The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack (40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Tales) (21 page)

I feel quite relieved. God knows how many nights I’ve lain here thinking every sound I heard was Bwada. I’ll feel more relieved, of course, when that demon’s safely underground; but I think I can say, at the risk of being melodramatic, that the reign of terror is over.

Hmm, I’m still a little hungry—used to more than soup for dinner. These daily push-ups burn up energy. I’ll probably dream of hamburgers and chocolate layer cakes.

July 31

…The doctor collected scrapings from Bwada’s teeth and scolded us for doing a poor job of preserving the body. Said storing it in the freezer was a sensible idea but that we should have done so sooner, since it was already decomposing. The dampness, I imagine, must act fast on dead flesh.

He pronounced Deborah in excellent condition—the marks on her throat are, remarkably, almost healed—but he said her reflexes seemed a little off. Sarr invited him to stay for the burial, but he declined—and quite emphatically, at that. He’s not a member of their order, doesn’t live in the area, and apparently doesn’t get along that well with the people of Gilead, most of whom mistrust modern science. (Not that the old geezer sounded very representative of modern science. When I asked him for some good exercises, he recommended “chopping wood and running down deer.”)

Standing under the heavy clouds, Sarr looked like a revivalist minister. His sermon was from Jeremiah XXII:19—“He shall be buried with the burial of an ass.” The burial took place far from the graves of Bwada’s two victims, and closer to the woods. We sang one song, Deborah just mouthing the words (still mustn’t strain throat muscles). Sarr solemnly asked the Lord to look mercifully upon all His creatures, and I muttered an “amen.” Then we walked back to the house, Deborah leaning on Sarr’s arm; she’s still a little stiff.

It was gray the rest of the day, and I sat in my room reading
The King in Yellow
—or rather, Chambers’ collection of the same name. One look at the
real
book, so Chambers would claim, and I might not live to see the morrow, at least through the eyes of a sane man. (That single gimmick—masterful, I admit—seems to be his sole inspiration.)

I was disappointed that dinner was again made by Sarr; Deborah was upstairs resting, he said. He sounded concerned, felt there were things wrong with her the doctor had overlooked. We ate our meal in silence, and I came back here immediately after washing the dishes. Feel very drowsy and, for some reason, also rather depressed. It may be the gloomy weather—we are, after all, just animals, more affected by the sun and the seasons than we care to admit. More likely it was the absence of Deborah tonight. Hope she feels better.

Note: The freezer still smells of the cat’s body; opened it tonight and got a strong whiff of decay.

August 1

Writing this, breaking habit, in early morning. Went to bed last night just after finishing the entry above, but was awakened around two by sounds coming from the woods. Wailing, deeper than before, followed by a low, guttural monologue. No words, at least that I could distinguish. If toads could talk… For some reason I fell asleep before the sounds ended, so I don’t know what followed. Could very well have been an owl of some kind, and later a large bullfrog. But I quote, without comment, from
The Glass Harmonica
: “July 31: Lammas Eve. Sabbats likely.”

Little energy to write tonight, and even less to write about. (Come to think of it, I slept most of the day: woke up at eleven, later took an afternoon nap. Alas, senile at thirty!) Too tired to shave, and haven’t had the energy to clean this place, either; thinking about work is easier than doing it. The ivy’s beginning to cover the windows again, and the mildew’s been climbing steadily up the walls. It’s like a dark green band that keeps widening. Soon it will reach my books…

Speaking of which: opened M. R. James at lunch today—
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
—and a silverfish slithered out. Omen?

Played a little game with myself this evening—

I just had one hell of a shock. While writing the above, I heard a soft tapping, like nervous fingers drumming on a table, and discovered an enormous spider, biggest of the summer, crawling only inches from my ankle. It must have been living behind this desk…

When you can hear a spider walk across the floor, you
know
it’s time to keep your socks on. Thank God for insecticide.

Oh, yeah, that game—the What If game. I probably play it too often. (Vain attempt to enlarge realm of the possible? Heighten my own sensitivity? Or merely work myself into an icy sweat?) I pose unpleasant questions for myself and consider the consequences, e.g., what if this glorified chicken coop is sinking into quicksand? (Wouldn’t be at all surprised.) What if the Poroths are tired of me? What if I woke up inside my own coffin?

