Cthulhu's Reign

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 piece of light was sucked away suddenly. People who told Nat about this later claimed they could feel sound being sucked away, too. In Robert E. Lee Park, next to the school, there were the usual late spring lightning bugs flashing on and off. Suddenly they all flew toward the parking lot. They clustered all over Xavier. Everyone could see him struggle, but couldn’t hear a word. He fell over and the dark went away; even his flashlight flickered back on. Finally, someone ran up to him. The bugs had eaten his skin and eyes. Juan found a gun and put the dog out of its misery. The others had trouble getting the cords off the other dog without getting bitten. When they did, she ran away. Somebody burned the book. CNN reported a few days later that if you called them by night they came.

Nat didn’t like thinking about that. But you couldn’t think otherwise. He looked at poor white Jesus. Poor bastard. Even being white didn’t save you now.

Nat was rich right now; he had made a run into Austin with Jesús’ truck. He had found an HEB that hadn’t been looted. Dried pinto beans, jalapenos, canned ham, tangerine jello, soup, flour (without too many weevils), and a large can of fruit cocktail. Mama invited over the MacLeods from next door. Dr. MacLeod had taught classes in chemistry at the University of Texas. His wife had taught painting classes for adults at the community college here in Doublesign. They had been great neighbors since before the Rising. They were Mormons so they had over a year’s supply of food saved up. They loved Mama, even when Nat and Jesús and Juan were sowing wild oats, they took her applesauce bread, and had had her over for “Mormon Beans” back when ground meat was available. Dr. MacLeod had been so helpful when the Rising happened. He knew all about the Masons and the Illuminati. He spoke at one of the last town meetings and everyone agreed to crucify the old men in the Masonic Lodge. It was easy to catch them; not one was under eighty — besides they died quickly, which everyone says is a Good Thing these days. Dr. MacLeod explained how the One World Government was really about Cthulhu. After the Moon opened its Eye, it was clear what the “All Seeing Eye” on the dollar bill had been about.

Mama didn’t have electricity, of course. But Nat had driven to Barton Creek Mall the day after one of the Shining Waves had passed through Austin. It had paused at the Mall, breaking it into three big pieces. Nat and Juan had loaded up their trucks two times each with the stock of a Wicks and Sticks. At first (before Victoria had walked into the sky) Nat had kept all the candles at his place. But when his wife was Called by the Thing Behind the Winds, he had moved everything (including Stephanie) to Mama’s. They lit candles everywhere, and only once had the house caught fire by one burning too low.

Dr. MacLeod was explaining the world, as usual. “What we didn’t understand is that it is all personal. I never understood that the many nights I researched stuff on the Web. All the scholars said it was impersonal.”

Mama just smiled. It was not that she lacked intelligence, but like so many, something had shut down in her. She never left the house except to get water at el rito. By day she read old fotonovelas and copies of the Reader’s Digest. At night she prayed in her sala. She would not go with Nat to Church. Safety was here, in her home. She was happy when she could serve food to other people and when people brought her things.

“What do you mean, Dr. MacLeod?” asked Nat.

“It isn’t about what happened in the Pacific or the Arctic,” he said, “It’s your brother. It’s my son. Some Thing out there interfaced with us.”

Mrs. MacLeod said, “Is it because we were bad? Because the world was bad?”

“No, honey. We weren’t bad. We were just good food.”

“We weren’t the ones that were eaten or,” she said looking at Nat, “called.”

“Our suffering feeds them. When they take poor Stephanie there,” he began.

The child looked up, frightened.

Nat yelled, “They are not taking Stephanie!”

Mama began to cry. Stephanie looked down at her knees, afraid to move.

“Come on, Nat, face facts; everything we’ve heard tells us it runs in bloodlines,” said Dr. MacLeod.

“Shut up, honey. This isn’t the place,” said Mrs. MacLeod.

“They just need to face facts. The Others have a fix on their family, just like they got our Billy for meditation. Something was wrong with Theresa. She belonged to Them, and They Called her.”

Stephanie had put her hands over her ears. She sobbed.

“You go away, you bastard. We know what you are. Maybe they got your Billy because you had us nail up those old men. You go away and don’t come back.”

“Nat, you’re being emotional. You know they won’t let her in the Church building now. We just have to face facts.”

Mrs. MacLeod got up and was pulling her husband by the short ecru sleeve of his shirt. “Shut up, Bob. Nobody needs to face anything. We’ve all faced enough. Don’t ruin another night.”

