2010. Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

Passing Spirits Sam Gafford

"…Cthulhu never existed. Azathoth never existed. Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, Nug, Yeb, none of them. I made them all up."

I was sitting in H. P. Lovecraft's small study, listening to him rant. It was 1937. In barely under a year he would be dead of stomach cancer. I felt a need to try to tell him this. To let him know that the pain in his abdomen was not just «grippe» but a serious medical problem that he should seek treatment for immediately. When I tried to explain that I knew all about those types of things, he refused to listen and went on ranting.

"But you know what is the worst thing about all of this?" he continued in his nasal voice. "This is what I'll be remembered for. if I'm remembered by anyone. For making up a pantheon of monster-gods. Basically, for stealing from Dunsany."

I tried to explain that that wasn't the truth. That he had added much more to it than just the idea of a cosmic mythology, but he wouldn't listen. It was very strange and not at all the type of conversation I had envisioned having. I wouldn't say that the man was bitter, but he certainly wasn't happy about a lot of things.

Looking at him, I felt that there were so many things that I should be saying but I didn't. My time was too short for that and the memory was already fading.

When I awoke, I was in my apartment and there was a ribbon of spit on the pillow next to me. I checked it for blood, but it was clear. My head throbbed as usual and I felt the familiar dull ache behind my eyes. I crawled out of bed and turned the TV on as I dressed. CNN was going on about some flareup in the Middle East (I had long ago stopped caring about such things, there was always a flareup somewhere or other) and I flipped it over to «Scooby-Doo» on the Cartoon Network. It was one of my favorites from the first year (the best year before they got into all that guest star nonsense and then brought in Scrappy-Doo — who the hell ever thought that was a good idea?) with the space ghost that had the glowing, laughing head. I remember how that scared the piss out of me as a kid. A lot of things scared me back then, before I learned that the only real scary thing in life was stuff like cancer and brain tumors. There weren't any gods or monsters. Not in the real world. Here we had sickness and disease instead of vampires and ghosts.

I brushed my teeth and took my medicine. Looking at the clock, I had about an hour to get to work, so I knew I'd have enough time. I sat down and watched the rest of the show, waiting for that great «Scooby-Doo» ending where they unmask the villain. I always loved that.

At work, I tried to pretend that I cared about what I was doing, but it didn't really matter. I was just another clerk in just another bookstore. Nothing special. Nothing unique. I had "Help Desk" duty, which everyone knew was the worst. Listening to blue-haired old ladies trying to describe what they wanted. "I don't know the name but I saw it on Oprah. It had a black cover."

The other clerks tried not to look at me too closely. My hair had grown back, more or less, but there's still something about a cancer patient that sets you off from everyone else. Maybe it's a smell or some invisible «early-warning» system, but no one looks at you the same way afterward. That didn't bother me too much. Most of them weren't worth knowing anyway. Weird, trendy people of questionable sexuality. I'd never had much in common with them nor they with me.

Lovecraft's ghost followed me through the reference section, pointing out books with errors in them. I hate it when he does that.

"The tumor's getting larger," intoned Dr. Lyons with all the seriousness of a hanging judge. He held up two cat scans. "As you can see from the earlier one, it was only about the size of a grape. Now it's getting close to a plum."

I'd never eaten a plum, so had no idea about its size. I figured that it wasn't a good comparison.

"So none of the treatments have done anything?"

Dr. Lyons sighed. "No. The radiation treatments barely seemed to hold its growth. Since we stopped doing those, it's gotten bigger. The medication doesn't seem to be working either. Surgery, although not recommended, is still an option."

"You told me before that it was too dangerous."

"It is. But I don't really see any other way." He got up from behind his desk. "Michael, you have to understand that without surgery this is going to continue to grow."

Apparently I wasn't impressed enough by this.

"Michael, you will die without this operation."

I thought about this. Dying wasn't necessarily the worst thing.

