What October Brings [anthology]

What October Brings

A Lovecraftian Celebration of Halloween

Edited and with an introduction by Douglas Draa

Introduction

What does October Bring? That’s a very good question. I know Beggars Night, at the very end of October, would bring us treats. This was one of Halloween’s many aspects that make the 31st of October so special. Halloween isn’t just about receiving treats. Halloween is also a chance and a possibility. A chance to thumb our collective noses at death and the great unknown, and a possibility, even if for only one evening a year, the curtain separating this world and the next might be drawn back just far enough for us to catch a glimpse of what is waiting for us on the other side. Or using Mr. Lovecraft’s phraseology; we might get to meet The Lurker at the Threshold!

I mentioned treats earlier. And that’s how I see this collection. I loved all those candies. B-B Bats and bite-sized Baby Ruth bars were great, but those little foil-wrapped Reese Cups were my favorites. And you, the reader are exceedingly fortunate to be holding a literary version of one of those foil-wrapped Reese Cups. On the outside though, instead of foil, you have a beautiful Daniele Serra cover to catch your eye and give you some hint of what awaits you between the covers. Of course you won’t find a diabetic coma-inducing mixture of Chocolate and Peanut Butter between those covers, but I can promise you though, that you will still find two great tastes that taste great together; H. P. Lovecraft and Halloween!

Every story in this anthology has been written a current Mistress or Master of the macabre and Lovecraftian. No voice is alike nor are any voices similar. This means that each story is to be savored as an individually wrapped and uniquely flavored Halloween treat. Each one sharing only a seasoning of Mr. Lovecraft’s essential Saltes.

So now that the nights are getting longer and the season of the witch draws nigh, turn down the lights and prepare yourself to enter a world of dreams, fantasies and horrors.

Enjoy!

Doug Draa

Nuremberg

August 2018

Hallowe’en in a Suburb Howard Phillips Lovecraft

The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutter and laugh and stare.
For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset’s gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.
A chill wind weaves thro’ the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.
Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral pow’r
Spreads sleep o’er the cosmic throne
And looses the vast unknown.
So here again stretch the vale and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung out of the tomb’s black maw
To shake all the world with awe.
And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And brood with the shades unblest.
Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
Of horror and death are penn’d,
For the hounds of Time to rend.

Uncle’s In the Treetops Darrell Schweitzer

Yes, I can tell you about it.

It was in the Leaf Falling Time, when Uncle Alazar was in the treetops. He could come close to the Earth then, out of the midnight sky. You could hear him among the upper branches in the forest, sometimes skittering like a squirrel, sometimes hovering there, his wings buzzing and fluttering like those of some enormous insect. Whose uncle was he, precisely? There were stories about that, often contradictory. I’d been hearing them all my life. He was one of us, one of the Burton family, though whose brother and how many generations back, was not at all clear. He dwelt among Those of the Air. He spoke to the dark gods. He had gone to them, out into the night, and had never come back, not really, only able to return halfway like that, and was utterly transformed, beyond humanity altogether. Sometimes we Burtons heard him whispering to us. He reached into our dreams. My father had heard him, in his time, and my father’s father, and his father; though not my mother, because she was only a Burton by marriage and there was something about the true blood that went back for years and years … but I digress.

Now, mind you, the village of Chorazin may be isolated, and it may be different in its customs, but it’s still in Pennsylvania, not on Mars, so we do have some things in common with the rest of the world. We have Halloween here, and Leaf Falling Time (old Indian name) is pretty much the same as Halloween, so we indeed have kids in costumes shuffling noisily through the leaves from house to house, collecting candy. They travel in groups only, and make all that noise to scare away Zenas, who was one of us once, so the story goes, but he too went into the darkness on such a night and became part of it – whether he was still alive or not was a matter of some debate – and he supposedly had long, sharp fingers like twigs, and you really didn’t want to meet him.

It was on such a night, after the candy and costumes were put away. I’d gone as Darth Vader that year, my brother Joram as a vampire. We sat on our porch in the dark with our parents, my brother and I – he was ten, three years younger than me – and two very distinguished visitors, Elder Abraham, who is our leader, and his assistant Brother Azrael. They questioned Joram and me closely, and spoke to us both in a very old-fashioned way that I knew was part of the ritual.

My father sat wordlessly, while my mother let out a little sob.

This was a serious business. People who went out into the dark sometimes did not come back.

“Joram,” said the elder. “Tell me in truth, hast thou heard thine uncle’s voice clearly and comprehended his words? Wilt thou act as his messenger?”

“Yes, I will,” my brother said.

The Elder turned to me. “And thou?”

“Yeah. Me too.”

He reached out, and took both of us by the hand, and joined our hands together, and he said, “Then you have to go. Go now. “

I knew the rest, and we didn’t have to rehearse it. The signs had manifested themselves. The stars had turned in their courses, as if tumblers had fallen into place in a lock, and gateways in the sky were open, and Uncle Alazar could come racing back out of the dark depths to speak to us on this night.

It was a very special time. To our people, though not to other Pennsylvanians, I am sure, a holy time.

My father spoke only briefly, to me, “Thomas, take care of your brother.”

“I will, Dad.”

So, hand-in-hand, my brother and I went. You could conjure up an almost bucolic scene, despite the spooky undertones, two boys holding hands for comfort, or so they wouldn’t lose one another, two brothers making their way (noisily at first, kicking up leaves, then less noisily) into the wooded hills beyond the town, to fulfil some ancient rite, like a confirmation or a walkabout, some passage into manhood perhaps.