He pulled his arm away from him. He drew back his arm as thought he might hit her, and then just started sobbing.

“Come home, hon.” She said very gently, “I am so sorry. So so sorry.”

Nat put Stephanie to bed. She was ten and would be in fourth grade if there was any school left. For a while Miss Farmer and Mrs. Martinez tried to do classes, but as it sank into people’s minds that man’s time as Earth’s master was over, classes ended. Nat and the people on the block raided Bowie Elementary School for books and globes and scissors and glue and colored paper. He had raided Terra Toys in Austin. There were still people or things like people in Austin. Then that was before the Shining Waves passed through. The empty houses across the way were filled with stuffed animals. He thought it would make the world less scary for Stephanie if she saw windows full of white bears and blue horses.

He usually slept in the hall between Stephanie’s and Mama’s rooms. There had only been one incident. One night a little crack opened in the air about six inches below the ceiling and a black slime had dripped down into another crack about six inches above the age-dulled hardwood floor. He had set up for hours watching it, hoping it would go away, praying that neither of the females would wake up and see it. It faded away before dawn. Some people thought the whole process was driven by dreams. Others thought dreams were driven by the process.

He couldn’t sleep tonight. Dr. MacLeod’s words had slipped under his skin. He thought about his little girl all the time. He played with her every day, not for the joy of play but to keep her focused on human things. Other parents wouldn’t let their kids play with her, not after her mother.

She liked the swing sets in Robert E. Lee Park. That was only two blocks away. He carried her on his shoulders, like she was a much younger girl. They would swing, and he would spin her around on the roundelay. Then one morning he found that something had taken a bite out of it in the night. After that he kept her at Mama’s. Nat wanted beyond all things to be able to take her to the Church, which he figured for the only sanctuary. Father Murphy had said no. He didn’t think the girl was Marked, but you know how everyone is these days.

Dawn came and he made breakfast for himself and Stephanie. Grits with a little molasses. She looked cute rubbing the sleep out of her black eyes. She wore her pale blue shorts and her little yellow top. She was growing out of the top, beginning to have the buds of breasts. Nat doubted that she would grow up to become a woman. There was no future for humans any more. He wondered for an instant if she would “marry” one of the gray-skinned ghouls in Austin, and the thought turned his stomach. Fortunately he did not lose his breakfast — food was rare.

“Hey, I need to go to work now.”

“You don’t need to work. Abuela dreamed we won the lottery.”

“There is no more lottery, my little bluebonnet.”

“Sometimes grandma says strange things.”

“She is just playing, my little orchid.”

“What’s an orchid?”

“It’s a pretty flower like you.”

“I’m not a flower. I’m a girl.”

“Then I will call you ‘flower-girl’ because you smell so sweet.”

“The next time you go to ATX, can you bring back some perfume so I really can smell sweet?”

“I will, Flower-Girl. Chanel Number Five.”

Today he was going to work in his cousin Tony’s field. Tony was bringing in a crop of corn, some tomatoes, and yerba de manso for sore throats. Even before the Rising weather was hot in Texas by April, and smart people didn’t work at midday. He woke up Mamacita. “I am going to Tony’s today. I will bring you some tomatoes and a little oregano, OK?”

“You are a good boy, Juan.”

“I’m Nat, not Juan.”

“Be careful, Juan, bring us some chicken from that place on Goliad Street.”

He kissed Mama’s brown forehead. The light went out a little each day. He remembered the line from that poem from Mrs. Phillips’s class, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Poetry made sense these days; history, not so much.

At the edge of the village stood walls made of galvanized iron and plywood. Two men were watching the road. Doublesign had been a tiny town, hence its name. “The sign that says Entering and the sign that says Leaving are on the same pole.” It was a couple of miles to the fields. He drove. As long as they could get gas out of the tanks, they wouldn’t walk. It made for too easy a target. The guards were Father Murphy, with a gray crewcut and a stained priest’s collar, and Nick Flores, a light brown man with a big gold tooth. Nick had a 512 tat and a People’s Nation star. They drank out of thermoses, rifles by their sides.

They got off their lawn chairs and began to swing the gate open. Father Murphy waved him over. Nat rolled down his window.

“Natividad Moreno — just the hombre I needed to see.” The father’s Irish accent had not died away after twenty years in Texas. Nor had his potbelly shrunk in the last three years. He was the only fat man left in Doublesign.