Chemo was certainly on an equal footing. Poverty was right up there too.

"How long?"

"If the tumor continues to grow at this size, maybe four to six months, on the outside. But, Michael, they won't be comfortable months."

He went on to describe how, as the tumor grows, I would begin to lose brain functions. My speech and sight would be affected. My coordination would deteriorate. In short, it would be a living death.

I thanked him and left. Dr. Lyons was confused and followed me out into the hall. He wanted to know why I didn't want to schedule the operation immediately. I looked at him.

"Because I can't afford it." I turned away. He didn't stop me.

Robert E. Howard made a writing career out of stories of strong rugged men who tamed their worlds and bent others to their will. It was a universe of barbarians with strong sword arms and evil sorcerers who plotted magic schemes of conquest. Not once do I recall an REH character dying of cancer or an illness. Of course, that probably would have been too personal a thing considering how his mother died.

"Don't forget," Lovecraft said, "Two-Gun Bob killed himself."

"Yeah, well, there's plenty of ways to do that. Sometimes doing nothing works just as well." I replied.

There had been an article in the paper not too long ago about a doctor doing work on cancer treatment. It wasn't one of those peach-pit things, but it was an herbal remedy. Supposedly some type of combination of herbs and diets. I'd read a lot of those books, including the one by Norman Cousins. Sometimes they seemed to work, most times they didn't. I'd never had the discipline to see them all through but, considering the alternatives, I didn't have a lot of choices.

At work, I looked up the doctor's book. To my surprise, we actually had a copy. Glancing through it, it looked more like a cookbook than anything else. The medicine was a blend of herbs and vitamins (supposedly available at any health food store), and there was a special diet that focused on macrobiotics and avoided things like meat and oils. It seemed to be typical stuff, but the doctor's photo had a kind and gentle face, so I bought it. I enjoyed making my manager nervous when she rang it up. It was obvious why I was buying it, but no one dared to mention it.

"You know," Lovecraft said to me in a horrified whisper, "someone once said that my Shub-Niggurath was a representation of sexual disease. Can you believe that?"

I heard this at least once a day. It was one of the things that really bothered him, given his upbringing and personality.

"Yeah, I can believe it," I replied. My manager didn't even look at me. She had gotten used to me talking like this.

On the way home, I bought the herbs listed in the book at the only local health food store. I didn't recognize most of the names and the clerk wasn't much help either. Several of the ingredients weren't there, so I had to substitute. The clerk thought that the other herbs and vitamins were just as good and, even though I didn't believe him, didn't have anything else to go on.

I stopped at a local restaurant and had a big steak meal with a plateful of french fries. My farewell to meat. I avoided the seafood platter out of deference to Lovecraft who, as always, kept looking around and exclaiming, "Gad, how these birds do eat!"

At home later, I read through the book some more. The doctor believed that the steady use of his herb/vitamin combination, along with the diet, was able to curb the growth of cancer. In a few instances he described, the cancer had disappeared completely. I laid the pill bottles on the counter. I mixed the herbs together. There was a specific pattern on what to take, how much, and when. I took the first dose and followed it with Dr. Lyons's medication. It had a long clinical name that I couldn't pronounce but it was "the latest in cancer treatment." Couldn't hurt to keep taking it. I'd paid for it, after all, and it hadn't been cheap. The cost of being poor and sick in America.

That night, there wasn't much on TV. The cable channels were all boring so I put an old Night Stalker tape on and read for a while. Out of habit, I picked up The Dunwich Horror and started reading "The Shadow over Innsmouth" again. It had always been one of my favorites, but Lovecraft wouldn't give me any peace.

"Disease, disease, disease. That's all they keep talking about. According to some critics, everything I wrote came from a fear of disease, either sexual or mental. Why couldn't it just be a story? Why did it have to be about something?"

"You think that's bad," I replied, "you should read Hodgson. Now there's a man who had a real problem with disease."

