Future Lovecraft

A DAY AND A NIGHT IN PROVIDENCE By Anthony Boulanger

THE GROUP WAS one of the most heterogenous that Philips had ever led into the Providence basilica: some Asians, ears already glued to their guide; some Europeans, apparently wondering what they were doing there; and some American compatriots. Among all these people, how many came only because the building is listed on the tourist routes?

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Philips began, “welcome to the Most Holy Church of Our-Lady-of-Lothlorien. The initial structure was first constructed in 254 Before Tolkien by a pagan community. The conversion to the Saint’s cult dates to the fifth century.”

The young guide did not turn toward his group. He refused to contemplate the children who preferred to play on their portable consoles, rather than look at the glass windows representing the creations of the Master-God, or the parents trying to masticate popcorn in this sacrosanct place.

“The planned visit passes by the catacombs, in which you will be able to see a letter from Tolkien to his son, Saint Christopher the Messiah. But first, I draw your attention to the papal altar. Sculpted from a single block of white marble, it is decorated with gold veins of flowers and of niphredil of Seredon. But the magnificence of this altar is assuredly nothing in comparison to the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, where there are services every day from 18:00 hours to 22:00 hours, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

In hing his sentence, the young man knelt on one knee on the ground and put his hand to his head. But what am I doing?

Delaying for one last moment, he put his hand on his heart, then on his mouth. Behind him, only three other people took the trouble to make the sign of the Saint-Eru Illúvatar. Philips remained in this position for several minutes, masking behind his pious attitude the fear inside him. He had been inattentive several moments; he had almost made the evil Sign: the head for Madness and Horror, the lungs for Tuberculosis, and again to the head for Suicide.

If the Inquisitor is in the basilica, or is viewing the screens right now, I risk a maximum…It will be necessary that I do the change in prayers tonight…Perhaps volunteer myself for the lecture on Saint Silmarillion. Pardon me, you of whom I carry one of the Holy Names.

Philips stood up. Behind his back, sighs more insistent than usual made it clear to the guide that he was falling behind schedule. People like those he was leading today did not like to be late. This happened to be a peak hour for fast foods….

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now going to make a tour around the side bordering the nave. You can see here the portraits of the different saints, from Saint Gemmel to Saint Bradley. You can also….”

He was stuck in automatic mode. Another hour and a few specks of minutes before the end of the tour, then another four hours of prayer before leaving this place. Philips was eager—oh, how eager—to return home. Once there, he shut himself in what he called his “chapel” and began preparing himself. This night was indeed one of the biggest nights of the year for the Shadow Cult, in which the Inquisitors of Tolkien ruthlessly pursued him….

“Before the Necronomicon, today we call you. In the Name of the Madness and the Horror of our Father Lovecraft, who leads us and destroys us. In the name of the Decline and Misfortune of his Son Smith, who heard and read the Holy Words of The Father. In the Name of the Duplicity of the Corrupt Spirit Howard. We call you, you Great Old Ones: Cthulhu, Chtuga, Yig, Glaaki, Chaugnar Faugn, and Y’Golonac.”

Philips was in trance. In a few moments, his group would take over the litany, the prayer to the Outer Gods. On this night of the 15th of March in the year 655, seven centuries after the death of the Father, the faithful ones of the Shadow Cult reunited in the city of Providence.

The city in which he was born and in which he had died….

The city in which he had revealed to the world the existence of the Great Old Ones, and of the other Gods.

The chants reached a peak and would soon fall, to give the floor to Philips and his brothers and sisters. The chants did not act like constructed melodies, melodies that one could follow on a song sheet. They acted like a chaos of sounds, grave flights that chained themselves to magnificent, acute angles. In the spirit of the young man, colours devoured themselves, images of tentacles emerging from a cocoon of human flesh, succeeded to those of gigantic orbs, swirling about themselves. For a few heartbeats, Philips was Lovecraft. There appeared before his eyes the Revelations, the images which had enabled the Father to describe Cthulhu and all the others. He felt the fatigue that the Master had accumulated each day of his life, then the energy that ran through his body when he wrote out the Scriptures.

This night, the adepts of the Shadow Cult would invoke the power of the Trinity so that the city of R’lyeh might arise from the waves and, with it, He-who-Dreams-and-Waits.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”

With this phrase, the first group concluded their part of the incantation. Screams of terror punctuated the litany as the adepts were haunted, one after another, by nightmarish visions.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl nafl’ftaghn,” answered the second group, including Philips.

The phrase that he pronounced in that moment, the words of Saint Derleth, was one of the most powerful keys for the Call of Cthulhu. They marked the commencement of Horror!

Over Providence, clouds gathered. Black clouds, charged with lightning, charged with hate, carriers of a creature rampant and magnificent. With the aid of bursts in his perpetually changing body, he attacked Reality, aided in this by tens of humans who prayed to him and the other Outer Gods. He was All in One and One in All. In this rhythm, there remained only a few hours before Yog-Sothoth infiltrated our world and ravaged it!

Some kilometers from the city, the ocean was agitated by gigantic mountains of putrefying flesh. Columns suddenly pierced the waves. Rocks reddened by blood even the seawater could not efface. A white building, made of bones, suddenly appeared.

A dome of tibiae and femurs, of skulls and ribs.

A sudden explosion. A flood of chaos, of abyssal monstrosities.

An opened tomb from which escaped indescribable creatures.

Then two wings. A head of an octopus.

A gigantic body of a man.

Cthulhu was walking.

Cthulhu was walking….

Great Old Ones and Outer Gods massed around Providence, more numerous with each word that Philips and the others pronounced. Creatures nebulous and bloody, horrors born from the Chaos Primordial and the Infinite Madness. Beings the sight of whom blinded the spirit and annihilated all forms of life….

In a world locked in a straitjacket of rules and pre-chewed thoughts, in this world where the Holy Fantastic Literature imposed its laws on creation, restricted the imagination of the most original, men and women still dared to defy the Church and the Inquisition. Persecuted for centuries, ever more fiercely and cruelly, they had decided to revolt in the most extreme fashion possible.

In the name of Lovecraft, of Howard and of Smith, their Sombre Trinity, they called in, with all their body and soul, the End of the World.

And on this night, the anniversary of the 15th of March, in this sacred city of Providence, It was at their door….