Cthulhu's Reign

Cthulhu is. calibrating me as, yes, it copulates with some organ or tentacle or other.

And I’m alive, lying naked and used — for how long? — upon flagstones bearing names of the dead. Alive. So violated but alive. Cthulhu has gone, though leaving his odor upon me.

At the tomb of Mazzini it must have been choosing whether its bride should be an Australian youth or me.

And what is a bride but a receptacle for seed?

A movement. What?

The statue of the boy has lowered its arm and removed his hand from his sister’s shoulder. She turns and steps down, and he copies her. The chiaroscuro of dust still remains on these nineteenth-century children as they step towards me, as I roll with difficulty on to my hands and knees so as to press myself up from the floor, and haul my aching abused self upright. The children remain marble, yet that marble has become a flexible, mobile parody of what it represented so faithfully for a century and more. Those clothes of theirs wouldn’t come off them, I know that — the bodies are as one flesh with the garments. The boy and girl pause, looking up at me now.

Confused words come from their softened mouths.

Not Italian words, no.

Words with a Swedish lilt, I’m almost sure.

The voices of Anders and Selma Strandberg, the bank manager and his wife.

“. help us. ”

“. how small we. ”

“. where we been. ”

“. what we. ”

“. hurt. ”

“. hurt. ”

Within half an hour a score of statues have found me, arriving slowly, step by step.

The pious little old proletarian peasant woman, long-skirted, aproned and shawled, whom Gabriella had said sold peanuts all her life to save up for a statue of herself in Staglieno — she still carries strings of inedible peanuts as if those are rosaries.

The tall young swoony woman, nude to the waist, now detached from the grasp of the veiled skeleton.

A suited businessman, crumpled bowler hat in hand.

More children, dressed like miniature adults.

Some of the minds in the statues seem insane from the experiments they suffered. Others are very confused. Two can only speak in what must be Hungarian.

Eating or drinking is plainly impossible for them. Do they envy or resent my chocolate? Impossible to tell. Will their minds emerge more, and maybe heal, as time passes?

For what capricious purpose have we been reunited? So that a score of animated statues can provide company while something grows inside me — until at last I give birth surrounded by mobile dusty marble people, in a reverse of their previous roles as mourners at death-bed scenes. How often will Cthulhu play with me stinkingly again.?

Jack is the brightest of the children. He knows how his father died, and how he himself died. And how, but for me, he would now be bearing spawn in his belly.

SANCTUARY Don Webb

It was the third year after the Aeon of Cthulhu had begun. The second year after Nat’s wife had walked off into the sky, and the three weeks since he driven into Austin to raid a drugstore for antidepressants and vitamins. It was noon; three years ago he would have been at Precision Tune scanning cars whose “Check Engine” light had come on. Now, since it was noon, he would be walking across the street to Tacos Arrandas #3 with Willie, Juan, and Mike. The chicken flautas with sour cream would be pretty good right now with a cerveza. Someone was crying in the Church, but someone was always crying. They would quiet down. Everyone sat upright at Santa Cruz during the day, unless they were praying. If they weren’t out growing vegetables, they stayed here. There were non-Catholics here — Mr. Jones, over there, with his black shiny face, he had been some sort of Baptist minister. The once — fat blonde lady who taught science had been an atheist — what was that word they used in Mr. G’s class?Her hypothesis must have proven wrong. There were gods; mainly they ate us.

Nat hated the Church except for Jesus. Jesus never looked too good to Nat growing up, stuck on that damn cross, couldn’t help anybody, could he? He used to make stupid jokes with the cholos he hung out with: “Why can’t Jesus eat M&Ms? ’Cause they fall through the holes in his hands.” They would tell him that he was going to hell. Guess they were right about that. He still carried his baby-blue rosary from back in the day. It seemed like those from Below didn’t give a shit about colors.

He liked Jesus now. He didn’t understand why Jesus was white when the Virgin was Mexican. Don’t you know that had been a shocker to Joseph? The brown eyes were large and shocked with pain — we should’a known; he was telling it was coming for years. We all look like that now. Jesus had caught up with the times or the times caught up with Jesus. The crying had stopped and praying had started. Prayers were pretty free- form, mainly to Jesus or the Blessed Virgin, but occasionally someone worked in a call to Yog Sothoth; as Keeper of the Gate, he was pretty popular. Maybe he would gate them all back. It was one of the few Names everybody knew. CNN had lasted for twenty-three days after the Rising. So everybody knew something. Even in Doublesign, Texas.

He thought of his youngest brother Xavier. Nat hadn’t been there to witness what had happened to Xavier, but he’d heard about it from people who had, and he could envision it so vividly in his mind that he might as well have been. Not that it would have made any difference.

Xavier had decided the thing to do was get with the program. He rented some horror DVDs from Blockbuster — he figured that he would get in good with the New Bosses. He studied the ritual sequences, the sacrifices. So he drove into Austin, found an occult shop, bought some black candles, some chalk, a fancy knife, and a big chalice to pour blood into. Mama told him to have faith. It was a stupid argument. Had faith kept Cody from getting HIV? Had faith kept Esmeralda’s pickup from being hit by the eighteen-wheeler?

Xavier drove to the parking lot of Sam Houston high school that night. The Moon was full and high and it had not yet opened its Eye. He spray-painted two big circles one inside the other. A crowd of people watched. It was better than listening to what was going on in Japan. You’d think after all them Godzilla movies they could have handled it. No one had told Father Murphy. The witnesses later said they’d wanted to see if Xavier was right. He lit five black candles in the shape of a star. Then he opened a used black paperback book that he had paid top-dollar for in Austin. He read some gibberish by flashlight.

Then he went to his old Chevy half- ton and took his red-nosed pits out. He had them tied up with bungee cords and they were squealing and barking. He dumped them in the center of his circle, put on his black graduation robe and got the Chalice and Knife from the front of his truck. He carried an MP3 player with him and lay it next to the dogs. He cranked up The Symphony of the Nine Angles and started yelling stuff about the “Blood is the Life” and “Passing through Angles Unknown.” I guess I should have paid more attention in Mrs. Gamble’s geometry class, Nat thought, well after the fact, hearing about this.

Xavier picked one of his dogs up and cut its throat. It was not easy to manage this and hold the Chalice and the paperback. The dog made a terrible sound, and maybe someone was going to rush in and stop all this, but no one did. Everyone was scared. Everyone had seen the Terrible City on CNN and the Thing at the North Pole.

He dropped the squirming and whimpering dog. “?Venga adelante y aparezca O Utonap’stim! ?Venga! ?Venga! ?Yog Sothoth! ?Beba la sangre se ha ofrecido que! I call you by the Seal that is at once Four and Five and Nine! ?Venga! ?Venga!”

The dying dog tried to crawl away. The other screamed like no one had never heard a dog scream. Xavier’s flashlight went out, but it wasn’t very dark because of the Moon. Then the Moon went dark. It was as though every