That piqued his interest and he settled down with a volume of Hodgson's short stories. One of the small-press books, of course, I would never have been able to afford a first edition and he wasn't reprinted often.

Lovecraft read quickly and quietly. Reading was one of the few things that kept him calm. Every so often he would chuckle to himself or make a satisfied sound after reading a particularly good section.

In this wise, I eventually fell asleep.

I was walking through the streets of Innsmouth past the Esoteric Order of Dagon church (with its sinister shadow in the basement), along the streets of houses that, though habitable, showed no signs of life. I walked by the supermarket and waved to the stock clerk who, as normal, bore a striking resemblance to Frank Long. (I hoped he'd had an easier life than the real Long.) Zadok Allen was wandering about, of course, and we exchanged laughs and old stories.

"Well, ya know, death's funny. It comes when ya don't call and never answers when ya do!" Zadok laughed without the trademark Yankee accent.

Lovecraft the narrator came lumbering down the street from the supermarket and Zadok staggered off to meet him, practicing his Yankee-speak as he walked. They had an appointment to keep.

I sat on the beach and looked out at Devil's Reef. It was an ugly thing. A piece of rock jutting out of the water. Beyond it, I knew, the ocean floor fell away and the Deep Ones swam not far beyond.

Several fishermen with the "Innsmouth look" stopped by and encouraged me to swim out. "G'wan," they said, "why not?"

Why not, indeed? I took off my clothes (never self-conscious in dreams. I had never had the "waking up in school naked" dream) and entered the water. Though I had done it a few times before, I'd never swum out very far. This time felt different. The water was warmer, heavier than before, and it enveloped me like nothing I had ever felt. I swam out to the rock and climbed on top of it.

From there, I could see Zadok and Lovecraft talking on the beach as Zadok gave his little speech. And then it struck me. Every other time I'd been here, I had only seen and experienced what Lovecraft had written in the story. I'd never been out to Devil's Reef before and, remembering the story, neither had the narrator. Oh sure, he described planning on going to Devil's Reef with his cousin and diving off the deep end, but it wasn't an actual place he visited in the story. Yet I was there. I could feel the rough stone beneath my fingers and, looking over the other end, could swear that I could see other things beneath the surface, beckoning to me.

Slowly, I dipped into the water and followed.

When I woke up this time, there was blood on the pillow. That wasn't good. I touched my nose and my fingers came away bloody. Suddenly, my head was shoved into an invisible vise and I collapsed back into my pillow, barely able to keep from screaming.

In his chair, stroking an invisible cat that wasn't there but was anyway, Lovecraft sat silently.

After a few minutes, the pain subsided and I was able to sit up. The front of my undershirt was covered in blood. This hadn't been the first attack, but it was definitely the worst.

"Dr. Lyons said it would only get worse," Lovecraft added unnecessarily.

I ignored him and went to clean myself up.

Sometime later, I made myself some breakfast. I didn't have any of the macrobiotic stuff the book doctor recommended, so I made do with eggs and bacon. I'd give up the bad stuff later, although I had begun to think that there wasn't any point in giving anything up and that I should just surrender to excesses. Spend the last months of my life carousing from one bar to another, drinking too much, eating bad food, sleeping with anonymous women (assuming I could find any who were willing) and just give myself up to the extremes.

Lovecraft looked disapprovingly at me. "I know," I said, "you'd probably prefer if I just sat there quietly and suffered like you did while I eat a can of cold beans and some crackers."

"You could do worse," he said, but I didn't see how.

"I could do a lot better," I said and started mentally counting up the money in my bank account. Just enough for a real large splurge or six months of diminishing capacity. Yeah. Life's great.

"What about the dream?" Lovecraft asked.

I looked at him. I'd grown used to him asking questions at the most inappropriate time for a spirit who shouldn't even be here ("Why are you haunting me anyway? What'd I do to you?") but this was unexpected.