“What can I do for you, Father?” asked Nat.

“You can do something for our little town.” The father’s gray eyes were about to shoot out the guilt trip ray that only priests, nuns, and mothers can use. It could turn Nat into a teenager, into someone half his age.

“I do a lot for our little town. No one else makes the run into Austin since the flying things came.”

“You are a brave man, Nat. That’s why I thought of you. I need you to bring me something powerful. In Comesee there is a used bookstore. Eligio Mondragon told me that it has a curandero’s Bible. It has some of his charms and recipes written in it. As our supply of medicine runs out, we need to know about oshá and Alamo tea. Some of the charms may be helpful against things.”

“Why don’t you go get it?” asked Nat. He knew the answer: the priest was important and he was some peon, but he wondered how the priest would say it.

“Because I am afraid,” said Father Murphy.

“You think I am not?” asked Nat. “Fear and bravery are not enemies. But isn’t the book of a curandero taking from you used to call the ‘other side’?”

“I am not making rash judgments these days. If I thought I could get the leprechauns to help us, I would be calling for them.”

“Why is Eligio remembering this now? Wouldn’t this have been a good thing last year or the year before?”

“Psychology is not my forté.”

“I am not going to risk my life for a book.”

“If you bring me the book, I will make your life much sweeter.”

“How?”

“Nat, I will allow Stephanie back into the church. I will let her stay there during the days, be in the storm shelter when needed. Your mother will not have to watch her during the day.”

This had been the first good news in so long that it almost puzzled Nat, as though he had lost his hearing and was suddenly greeted by the cry of a mourning dove.

He tried hard not to let his voice break, “You would do this for us?”

“The book is important.”

Jesús’ old Chevy Custom 10 dated from the Reagan Administration. It had belonged to Dr. Chainey, who ran the cancer clinic. Nat could’ve got a new pickup after the Dying in Austin, but he didn’t like to steal from the dead. Comesee lay twenty miles to the south. No one drove there because it lacked large grocery stores to loot — besides, as a small town, it might still have people.

The sun looked like the sun today, which Nat always felt was a good sign. He left on FM 1193. The first three miles held no surprises. About four miles on he saw one of the webbing cities. Roaches, the kind called palmetto bugs in Texas, had increased in size after the Rising. They were about as big as his fist and their shiny black carapaces were marked with bright green angular signs. They built cities. On the last day CNN had been on the air, there had been some remarks about them as the “Great Race.” Nat couldn’t see anything great about oversized bugs. People knew that they weren’t a thing of nature because their web cities were illuminated at night. The city took up the better part of what used to be a cotton field, so Nat knew it was at least forty acres in size.

He couldn’t see any of the bugs, which made him feel better. One time a couple of them flew into town and seemed to be checking everything out. Mr. Franks had run inside his house and grabbed a bottle of Raid and ran after them spraying the air. They stopped and sort of hovered. The poison seemed to do no harm, but after thirty seconds Mr. Franks just sank to the ground. His skin showed angry red blotches in the shape of the angular designs on the bugs’ wings. He never came to and passed a few hours later. Now when a bug flew by, people ran indoors.

As he continued south, the sky changed from blue to the color of lead. Comesee had been a little anglo town. In the old days (which seemed so far gone), it survived by its junktique stores that sold to the Austin tourists on weekends. Nat hadn’t thought about the town since the Rising, even though it was just a few miles away. Since then you just assumed anything that could be bad was. The billboards still welcomed folks in the name of the Lions. Historic Denton’s BBQ still promised the best Elgin sausages and brisket. Even the Dairy Queen was up ahead nine blocks on the left. A few burned-out cars were on the highway, but the passage into town looked clear. Nat glanced at the pair of loaded Glock 37s on his passenger seat. Bullets worked against most things. If it didn’t hurt your eyes to look at it, generally bullets would hit it. He slowed down as he came into town, waiting for either for signs of humans or of the Change.

It was the latter.

The Chevy dealership was covered with gray mucus. Nat could see angular things of metal that jerked inside. He gave it wide berth and drove on into the center of town the corner of 2^nd and Main. Calabazas — what do they call them — jack-o-lanterns stood in front of every business on Main. It was spring, no time for fresh pumpkins. At least it was spring back in Doublesign. Father Murphy said he had to look for Two Guys from Texas Books. Time was pretty leaky these days.

