL, and KALEIDOSCOPE, amongst others. He is pleased and proud to make an appearance in THE LOVECRAFT EZINE.
Story illustration by Mike Dominic.
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Maxwell Patterson is a freelance writer, available for parties, corporate events and Bat Mitzvahs. You can contact him at [email protected].
Ronnie Tucker is an artist who plies his wares (eww, gross!) at http://ronnietucker.co.uk/. You can contact him at: [email protected].
The Dance
by Robin Spriggs
He has a special need for little girls' toes. Deep in his subterrene lair, he thinks of them all day long, waiting for the fall of night, or a total eclipse of the sun, or some other celestial event that will bring about the darkness necessary to his work. And when at last the darkness comes (as it always has, as it always will), he begins his upward climb, clawing his way through the miles of earth twixt where he lives and what he loves, where he sleeps and what he dreams, where he may and what he might.
The Passage of Comings and Goings is unknown to all but him, who knows it all too well. Up and down it he has gone for aeons beyond counting. Up and down, up and down, up and down, down, down, every day downer than the down the day before. Only the toes keep him going—going and coming, coming and going—the beautiful, delectable, little girls' toes, each nail a lustrous fragment of his shattered, scattered Self.
Whether bare or shod, abroad or abed, curled up tight or splayed out wide, they call to him in the Tongue of Smells, which only his nose can hear—his broad, flat, porcine nose, ever glazed with the Rime of Need. He sniffs them out like truffles but chooses only the best. All it takes is a touch—a single, gentle, prayerful touch—and they fall from their burgled feet . . . plip-plip-plip . . . into his purple pouch, like ripe-to-bursting berries or drops of morning dew.
In their stead he leaves illusions, perfect imitations of the dainties he has filched, flawless derivations of the dactyls he has reaped. No one can tell the difference, not even the girls themselves, nagged though they are by a vague sense of loss that only increases with age.
Back in his grot from another night’s work, in the down down down that grows downer by the day, he places the toes upon the tiny stage of a tiny theater and bids them dance The Dance . . . for only thereby can he see and hear the hallowed sights and hallowed sounds of Never Was and Might Have Been. But the whirling marvel is woefully brief; it fades as it begins. One by one the digits falter, one by one they fall, one by one they cease to move and lose the Light of Truth. And when the last goes still and dark, with naught but naught to show or tell, he speaks aloud its secret name, then adds it to his own. . . .
Robin Spriggs is the author of Diary of a Gentleman Diabolist, Wondrous Strange: Tales of the Uncanny, The Dracula Poems, Capes & Cowls: Adventures in Wyrd City, and over 200 short stories and poems that have appeared in a wide variety of publications. His work has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, Pushcart Prize, and multiple Rhysling Awards. His next book, The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom, is slated for release in 2013.
As an actor, Spriggs recently appeared as Chris Amante in USA Network’s Necessary Roughness. His performance as affable sociopath Alfonse Duncan in the rural noir Sinkhole was lauded by both Variety and Film Threat Magazine and honored with a Best Actor nomination by the Wild Rose Independent Film Festival. He is currently attached to the romantic comedy The Genesis of Lincoln and the horror film The Ballad of Jimmy Hallows.
Official Web site: robinspriggs.com
Story illustration by Nick Gucker.
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Maybe the Stars
by Samantha Henderson
Little Useless had succeeded, mostly, in forgetting where she came from before she worked for Dimar’s crew on Midnight’s Lady. Sometimes she had a flash of memory where she was somewhere quite different, where the light wasn’t a blinding glare off choppy water, where the ground was still under her feet and there wasn’t the constant hum of engines and smell of salt water and diesel. Sometimes she dreamed that her belly was full and someone stroked her back gently as she slept.
She drove such thoughts away. Remembering too much could break her heart. And they were probably stolen memories anyway, culled from stories she overheard the crew telling each other, or from conversations half-heard between the passengers that Dimar called moneybags and sometimes hauled from shore to shore in the absence of profitable cargo.