What if I never see New York again?

What if some horror stories aren’t really fiction? If Machen sometimes told the truth? If there
are
White People, malevolent little faces peering out of the moonlight? Whispers in the grass? Poisonous things in the woods? Perfect hate and evil in the world?

Enough of this foolishness. Time for bed.

August 9

…Read some Hawthorne in the morning and, over lunch, reread this week’s
Hunterdon County Democrat
for the dozenth time. Sarr and Deborah were working somewhere in the fields, and I felt I ought to get some physical activity myself; but the thought of starting my exercises again after more than a week’s laziness just seemed too unpleasant… I took a walk down the road, but only as far as a smashed-up cement culvert half buried in the woods. I was bored, but Gilead just seemed too far away.

Was going to cut the ivy surrounding my windows when I got back, but decided the place looks more artistic covered in vines. Rationalization?

Chatted with Poroths about politics, the World Situation, a little cosmology, blah blah blah. Dinner wasn’t very good, probably because I’d been looking forward to it all day. The lamb was underdone and the beans were cold. Still, I’m always the gentleman, and was almost pleased when Deborah agreed to my offer to do the dishes. I’ve been doing them a lot lately.

I didn’t have much interest in reading tonight and would have been up for some television, but Sarr’s recently gotten into one of his religious kicks and began mumbling prayers to himself immediately after dinner. (Deborah, more human, wanted to watch the TV news. She seems to have an insatiable curiosity about world events, yet she claims the isolation here appeals to her.) Absorbed in his chanting, Sarr made me uncomfortable—I didn’t like his face—and so after doing the dishes, I left.

I’ve been listening to the radio for the last hour or so… I recall days when I’d have gotten uptight at having wasted an hour—but out here I’ve lost all track of time. Feel adrift—a little disconcerting, but healthy, I’m sure.

* * * *

…Shut off the radio a moment ago, and now realize my room is filled with crickets. Up close their sound is hardly pleasant—cross between a radiator and a tea-kettle, very shrill. They’d been sounding off all night, but I’d thought it was interference on the radio.

Now I notice them; they’re all over the room. A couple of dozen, I should think. Hate to kill them, really—they’re one of the few insects I can stand, along with ladybugs and fireflies. But they make such a racket! Wonder how they got in.

August 14

Played with Felix all morning—mainly watching him chase insects, climb trees, doze in the sun. Spectator sport. After lunch went back to my room to look up something in Lovecraft and discovered my books were out of order. (Saki, for example, was filed under “S,” whereas—whether out of fastidiousness or pedantry—I’ve always preferred to file him as “Munro.”) This is definitely one of the Poroths’ doing. I’m pissed they didn’t mention coming in here, but also a little surprised they’d have any interest in this stuff.

Arranged them correctly again, then sat down to reread Lovecraft’s essay on “Supernatural Horror in Literature.” It upset me to see how little I’ve actually read, how far I still have to go. So many obscure authors, so many books I’ve never come across… Left me feeling depressed and tired, so I took a nap for the rest of the afternoon.

Over dinner—vegetable omelet, rather tasteless—Deborah continued to question us on current events. It’s getting to be like junior high school, with daily newspaper quizzes… Don’t know how she got started on this, or why the sudden interest, but it obviously annoys the hell out of Sarr.

Sarr used to be a sucker for her little-girl pleadings—I remember how he used to carry her upstairs, becoming pathetically tender, the moment she’d say, “Oh, honey, I’m so tired”—but now he just becomes angry. Often he goes off morose and alone to pray, and the only time he laughs is when he watches television.

Tonight, thank God, he was in a mood to forgo the prayers, and so after dinner we all watched a lot of offensively ignorant programs. I was disturbed to find myself laughing along with the canned laughter, but I have to admit the TV helps us get along better together. Came back here after the news.

Not very tired, having slept so much of the afternoon, so began to read John Christopher’s
The Possessors
; but good though it was, my mind began to wander to all the books I
haven’t
yet read, and I got so depressed I turned on the radio. Find it takes my mind off things.