"What dream?"

He looked at me. I knew perfectly well what he meant and he had this habit of looking at me a certain way when I was avoiding a subject. I expected him to hand me a business card someday with H. P. Lovecraft, conscience printed on it. Jiminy Cricket had nothing on him.

"It was a dream, that's all."

He just glared at me. "Here," he finally said, "read this. It might help you understand." He threw a copy of Hodgson's The Ghost Pirates at me. I still hadn't figured out how he was able to manipulate objects but my head was hurting too much to wonder about it.

I looked at the book. "I read it already."

"Read it again. You obviously didn't get the connection." He went back and starting petting the cat again. It was an all-black kitten whose name, if you dared to mention it in today's PC climate, could get you into a lot of trouble. "All the pigeons come home to roost," I thought.

I took the herb/vitamin potion and chased it with one of Dr. Lyons's Miracle Cure. "Good for what ails ya!" I got dressed and left for work. On the way, I found the Hodgson buried deep into my coat pocket. He put it there. I put it there. Didn't matter. It was still there anyway.

When I got to work, I saw Keziah Mason in the occult section, chuckling to herself as she read one of the New Age witchcraft books. She certainly didn't look like the young, trendy/sexy girls that are witches in today's movies and TV shows. Brown Jenkin was curling around her feet, looking up at her from time to time with a very hungry shine in his eyes. This was something new. Usually it's just Lovecraft, now other characters were coming to visit.

Poe lived virtually his entire life in poverty. He died in a gutter on a street in Baltimore. That tells you something right there. He never lived to see his work gain the celebrity it deserved. Neither did Lovecraft. Neither did Howard. Is there a pattern here?

The last clear thing I remember from that afternoon at work was waiting on Nyarlathotep. I suppose it was only inevitable. With Keziah and Jenkin about, the Dark Man couldn't be far away. I was running the register when he came up. He put a couple of self-help books on the counter (two of those I'm Okay, You're Okay self-affirmation kind of things) and started fumbling for his wallet. This struck me as kind of funny as I couldn't imagine Nyarlathotep having a wallet. I wondered what would be inside it. Would he have a driver's license? From where? Kadath maybe? Snapshots of Keziah and Azathoth? Who did he want contacted in case of an emergency? And what was the wallet made out of? I started laughing which made him look up at me. The man was dark. I don't mean just your normal black man. Nyarlathotep was the antithesis of light. Then he smiled and I could smell his breath. It wasn't the stagnating breath of decay as I'd been expecting. It was sweet and cloying. It made you think of hot summer nights when the heat sticks to your skin and you can peel your sweat away in layers. My eyes closed and I went away.

I was in the Miskatonic Library with Lovecraft as Henry Armitage. We were looking at the dead thing that lay on the floor where the guard dog had killed it. The upper body was strange enough but it was below the torso that "sheer phantasy began." Wilbur Whateley had died in his attempt to steal the Necronomicon. "Why didn't he just buy a copy from a book dealer or something?" I said. Armitage glared at me.

The game was afoot and I was standing in the open fields of Dunwich. Before me was the farmhouse of the Fryes, the poor, doomed Fryes. It was 3 a.m. but I could see everything as if it was high noon. Even from a distance I could hear their terrified conversation on the party line phone. I saw the trees near the house bend apart as the invisible thing came closer. I had expected it to be something like Godzilla rampaging through downtown Tokyo. That's what happens when you're a child of the media and you grow up watching a genre that consumes itself with such gusto.

I heard the splintering of wood and looked up to see the top of the farmhouse cave in in the middle. The screams were horrible. Within seconds, the house was gone and the thing continued walking through the forest. "The Elmer Fryes had been erased from Dunwich."

I made my way up to Sentinel Hill where the final confrontation would take place. I had walked this route before with Lovecraft/Armitage but this time felt different. I could feel the wind on my face. My body had form and substance where before it was only dust and mist. Sometimes I was Rice. Sometimes I was Morgan. And once, just once, there was a brief time when I could have sworn I was Armitage and I was spraying the spawn of Azathoth with the powder.

