I see Evelyn Colton’s baby, too, or something like it. It stands above those ruined cities, wings spread like thunderheads, singing a wild song of triumph and murder. It squats like a colossal ape on the skeleton of the Empire State Building as if it were no more than a fallen log in some world-sized swamp.
I see its children, spreading across the globe, filling the low places with brackish seawater, turning the high places into wastelands. A billion-billion monsters spew from the angry seas, screaming its name beneath the bloody moon.
Cthulhu.
Flocks of Colton-babies fly down from the cold stars, soaring around their god like masses of buzzing flies.
That’s what it is, I come to understand…it’s their god.
It’s the god of this new world.
It’s been a year now since I buried Evelyn. Her grave sits in one of the mine’s westernmost tunnels, marked with a cross I took from the husk of an old church.
I listen to the endless static on the ham radio every day. Found a little generator in the ruined town, and I’ve been siphoning gasoline from an abandoned filling station to power it. The static fills my ears, and sometimes it even drowns out the echoes of Evelyn’s wailing as that thing tore itself out of her. Sometimes I broadcast, not giving away my location, but hoping someone—anyone—will answer. I feel like those SETI scientists who used to beam radio messages out into space, into the darkness of infinity, on the off chance that someone out there is listening.
But there’s only static.
It rains all the time now, up there. I can’t even go topside anymore because strange things move through the rain clouds, and the puddles breed miniature terrors.
The world is still drowning.
The stink of oceanic brine rolls down into the tunnels of the mine.
I tune the dials of the ham radio, call out a few more S.O.S. messages.
The .45 sits on the blanket before me. I stare at it, gleaming with silver promise.
Evelyn isn’t here to stop me this time. One quick, clean shot, and I won’t smell the ocean stench any more, won’t have the dreams anymore, won’t hear the static. The unbroken, white static.
My bottled water is running out. I can’t drink the rain, but I know sooner or later I’ll have to. I don’t want to think what it will do to me. But thirst is a demon no man can outrun for long. I sit staring at the gun, listening to the radio static, making my decision.
I pick up the .45 and slide the barrel into my mouth. It tastes cold and bitter. Static fills my ears. I fix my thumb so that it’s resting on the trigger. I say a silent prayer, and think of my daddy’s face.
Something breaks the static.
A momentary glitch in the wall of white noise. I blink, my lips wrapped around the gun. I pull it from my mouth and fiddle with the nobs. There it is again! A one-second break in the static…a voice!
I turn the volume up, wait a few moments, then pick up the mic, dropping the pistol.
“Hello!” I say, my voice hoarse like sand on stone. “Hello! Is anybody there?”
White noise static…then a pause, followed by a single word, ringing clear as day from the dusty speaker, thick as mud.
Cthulhu.
I drop the mic. Something twists in my gut, and I step back from the radio like it’s another monstrosity burst from Evelyn Colton’s belly.
Again it speaks to me, a voice oozing out of the cold ocean depths.
Cthulhu.
The word sinks into me like a knife, a smooth incision…a length of cold metal between the eyes would be no less effective. The pain is a spike of understanding. I bend over, my hand hovering between the silver-plated pistol and the radio mic. I grab the mic, not the gun, and raise it to my lips.
I stare into the darkness at the back of the cavern and sigh out my reply.
“Cthulhu…”
I drop it to the floor and kick over the little table where the radio sits. It crashes against the stone, spilling the lantern. Flaming oil ignites the blankets, and the cavern fills with noxious smoke. I turn my back on it and walk toward the smell of briny rain, my throat dry as bone.
As I come up out of the silver mine for the last time, the storm rages, winged things soar between the clouds, and I hear a chorus of howling and screeching punctuated by moaning thunder. Thirst consumes me.
I open my mouth to the black skies and drink the oily rain. It flows down my throat like nectar, quenching my terrible thirst in the most satisfying way. It sits cool and comforting in my belly, and I drink down more of it.
I’ll never again be thirsty, I realize.
This isn’t the end of the world.
It’s the beginning.
My body trembles with hidden promise. I know I’ve got a place in this new world.
Towering things with shadow-bright wings descend to squat about me, staring with clusters of glazed eyes as I crumple…shiver…evolve.
I raise my blossoming face to the storm and screech my joy across the face of the world.
His world.
Cthuuuuulhuuuuu…
Spreading black wings, I take to the sky.
•
The Drowning At Lake Henpin
Paul Tobin
I have never before filed a shooting report and I appreciate your patience in this matter. It has taken me some time to steady myself, to steel my nerves and commit this queer incident to paper. Writing has been difficult, and not only from a standpoint of my mental state. For these past several days my fingers have been… wet. They made the paper slippery. Smeared the ink. I have been sweating. It’s only sweat. Nothing else. I’m sure of it. There’s no reason to be alarmed. To be honest I’m still somewhat shaken, and while it’s customary for police officers to deny any need for psychiatric help, I think it’s best that I do speak with someone in some official capacity. Someone who will understand me. If such a thing is anymore possible.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have so clearly stated my above thoughts here in this file. I do not personally believe that asking for help is a sign of weakness, but there are those that do and it may come back to haunt me. I hope that I will not be denied advancement in the force. To be candid, I hope to be transferred to another district, to act as a constable somewhere away from the village of Leighton, certainly away from Lake Henpin and any members of the Cabershaw family. It’s only that these visions won’t leave my head. I can see Marken in that damnable pool of blood. Or what should have been blood. I cannot be mistaken on this. It most definitely should have been blood. Correct? It should have been blood. Of course.
Despite my earlier statements, such as those when I was being removed from the scene, I now realize it’s not possible that I saw my bullet leaving the barrel of my Webley. A bullet moves too quickly to be seen. That’s rather the point of a bullet. But I saw it. I witnessed it coming from the barrel. There was an explosion of light. Not the bright kind of light. It was the dull variety. Until that singular moment I hadn’t known of this blacker light, that there is a light that steals brightness as it travels along its path. It was a light that did not share. It… it was a greedy light. That’s all I can say about it. And the bullet came from my barrel and it paused and then something spoke. Not the bullet. I don’t mean that. I’ve been misquoted. What I meant to say it that there was something else at the scene. I mean someone else, of course. Not something else. Someone said something that I could not understand, that I dared not understand, and I was only screaming in the hopes of driving out the damnable noise but nothing was working because the words were dripping inside my head and I could see the air moving aside from the bullet as if it were plunging through water. The air was rippling. My bullets were curving in arcs.