August 19

Slept long into the morning, then walked down to the brook, scratching groggily. Deborah was kneeling by the water, lost, it seemed, in daydream, and I was embarrassed because I’d come upon her talking to herself. We exchanged a few insincere words and she went back toward the house.

Sat by some rocks, throwing blades of grass into the water. The sun on my head felt almost painful, as if my brain were growing too large for my skull. I turned and looked at the farmhouse. In the distance it looked like a picture at the other end of a large room, the grass for a carpet, the ceiling the sky. Deborah was stroking a cat, then seemed to grow angry when it struggled from her arms; I could hear the screen door slam as she went into the kitchen, but the sound reached me so long after the visual image that the whole scene struck me as, somehow, fake. I gazed up at the maples behind me, and they seemed trees out of a cheap postcard, the kind in which paint is thinly dabbed over a black-and-white photograph; if you look closely, you can see that the green in the trees is not merely in the leaves, but rather floats as a vapor over leaves, branches, parts of the sky… The trees behind me seemed the productions of a poor painter, the color and shape not quite meshing. Parts of the sky were green, and pieces of the green seemed to float away from my vision. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t follow them.

Far down the stream I could see something small and kicking, a black beetle, legs in the air, borne swiftly along in the current. Then it was gone.

Thumbed through the Bible while I ate my lunch—mostly cookies. By late afternoon I was playing word games while I lay on the grass near my room. The shrill twitter of the birds, I would say, the birds singing in the sun… And inexorably I’d continue with the sun dying in the moonlight, the moonlight falling on the floor, the floor sagging to the cellar, the cellar filling with water, the water seeping into the ground, the ground twisting into smoke, the smoke staining the sky, the sky burning in the sun, the sun dying in the moonlight, the moonlight falling on the floor…—melancholy progressions that held my mind like a whirlpool.

Sarr woke me for dinner; I had dozed off, and my clothes were damp from the grass. As we walked up to the house together he whispered that, earlier in the day, he’d come upon his wife bending over me, peering into my sleeping face. “Her eyes were wide,” he said. “Like Bwada’s.” I said I didn’t understand why he was telling me this.

“Because,” he recited in a whisper, gripping my arm, “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

I recognized that. Jeremiah XVII:9.

Dinner was especially uncomfortable; the two of them sat picking at their food, occasionally raising their eyes to each other like children in a staring contest. I longed for the conversations of our early days, inconsequential though they must have been, and wondered where things had gone wrong.

The meal was dry and unappetizing, but the dessert looked delicious—chocolate mousse, made from an old family recipe. Deborah had served it earlier in the summer and knew both Sarr and I loved it. This time, however, she gave none to herself, explaining that she had to watch her weight.

“Then we’ll not eat any!” Sarr shouted, and with that he snatched my dish from in front of me, grabbed his own, and hurled them both against the wall, where they splattered like mud balls.

Deborah was very still; she said nothing, just sat there watching us. Thank heaven, she didn’t look particularly afraid of this madman—but
I
was. He may have read my thoughts, because as I got up from my seat, he said much more gently, in the soft voice that once had been normal to him, “Sorry, Jeremy. I know you hate scenes. We’ll pray for each other, all right?”

“Are you okay?” I asked Deborah, with more bravado than I felt. “I’m going out now, but I’ll stay if you think you’ll need me for anything.” She stared at me with a slight smile and shook her head. I raised my eyebrows and nodded toward her husband, and she shrugged.

“Things will work out,” she said. I could hear Sarr laughing as I shut the door.

When I snapped on the light out here, I took off my shirt and stood in front of the little mirror. It had been nearly a week since I’d showered, and I’d become used to the smell of my body. My hair had wound itself into greasy brown curls, my beard was at least two weeks old, and my eyes…well, the eyes that stared back at me looked like those of an old man. The whites were turning yellow, like old teeth. I looked at my chest and arms, flabby at thirty, and I thought of the frightening alterations in my friend Sarr. I knew I’d have to get out of here.

Just glanced at my watch. It’s now quite late: two thirty. I’ve been packing my things.