Above me there was the usual half-face squirming in torment except, this time, it stopped. It looked straight at me, ignoring the other two. "And what do you think you're looking at?" it said before it went back to its part and obligingly disappeared. I almost expected it to say "I'm gonna keep my eye on you" before it left, but it didn't. Afterwards we went back to the circle of terrified townsfolk and Armitage went into his speech. "Watch the skies!" I mouthed behind him. "Watch the skies!" The townspeople looked at me as if perhaps the wrong thing had been sprayed with the powder on the hill.

I regretted not seeing Old Wizard Whateley this trip. He was always a lot of fun to talk to, particularly if you got a few drinks into him.

When I awoke, I was in a hospital bed.

I'd been in them before, of course, so this was no real strange thing to me, but it still wasn't a good sign. There was a strong coppery taste in my mouth. I knew that wasn't a good sign either. My finger was hooked into one of those machines and I could hear the heartbeat monitor behind me, happily beeping away. (I've always wondered why they put those things just out of your sight. As if watching your heartbeat might make it stop.) I felt weak and worn out. My clothes were gone and I was in the hospital gown. Lovecraft was sitting in the chair nearby.

"Can you believe what they've done to my city?" he asked when he saw I was finally awake. "They tore up the bridge. Tore up that historic bridge to make room for more traffic and make the downtown more scenic." He pronounced scenic with an extra flourish of sarcasm.

"Where am I?" My bed was encircled by one of those curtains but, because of the lack of noise, I could tell I wasn't in an emergency ward. It was still somewhat light out, so I knew it was daytime but I didn't know what day.

"You're in Rhode Island Hospital. It's attached to Jane Brown, you know. I went and looked in at the room where I died. There's a nurses' station there now. Everything changes."

I pulled the cord and buzzed for the nurse.

A large woman in a white uniform came a few minutes later. She explained that I had been unconscious for the last few days after I'd come into the emergency room by ambulance. "You've had an attack," she said and Dr. Lyons had me admitted. She'd alert him that I was awake and left the room after giving me some more medication. "Painkillers," she said, but she didn't bother to tell me what kind.

Inspector Legrasse walked by my door and waved at Lovecraft. He was dragging along some half-crazed swamp dweller behind him.

A little while later, Dr. Lyons came in but he looked an awful lot like Jeffrey Coombs from Re-Animator.

"Mike," he said.

"Dr. Lyons," I replied in my best Jack Webb voice. "Where's Bill Gannon? I heard he got arrested for wife beating."

He looked at me as if I was some sort of test bug. "What?"

"Nothing. Just a bad TV reference. What am I doing here?"

Dr. Lyons pulled up a chair. "You had an attack."

"What kind of an attack?"

He sat there for a moment, searching for the right words. "You were at work. Do you remember that?"

I nodded yes.

"You were waiting on a customer. He was a black gentleman. In the middle of the transaction you began screaming and yelling for him to leave you alone. In fact, I'm told that you actually said that the man should 'take his old witch away and stop haunting you.' Sound familiar?"

"No. Not at all. I really did that?"

"I'm afraid so. A few of your co-workers tried to get you to calm down, but you went into a spasm and blacked out. You've been here for two days."

I tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but all I could see were those weird dimensional things from From Beyond circling his head.

"What happened?"

"The tumor is growing. It's pressing on the part of your brain that covers motor functions and memory. I don't know what's happening to it. It almost seems as if something is making it grow faster." He paused for a moment. "Michael, you're experiencing hallucinations."

"Oh?"

"It's not unusual, given the tumor's location. But I admit that I didn't think this would happen so quickly."

Dr. Lyons/Herbert West stood up so he would appear more impressive.

"Michael, you need to have the operation."