There it was. Middle of the block between to the karate place and Hickerson’s Video and Game Rental, it had big plate glass windows. It wasn’t covered in slime; it looked normal. Maybe there was a healing book inside. He hated getting out of the truck. Nothing swooped or buzzed or squelched. The air smelled clean and hot. He left the motor running. He walked to the door. It was dark inside; faded reds and pinks dominated the window display. The Rising had happened in February, and many places still commemorated a faded Valentine’s, when earth’s old lovers had come back. The door was locked. He got a cinderblock out of the back of the pickup and smashed the glass. All of the jack-o-lanterns had rolled closer to him while his attention had been elsewhere. Reality was melting; he would have to be quick. Dr. MacLeod had explained to them that the “Otherness” had to seep in through “liminal” things. Nat thought that “liminal” meant scary. He kicked two of them away from the door, grabbed a flashlight and went in, careful not to slip on the broken glass. The store didn’t smell right — it didn’t have that acid tang of Tia Rebecca’s yellowing romances. It stank of fire and copper, but the books looked OK.

There it was. The Bible. It sat on a shelf beneath diet books, with other Bibles and Books of Mormon and old Methodist hymnals. But it was big and black with gold lettering Biblia Santa. It had a nice heft in his hands, but as he picked it up something laughed in his head. Voices in the head weren’t unusual, but they made him miserable. Outside the shop, the jack-o-lanterns weren’t round or orange any more. They were becoming one of those clear snot-looking things that seemed to have rusty machinery and mercury inside. They were dumb but fast. He grabbed some paperback novels and flung them on to the street. The snot-thing formed several eyes that focused on the books and squelched off in their direction. Swallowing hard, he ran toward it, since he needed to get to his truck. It didn’t turn until he was inside. He threw the truck in reverse and pulled into the crossroad. It had sensed him and shot out two long runners of snot to pull itself toward the backing Chevy. It grew mouths. Some yelled “Tekeli-li!” Others made the sound of fire engines and turkey buzzards. One mimicked a reporter from Channel 42, “Tex DOT has no explanation of the mysterious slime on I-35.”

He turned his truck toward Doublesign. The creature was gaining speed. It had made some of the strands into tentacles that were holding on to his tailgate. He put the pedal to the metal. 40, 50, 60. At 75 the main mass couldn’t keep up, but about a gallon of the goo had managed to plop itself in the bed of his truck. It was making little green eyes that looked like zits and little centipede legs to scuttle across the bed. It slimed its way up his back window and its little eyes just spun around. Two mouths formed, their voices thin and high like a kid that has breathed in a helium ballon. One yelled, “Tekeli-li!” and the other said, “¡Si usted ve un soggotho escaparse!” Nat laughed. That was — what’s his name on KHHL out of Leander. Man, he was funny.

Before.

Yeah, before.

Nat tried to concentrate on his driving. He rolled his window up as far it would go. A tiny thick tendril was pushing itself against the window, a tiny eye forming at the tip. He didn’t want to take it into the village. He had some bug-spray, a Crip-blue bottle of Raid Flying Insect Killer. He braked hard and leapt out the passenger side window and let the loathsome mass have it. Jesús, Maria y José. It pulled itself into a dirty white ball and flung itself on the asphalt. It was rolling away. Some days you got the bear; for Steph’s sake he hoped the bear would never get him. Dr. MacLeod said that all life on Earth came from the shoggoths. He said they had never gone away, just “hidden up the spiral staircase of DNA.” All of the things that showed up three years before had always been here, but most humans couldn’t smell them or hear them or see them. When that city had Risen in the Pacific, we could touch them and they could touch us.

The sky looked blue, hazy, but not dangerously so. The sun was white and some turkey buzzards were flying off to the west. The ground had grass and a few late-season bluebonnets on it. Figuring it was not against the law to pick them now, Nat gathered a few and one Indian paintbrush for contrast. He put them in his truck on the passenger’s side next to the Bible. He decided to open it, to look for cures. Father Murphy had disgusted him by suggesting that some curandero bullshit would be good against the Otherness. Real crosses and real rosaries hadn’t worked. At his worst moments, Nat thought that the campo santo of the Church didn’t really work either. Some day They would come, some ally of the Thing in the Pacific. Doublesign was a small village. It couldn’t feed them the fear and misery they drank like wine.

He opened the Bible to find that it too was a trick.

The book had been hollowed out. There was no curandero’s herbs, no list of spells against the coming of the night. It was little spiral-bound book from Lulu Press. The chapters made no sense to Nat.

