* * *
Dick sat by my bedside for three days. He handed me a bottle of whiskey when I opened my eyes. I expressed surprise to find him among the living, convinced as I’d been that he and Bly got bopped and dumped in a shallow grave. Turned out Bly had snuck off with some patrician’s wife and had a hump in the bushes while Dick accidentally nodded off under a tree. Everything was burning and Armageddon was in full swing when they came to, so they rendezvoused and did the smart thing—sneaked away with tails between legs.
Good news was, Mr. Arden wanted us back in Olympia soonest; he’d gotten into a dispute with a gangster in Portland. Seemed that all was forgiven in regard to my rubbing out the Long and the Short. The boss needed every gun in his army.
Neither Dick nor the docs ever mentioned the severed hand in my pocket. It was missing when I retrieved my clothes and I decided to let the matter drop. I returned to Olympia and had a warm chat with Mr. Arden and everything was peaches and cream. The boss didn’t even ask about Vernon. Ha!
He sent me and a few of the boys to Portland with a message for his competition. I bought a brand spanking new Chicago-typewriter for the occasion. I also stopped by the Broadsword where the manager, after a little physical persuasion, told me that Helios Augustus had skipped town days prior on the Starlight Express, headed to California, if not points beyond. Yeah, well, revenge and cold dishes, and so forth. Meanwhile, I’d probably avoid motion pictures and stick to light reading.
During the ride to Portland, I sat in back and watched the farms and fields roll past and thought of returning to Ransom Hollow with troops and paying tribute to the crones and the Blackwood Boys; fantasized of torching the entire valley and its miserable settlements. Of course, Mr. Arden would never sanction such a drastic engagement. That’s when I got to thinking that maybe, just maybe I wasn’t my father’s son, maybe I wanted more than a long leash and a pat on the head. Maybe the leash would feel better in my fist. I chuckled and stroked the Thompson lying across my knees.
“Johnny?” Dick said when he glimpsed my smile in the rearview.
I winked at him and pulled my Homburg down low over my eyes and had a sweet dream as we approached Portland in a black cloud like angels of death.
•
Acknowledgments
My sincere thanks to those who offered assistance, contacts, story suggestions, and advice (both heeded and unheeded) as I assembled this anthology, particularly John Joseph Adams, Matthew Carpenter, Scott Connors, Daniel Corrick, Richard Curtis, Ellen Datlow, Mike Davis, Vanyel Harkema, Ron Hilger, Dot Lumley, Kay McCauley, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Merilee Heifetz, Sarah Nagel, Cameron Pierce, Pete Rawlik, Martin Roberts, Jaynie Rodriguez, Jonathan Strahan, Allison Stumpf, Pam Valvera, Gordon van Gelder, Jim Wagner, Jerad Walters, and everybody involved in the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, OR. Apologies to anyone I might have forgotten.
Thanks to the entire Night Shade team: Jason Williams, for buying the book; Jeremy Lassen, for agreeing that it was a good idea; Amy Popovich, for mad layout skills and wrangling talents; Dave Palumbo, for art direction and the myriad cover options; Tomra Palmer, for marketing expertise, and Liz Upson, for promoting the hell out of it. Thanks as well to Shannon Page for her eagle-eyed copyediting, Mobius9 for the breathtaking cover art, and Claudia Noble for her outstanding design.
Thanks to you, the reader, and aficionados of weird ficiton everywhere. Thanks to all who helped #FeedCthulhu. Let’s do it again this year.
Special thanks to my wife, Jennifer, for keeping me sane in a maddening, carnivorous universe, and for continuing to put up with my proclivity for keeping my nose in books.
Copyright Acknowledgments
“Hand of Glory” © 2012 Laird Barron. Original to this anthology.
“Boojum” © 2008 Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. Originally published in Fast Ships, Black Sails. Reprinted by permission of the authors.
“The God of Dark Laughter” © 2001 Michael Chabon. Originally published in The New Yorker, April 9, 2001. Reprinted by arrangement with Mary Evans Inc.
“This is How the World Ends” © 2010 John R. Fultz. Originally published in Cthulhu’s Reign. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” © 1998 Neil Gaiman. Originally published in The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Once More, from the Top” © 2001 A. Scott Glancy. Originally published in Delta Green: Dark Theatres. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Rapture of the Deep” © 2009 Cody Goodfellow. Originally published in Dark Discoveries #15, Fall 2009. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Black Hill” © 2010 Orrin Grey. Originally published in Historical Lovecraft: Tales of Horror Through Time. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea” © 2003 Caitlín R. Kiernan. Originally published in The Children of Cthulhu: Chilling New Tales Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Terror from the Depths” © 1976 Fritz Leiber. Originally published in The Disciples of Cthulhu. Reprinted by permission of the author’s literary estate.
“Take Your Daughters to Work” © 2007 Livia Llewellyn. Originally published in Subterranean, Issue #6. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Big Fish” © 1993 Kim Newman. Originally published in Interzone #76, October 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Hands that Reek and Smoke” © 2008 W. H. Pugmire. Originally published in Sesqua Valley & Other Haunts. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee” © 2012 Christopher Reynaga. Original to this anthology.
“A Gentleman from Mexico” © 2007 Mark Samuels. Originally appeared in Summer Chills: Tales of Vacation Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Black Brat of Dunwich” © 1997 Stanley C. Sargent. Originally appeared in Cthulhu Codex #10: Eastertide 1997. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Objects from the Gilman-Waite Collection” © 2003 Ann K. Schwader. Originally published in Strange Stars & Alien Shadows: The Dark Fiction of Ann K. Schwader. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Of Melei, of Ulthar” © 2009 Gord Sellar. Originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine, October 2009. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Ocean and All Its Devices” © 1994 William Browning Spencer. Originally appeared in Borderlands 4. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Hour of the Tortoise” © 2012 Molly Tanzer. Original to this anthology.
“The Drowning at Lake Henpin” © 2012 Paul Tobin. Original to this anthology.