"We've gone over that before."

"I know. You don't have the money or insurance. But we'll find a way, Michael. You've got to do this."

I looked at him. It was easier to just go along.

"Okay. Sure."

"Good. I've got you set up for the operation in two days. We'll keep you here and keep an eye on you until then. Okay?"

I nodded.

"All right. Just rest easy. I'll be back later."

After he left, I lay there for about ten minutes. Then I got up, got dressed, and left. Lovecraft followed me out. No one stopped me. It seemed that no one took any notice of me, and I wondered if they saw me at all or if it was just the way things are in Rhode Island.

I took the bus home.

There was only one message on my machine. It was from my boss. "Michael. um, I'm sorry to have to say this but we're going to have to let you go. I hope you understand. We just can't have any more scenes like today. I know you have problems but, legally, we can't afford the risk. Sorry. We'll mail you your last paycheck. Um. so you don't really need to come back. Okay? Hope everything works out for you. Bye."

I took an extra dose of the herb/vitamin potion and laid down in bed.

"So now what are you going to do?" asked Lovecraft.

I didn't say anything.

Lovecraft was standing near the window. There wasn't much of a view to see. He had on one of his father's old suits. It fitted him pretty well but was still a little loose in the shoulders. I wasn't sure if it was one of the suits that got stolen while he was in New York.

"You know," I finally said, "I've read both of the biographies. Joshi's and de Camp's."

He grimaced.

"At least Joshi took the time to try and understand the era," he responded. "De Camp lived through some of it and he still couldn't understand how it affected me."

"They never said much about your death. About how you felt as you lay there in that bed at Jane Brown."

He turned to look at me. For some reason, his lantern jaw looked more solid. I could almost swear that his chin was reflecting the light.

"Go to sleep, Michael." It was the first time I had heard him refer to me by name.

I went to sleep.

Professor Wilmarth/Lovecraft was talking about the black stone. Akeley had sent it through the mail and it had disappeared. I took out the stone from Machen's "Novel of the Black Seal" and showed it to him. He was interested but disappointed. "Yes, but it's not quite what we're looking for." He played the record for me and I listened to that strange otherworldly voice.

"To Nyarlathotep, Mighty Messenger, must all things be told. And He shall put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides, and come down from the world of Seven Suns to mock.»

It was not surprising that it was my voice speaking on the record.

Wilmarth/Lovecraft took no notice.

Suddenly, we jumped forward and I was in Akeley's cabin. Wilmarth/Lovecraft was talking to Akeley, who was sitting in the opposite chair and covered in his huge robe. Akeley was describing Yuggoth with its great cities of black stone. After awhile, Wilmarth/Lovecraft went to bed and I took his place.

"So," Akeley said in that queer, disjointed voice, "what are you looking for?"

"Not much," I answered. "It's just that I've always wondered — a lot of us have wondered — who are you really? Under that mask.

Who are you? Are you one of the Fungi? Are you Nyarlathotep?"

"Why don't you see for yourself?"

I reached over and took off the mask. It was Lovecraft. "Of course," he said, "who else would it be?"

I never developed a taste for Clark Ashton Smith. I knew he was a good writer, but just something about his work never clicked with me. Lovecraft, Howard, and Smith were touted as Weird Tales' "three musketeers." And yet it was often said that Seabury Quinn was more popular with the readers than any of them. Lovecraft never got a cover. Guess Margaret Brundage just couldn't bring herself to paint Cthulhu and, after all, there were no half-naked damsels in distress in Lovecraft. Maybe he would have been more successful if there had been.

The next few days passed strangely.

I don't need to say that I didn't show up for the operation. Dr. Lyons called once, demanding to know where I was and why I didn't come in. He didn't call again. In fact, nobody called after a while. I got to the point where I had to pick up the phone and check it regularly to make sure it was still working.

I stopped doing that when a thick, guttural voice came on the empty line and said, "YOU FOOL, WARREN IS DEAD!"