1. “Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy in the Ryleh Text,” Mircea Eliade

2. “Divinatory Deep Structure in Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan and the Yi Ching”

3. “ Prophetic Patterns in Innsmouth Jewelry,” Ellison Marsh

4. A selection from “Crave the Cave: The Color of Obsession.” Esther Harlan James. Diss. Trinity College 1996, pgs 665–670

5. A selection from “A Refutation to Shrewsbury’s ‘Elemental Schemao.’ ” Mary Roth Denning. Diss. University of Chicago 2007, pgs. 118–126

6. A selection from “Fieldwork with the Brujos Ocultados of Barret, Texas.” Carlos Cesar Arana. Diss. UCLA 1973, pgs. 93–118

7. “Cthulhu in the Necronomicon,” Laban Shrewsbury

8. “The Black: Sutra of U Pao in relation to Left Hand Path Cults of South east Asia,” Patrica Ann Hardy. Diss. MIT 2001, pgs. 23- 40

9. “The Prehistoric Pacific in Light of the ‘Ponape Scripture’ (Selections),” Harold Hadley Copeland

“Alles Nahe werde fern”

Everything near becomes distant — Goethe

AD MEIORVM COVLHI GLORIAM

As usual, Nat did not know who was tricking whom. The small black book with its simulated leather binding had probably been one of those books college kids buy for a class. Juan had bought one for his Southwest life and literature class and another for his HVAC class at the community college. Juan had been working in Dallas when the Rising had occurred. Mama loved Juan better; he was the gang-free smart son. Nat smiled at his brother’s favorite joke, “What do you call two Mexicans playing basketball?” “Juan on Juan.” Nat started to throw the book away, but who was he to judge? Certainty went out of the world three years ago. Daymares and night-reams were the scaffolding of reality now; loved ones walked into the sky.

He opened the hollowed- out Bible; on the flyleaf someone had written two verses in heavy pencil. Genesis 28:16–17: And Jacob awoke out of his sleep, and he said, Surely Jehovah is in this place; and I knew it not. And he feared, and said, How terrible is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Job 3:8: May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.

He drove on to Doublesign. Felix Washington stood on guard duty. He was the Rev. Jackie Jones’ uncle. Felix was a very popular man, and at 78 certainly the oldest left. He had been a jazz pianist back in the day; he’d played gigs in Austin as little as five years ago. He had also saved a coffee can full of marijuana seeds. Marijuana provided a good buzz and it was good for trading with the some of the other little towns that still remained, like Thalia. Felix still tickled the ivories at the Kuntry Kitchen, and Nat had seen his name on yellowing posters for The Soft Machine and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. He liked to piss people off by saying, “Cthulhu ain’t no worse than white people.” Felix opened the gate and waved him on.

Nat drove to Santa Cruz. Father Murphy sat at the wooden picnic table near the entrance. He had his pocketknife out, looking for all the world to be carving something in the rotten wood. He indicated that Nat should sit beside him.

Nat realized how angry he was. His heart pounded. The fat bastard had had him risk his life for a book. A book wasn’t going to solve their problems, certainly not the Bible. Hadn’t we seen hundreds of people using the Bible to lay It back in the sea? Who was this fat Irish-man, telling his family and friends what to do for the last two decades? He had preached against his cousin Cody’s queerness, so Cody had run off to Houston to live in the gay community there, sealing his death when the waves that came with the Rising wiped Houston off the globe. He denied the Mass of the Dead for the scores of suicides, saying the Rising was God’s test of our faith. As though the death of millions was a little algebra quiz. Nat wanted to start smashing him with the Bible — hit that red uneven face that always reminded him of a potato. Nat couldn’t sit down.

“I brought your damned book.”

“Thank you, Nat,” said Father Murphy.

“It’s hollow.”

“Many people find the Bible hollow these days.”

“No, I mean it is really hollow. You sent me there for nothing.” Nat took out the little book from inside and tossed in front of Father Murphy. Murphy showed no surprise. Murphy continued his carving, some complicated sign.

“When did you really know the human world was over?”

“Three years ago, like everyone else.” Nat wanted the guy to finish. He looked at the church door.