There was Dimar, and his first mate Hermer, who was sickly white and had a thick accent and swore in German when he was drunk, which was also when he liked to catch her and pinch her hard. She didn’t bother learning other names – there was the skinny man with the hat, and the fat man with the hat, and the cook who was kind to her and snuck her food until he died from an infected gunshot. She avoided them all when she could.
There was another kind of passenger that Dimar called useless, like her, and although they were often stowed for a time in the airless, bilge-washed chambers belowdecks they were always, eventually, dropped over the side. Sometimes they were in canvas bags and sometimes they weren’t, and when they weren’t Little Useless could see their faces, pale and waxy beneath the skin of water as they dropped down and down into the green darkness beneath. She wondered if Dimar would do the same to her one day; he threatened to often enough. Especially when he saw her eat, so she never ate in front of the others if she could help it.
There was a strange passenger now, not in the cabins or the tiny cells, but in the hold, in the big reinforced cage deep inside Midnight Lady’s iron and steel bowels that was sometimes used when a man got drunk and nasty. Midnight’s Lady met a small vessel with one lone ghostlight burning at its prow. There was much low-voiced, urgent talking and scuffling on deck. She’d crouched beneath the lip of the captain’s cabin and listened, hearing at least three different languages and a muffled sound that might have been a dropped load, or a shot. The next morning when she dumped a night-bucket over the side she saw no other ship, but a thick oilslick on the water that flexed an infinity of rainbows this way and that.
Last year they smuggled a full-grown tiger from India to Dubai, and the iron walls of the hold still retained some of the rank smell of cat. The new passenger smelled dank, like a room recently scrubbed of mildew, like newspapers that were used to wrap fish. Little Useless, having sluiced out the privies with seawater and beaten the black bugs out of Dimar’s bedding, crept into the hold. The passenger hunched into himself, a grey lump in the far corner of the cage, breathing as if the rusty air hurt him. She crept closer, while the smell of fish ripened, until her nose almost touched the corroded surface of the bars.
A hitch in the prisoner’s breathing, a preternatural stillness, and a low growl that should have warned her away. And then with a snarl like the tiger’s the figure rose and arrowed towards her. Little Useless pushed herself away from the bars. At first she thought the prisoner wore a mask, one that covered the entire head, like Dimar and some of the crew wore when they went raiding.
But it wasn’t a mask. The prisoner’s forehead w
as high, rising into a domed, bald head, and its nose was flat as if pushed into his face. His eyes were huge, bulbous and grey-green, and so far apart as to be almost on the sides of his head. Thin lips drew back from a maw full of serrated teeth, sprouting from pale pink gums. The arms were mottled like the face, with yellow patches, and thick with corded muscle. The hands reached for her, webbed and tipped with razor-claws.
She back-pedaled away from the cage, landing on her bottom and scooting away as far and fast as she could. The creature crashed into the bars, one arm straining between them, the webbed hand spread like a starfish. Little Useless pressed against the metal wall, the backs of her thighs stinging where the corroded floor had scraped her through her tattered trousers. The creature stayed suspended for a long moment before it sunk, head-bowed, to the floor. The mottled green arm lay limp outside the bars, the fingers curled into the palm. For a second she thought it was dead, and then the shoulders heaved and the raspy breathing began again.
Little Useless swore to herself she wouldn’t go back, until the cook (the successor to the kind one who died; this one’s cooking was as flat and bitter as his vinegar-face) gave her a steel pan of fish entrails and told her to take it to the prisoner. She knew better than to refuse, and balanced the sickening mess in one hand as she negotiated the ladder, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom until she could see the lump at the far side of the cage. She shoved the pan through the slot at the bottom of the cage door and scuttled away, waiting to see what it would do. It didn’t move, and she had to listen hard to hear if it breathed at all.
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