Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror (11 page)

  "It means what you make of it! And speakin of which, man, of what you might make of it, I wanna show you something right now. May I?"

"Sure. Show me."

  "Let's step round here to the side of the building . . . just round here . . . " Now they stood in the shadowy weed-tufted parking lot, where others lounged, but moved away when they appeared.

  "I'm gonna show you somethin," said the man, drawing out his wallet and opening it.

  But opening it for himself at first, for he brought it close to his face as he looked in, and a pleased, proprietary glow seemed to beam from his Olmec features. For a moment, he gloated over the contents of his billfold.

  Then he extended and spread the wallet open before Ricky. There was a fat sheaf of bills in it, hand-worn bills with a skinlike crinkle. It seemed the money, here and there, was stained.

  Reverently, Olmec said, "I bought this from the guy that capped the guy it came from. This is as pure as it gets. Blood money with the blood right on it! An you can have a bill of it for five hundred dollars! I
know
that Andre put way more than that in your hand. I
know
you know what a great deal this is!"

  Ricky. . . had to smile. He saw an opportunity at least to
gauge
how dangerously he'd erred. "Look here," he told Olmec. "Suppose I did buy blood money. I'd still need a witness. So what about
that,
man? Will
you
be my witness for . . . almost five grand?"

  Olmec did let the sum hang in the air for a moment or two, but then said, quite decisively, "Not for twice that."

  "So Andre got me cheap?"

  "Just by my book. You could buy witnesses round here for half that!"

  "I guess I need to think it over."

  "You know where I hang. Thanks for the drink."

  And Ricky stood there for the longest time, thinking it over. . . .

Sam Gafford

Sam Gafford grew up on a steady diet of comic books, television, old horror movies, and the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft. Small wonder that he would want to become a writer. His stories and essays have appeared in a variety of small-press publications and magazines. Gafford has also helped to advance the critical study of the fiction of William Hope Hodgson. He is working on a novel about Jack the Ripper.

"...
thulhu 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.

 
 
hen 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.

 
 
t 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.

"
he 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.

 
 
obert 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.

 
 
here 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.