“Oh, she’s in there with the others. I am as good as my word. I understood the world was over when the Bishop sent me here. I was sent to this little hellhole as a punishment. The Mother Church doesn’t like its priests to stick their dicks in altar boys’ cherubic little mouths. Did you know that? So they sent me here and I knew the world was over when I saw Christ’s face in there. All that look of suffering. He had been mutely telling the human infestation for years and years.”

Nat didn’t like that he had had the same thought as this kid-fucker.

“You’re a fucking pedophile?” Nat felt his stomach heave.

“I never liked fucking them; anyway age has taken care of that. Besides, I don’t really like brown boys as much as blonde ones. Do you know why the Rising happened?”

“¡Chingada!”

“Remember all of those talking heads on TV? When the stars are right, they said, they know nothing. The great Priest Cthulhu took a little nap, and a great deal of what is hidden by matter slept. We are the alarm clock. The shock. We figure out things, and as our tiny brains correlate the contents of our minds, their shock, their agony at glimpsing the true cosmos sends out a nice jolt. There are so many things waiting to Waken still; roses in your garden wanting to sing weird songs, pebbles wanting to shoot forth stony blossoms. Human time is done.”

Nat wanted to hurt him. He would check on Stephanie, and he would tell some of the others first.

“Why did you want the book?” asked Nat. “I know it is about bad things, but why now?”

“The collector of these little texts was special to Cthulhu. His moment of endarkenment actually impressed It. This little Liber Damnatus is dear.”

“You work for It.”

“I have always worked for It. Most humans do, and those that don’t serve as well. Hasn’t your good doctor explained the Octopus to you? Humans’ shock, their horror, and, for a rare few, their ecstasy works for It. At this point all we can do that is meaningful in the world is to increase the aesthetic value of this blue marble of a planet for a Will older and better than our own. Humanity is its last decade will finally have a purpose.”

Nat took the hollowed shell of the Bible and smashed it as hard as he could against Father Murphy’s cheek. He knocked the priest off the bench onto the grass. Murphy just laughed. Nat stomped on his chest.

“Beautiful.” Father Murphy gasped, “Just beautiful. Oh Loathly Lord freed from the Angles of the Water Abyss I am but a shard of black rainbow to adorn the world to which you awaken. Gurdjiatn Cthulhu gurdjiatn ekd szed mem-zem zmegnka!”

“Fuck you, asshole!” Nat left him. He needed to see Stephanie now.

“Look, my son, I am turning the other cheek.” Father Murphy rolled over. “I have made my garden beautiful for You. By the green star of Xoth I adore Thee, Domine.”

About twenty people knelt in the church. Stephanie was a couple of rows from the front. Candles flickered around the Virgin, and the noontime sunlight came through the stained glass, but the church seemed dark.

“Calabaza, are you OK? Stephanie, we need to go.”

She didn’t move from her prayer. No one moved. He ran to her, neglecting to genuflect as he passed the altar, even though the light burned signifying His presence. As he came up to her, her face confused him. She had the naughtiest smile ever, and her eyes were crossed. Then he realized that something slick and shiny was coating her face. He touched her. He flinched. She was cold and sticky. A little sob died in his throat. All of them. They had faces of idiocy or leering lust. Some fixative had been sprayed over their faces. Someone had fixed their hands into obscene gestures. Miss Abelard was chewing on a crucifix; Joel Sanchez was whacking off.

He fell on his knees next to Stephanie. His weight knocked her little rigid body sideways. She would be a praying fool forever. He looked up at Christ. How could you let this happen?

Murphy had sawn Christ’s ivory colored head off. He had replaced with an ivory-colored flying octopus. The image that the whole world had watched on television and feared. The image that had been in the dark spiral tower of their DNA. The part of Nat that was holding his world together, had its last moment. Nat felt the world stop. He heard a snap inside his head and his psyche dissolved into shock. He actually felt no amazement when the little flying octopus relaxed its grip on Christ’s body and began flying so slowly, ever so slowly on its stubby wings toward Nat. Nat’s last coherent thought was that it couldn’t move that slowly and stay in the air. He was trying to scream.

He heard Father Murphy entering the church continuing the strange chant he had begun outside. He saw the green banner Father Murphy carried with the strange yellow design, and felt the tentacles as they surrounded his head. He almost laughed because they felt like something familiar — IcyHot muscle rub. He felt them slip over his open eyes and push their way into his nose. He felt one wriggle through his mouth and crush his larynx.

After that, there was no more linear thinking. What had been Natividad Moreno was now another art object. A tiny part of the Remaking of the world.

(For Robert Price)