The dreams went back and forth then. Sometimes I'd have them when I was sleeping. Sometimes I'd have them when I was awake. I'd be walking down Thayer Street and suddenly I'd be walking down a street in Arkham, heading for the Witch House.

Were they real? Was anything real at this point? I remember all those stories where everyone knows that the dreams are real except for the dreamer. In Pet Sematary, the main character (whose name escapes me but he was played by Dale Midkiff in the movie, which wasn't a bad adaptation — King had suffered far worse) goes for a midnight walk with the spirit of the dead student. The student leads him down the path to the Pet Sematary and then tells him not to go beyond the wall. He might as well have put a big neon sign saying, "This way to the Wendigo's Zombie grounds." When he wakes up, he's stunned to find his feet covered with mud and sticks. When I read that, I wasn't overcome with fear. Of course the dream was real. Aren't they always? My first thought was, "Damn, that's gonna be hard to clean up."

The dreams. Eventually the dreams are the only things that are real. In the dreams there's no cancer, only monsters, gods, demons, ghouls, and things you can grab and hold with your hands. Something you can fight and batter into submission. Ever try to grab a cancer?

I stopped eating after a while. Didn't know why I was bothering anyway. Everything tasted the same and had that metallic, coppery taste to it. Lovecraft approved of that. We talked a long time about things and only occasionally would something creep through the woods or the walls. I kept taking the herb/vitamin potion along with Dr. Lyons's medication until it ran out. The Hounds of Tindalos ran through every once in a while but stopped coming when I ran out of food to give them. The cats of Ulthar never bothered to come at all, preferring to stay on the moon until everything was over.

"Am I dying?" I asked Lovecraft.

"Maybe. Who knows? What is death? Don't ask me."

"But you're dead."

"Am I?"

…

I finally found the section in The Ghost Pirates that Lovecraft was talking about.

The good ship had been plagued by the appearance of ghost pirates who are making away with the sailors. There were ghost ships following them through the mist. The narrator tries to explain what's happening:

"Well, if we were in what I might call a healthy atmosphere, they would be quite beyond our power to see or feel, or anything. And the same with them; but the more we're like this, the more real and actual they could grow to us. See? That is, the more we should become able to appreciate their form of materialness. That's all. I can't make it any clearer."

I was spending more time away. I couldn't remember what day it was or what month. The cable was shut off eventually, which was okay because the electricity followed shortly after. I lay in bed, fumbling through my mind. Things and places wandered through me until, eventually, I found myself spending less and less time in that small room in Rhode Island. When I was there, my head was one large hurt. I had begun to think of my brain as a big black stain. If I could lift my head and look in the mirror, I felt sure that my eyes would be completely black.

Lovecraft accompanied me most of the time, but sometimes I was alone walking through the worlds. I was solid, with form and substance. Here, I was thin and ghostly. The people there welcomed me. They grabbed my hand, slapped me on the back, and brought me along. Here, only Lovecraft stayed at my side and, eventually, I woke up and even he wasn't there anymore. He had moved beyond and to see him, I'd have to let myself drift away.

I didn't float off like you hear in those near-death shows. I fell away from myself, sinking through the earth. I was going beyond and following old Joe Slater to that strange place that was a star far away that shone upon Olathoë aeons ago.

The ground below me became a solid deck of a ship. I felt it move through the water as we raced forward into the strange and forbidding water where an island had suddenly appeared.

Asenath looked at me through Edward Derby's eyes. I sent six bullets into his brain.

I reached for the smooth surface of polished glass.

I thrilled to the sound of Erich Zann's music as the dead, mute man called to something outside the window.

I tore through Capt. Norrys' body while the sounds of the rats ran off in the distance.

I unfurled the photo at the corner of Pickman's painting.

I cringed in Nahum Gardner's farmhouse as the colour sprang free.

I… had become… fiction.