Cthulhu's Reign

leader of truly remarkable extravagance and rumored depravity.

All this comes rushing back to Eric now, the traumatically repressed details, the veils of hidden memories torn back, as he realizes that he is now on the very same beach, in the very same spot, where the aforesaid Cindy Higgins, who hadn’t been his first girlfriend from Maine vacations when he was a kid, but his first girlfriend’s younger sister’s best friend, whom he had lured into the orbit of Robert Tillinghast and his cronies with the promise of a really good time, had met her hideous fate, very much in the manner that the girl who is there now seems about to meet hers.

Eric, physically and emotionally exhausted to the point of delirium can only exclaim, rather ridiculously, “Jesus Christ, what a fucking cliche!” when he realizes that he and his host have now joined the company of about a dozen similarly robed cultists who are standing by torchlight around a stone altar, on which is stretched, bound with the requisite leather thongs, a genuine naked virgin, a pale, blonde, teenaged girl, probably about Cindy’s age, or his own younger daughter’s age, who screams and whimpers and sobs begs to be let go, promising she won’t tell, as if that somehow matters now.

It is, Eric realizes, just like old times. There are certain things in life that you can’t just walk away from, and being a member of a human sacrifice cult is probably high on the list. No good saying you didn’t mean it or you’re sorry. It’s way too late for that.

The only difference between this time and what happened to Cindy is that now there are things the size of small elephants, but spiny and rough and vaguely humanoid, crouched in the water, almost out of view beyond the range of the torchlight. They would be hard to see if their eyes weren’t glowing. You might think they were rocks if they didn’t make a chittering and hissing sound.

The last time he and Robert had done this, after they were done and Cindy was gone, taken by something that reached for her out of the darkness, Robert had shouted something out across the water, and from the distance had come a reply, followed by a thunderclap, and a flash of light on the horizon, then a cold, rushing wind that whipped up waves like a sudden squall.

“We’ve opened the gate just a crack,” Robert had said then. “It is a beginning.”

Now, as the cultists begin their chanting and the girl whimpers, Robert whispers to Eric, “We have to open the gate all the way, to make ourselves useful to our new masters, so there will be a place for us in the new world.” After a pause he adds, regarding the girl, “Oh, by the way, she’s not a virgin. Not anymore. It turns out that doesn’t matter. So I took care of it myself. It’s one of the perks you get in this line of work.” Then he nods toward the hunched monsters in the surf and says, “You know what I’ve always said. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. That is why we are gathered here today, dearly beloved in the sight of Dagon.”

Inevitably, as the frenzied ceremony reaches is climax — as Eric plays along and waves his arms and chants along with the rest, because he’s been here before and he knows his lines — Robert Tillinghast produces from within his robe the vast, curved, polished ritual knife that the well equipped cult-leader always brings to a occasion like this, and it is only as Tillinghast stands over the altar with the knife upraised like something on a glowing, black-light poster you’d get in an occult shop back when they were kids, that Eric is able to formulate even a vague semblance of a plan.

He reaches up. He grabs Tillinghast by the wrists and prevents him from bringing the knife down.

“No. Let me do it!”

Tillinghast draws back, startled. The other cultists stop chanting.

“You?”

“Let me do it,” Eric says. “You know. To show commitment. I have to be a part of this. I’m not just here for decoration.”

“That’s right,” says Robert Tillinghast. “You’re not. Try to get the heart out in one piece. That’s what they like best.”

And looking down at the now silent girl and remembering Cindy Higgins and his own daughters, Eric suddenly rams the knife into Tillinghast’s gut as hard as he can, and pulls upward with a savage yank until he can feel ribs starting to give way, and he twists the handle, knowing he’s probably ruined the heart.

Nevertheless Tillinghast manages to cling to life for several more seconds, long enough to gasp, “What are you doing.? The ceremony must be completed. ”

He may even still be alive when Eric whispers in his ear, “No! It doesn’t matter. Can’t you see that? You’re just ghost-dancing like all the rest. You’re the biggest goddamn self-deluded ghost-dancer of them all. Not the Pope, you!”

But he is almost certainly dead when Eric holds him up, still impaled on the knife, turns him around as if he’s about to address his astonished, faithful flock, then heaves him face-down into the surf.

“Look!” Eric shouts. “Look! It’s all bullshit! This isn’t going to save you!” He points at the things now lumbering toward the beach. “They don’t give a damn about what side you think you’re on, and it’s not a case of fucking if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, because they aren’t going to let you join ’em except the parts of you as they forget to pick from between their teeth!”

Now the monsters roar and come splashing out of the water and the cultists are screaming as teeth and claws tear them to shreds. Eric starts sawing away at the girl’s bonds with the knife.

From over the water come several thundering, honking sounds that might be foghorns or ships, but he knows they are not.

Gunshots ring out. Something slams into him in the side, hard, and he feels a burning pain that begins to spread as he works. But he has the girl free now, and he hauls her up off the beach, onto the sloping lawn, driving her toward the house, his car, and a possible get-away. He’s having trouble breathing now. He’s coughing up blood. He’s not going to make it. But she might. He tries to take off his robe and give it to her, but just loses his grip on her and falls down painfully onto his injured side, then rolls onto his back. He fumbles for his car keys, under the robe.

Above him, the fog has cleared, and the stars shine in all their distant, cold, pitiless brilliance.

He doesn’t know if he’s accomplished anything. This is probably just more ghost-dancing, but it sure felt good to try.

He catches hold of the girl by her ankle. She kneels down beside him. He gives her the car keys.

Above, the mad auroras roll.

THIS IS HOW THE WORLD ENDS John R. Fultz

They always said the world would end in fire. Mushroom clouds, atomic holocaust, the pits of hell opening up and vomiting flame across a world of sin, corruption, and greed. The world would be a cinder, and Christ would come down from the clouds to lift the faithful skyward.

I used to believe those things. My daddy taught me the Bible, and Revelations was his favorite chapter. He believed in the wrath of God, and he feared the fires of Hell.

But the world wasn’t burned away by righteous fires. There was no great conflagration.

The world didn’t burn.

It drowned.

One thing the Bible did get right: the sea did turn to blood.

The coastal cities were the first to go. Two years ago the first of the Big Waves hit. The newscasters called them “mega-tsunamis.” Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, San Francisco. so many sandcastles flattened and drowned. Watery graves for millions. New York, Miami, even Chicago when the Great Lakes leapt out of their holes like mad giants. A single day and all the major cities. gone.

After the tsunamis came the real terror. The waves washed terrible things onto the land. things that had never seen the light of day. Fanged, biting, hungry things. They