Nightmares From a Lovecraftian Mind (2 page)

The young girl with the plastic bag stopped rummaging
around. She stared at Roux and brought her hand up. Her palm opened, revealing
the toy she had chosen. It was a mechanical duck.

“Quack
quack
,” the girl said.
“Quack
quack
.”

Roux was petrified. His body tensed and he was back in
surgery, unable to move. Someone was going to try to heal him: the little girl
or the doctor or both.

“Just do it already,” Roux said, directing the words to the
girl and to the doctor if he was somehow listening in the windless air.

“Quack,” the girl said.

“That’s what I thought.” Roux let his book slide out of his
fingers and fall to the concrete.

III.
Adactylous
Arms of the House

Franco was sick of selling magazine subscriptions
door-to-door but was far too unmotivated to look for another job. Besides, he needed
the exercise. His midsection had grown into a spare tire and his thighs were
starting to rub together when he walked. Luckily his face hadn’t gained any
weight but still, he really did need the exercise.

He had been in town for two days but hadn’t sold a single
subscription. That wasn’t totally unexpected. A lot of these medium-sized towns
were hard to crack but there was a good chance he’d stumble on a whole
neighborhood that would make the trip worthwhile.
Housewives
who were interested in the latest tabloids or a generic sports magazine for
their already-preoccupied husbands.
Young women interested in the newest
fashion despite having an income insufficient enough to keep up with it. They
were all potential customers.

The house Franco stood in front of looked at least a
hundred years old, a true treasure of the Victorian age. He figured he’d like
to live in a similar house if he ever made enough money. He knew it was not a
realistic goal but it was still something that crept in the back of his mind
from time to time. Until then he would have to be satisfied with living in a
one-room apartment over a garage of a farmhouse.

Franco knocked because he hated ringing the doorbell. It
was so impersonal, so abrupt. A knock was flesh-on-wood and was friendlier,
more personal. He found it was very successful in warming up to potential
customers.

The only answer to his knock was an unidentifiable noise.
Franco knocked again.

He heard the clip-clopping of high heels across a wood
floor.

The door opened with a groan and a woman in her forties
answered. Her hair was severe: deep black with all straight strands and sharp
angles. “Yes?”

“Hello,
mam
. My name is Franco
and I’m selling magazine subscriptions…”

“I’ll stop you right there.” The woman opened the door wide,
revealing her enormous breasts that tested the fabric of her blouse to its
limits. “First mistake you made was calling me ‘
mam
’.
No woman, no matter what her age, likes to be called
mam
.”

“I, uh…”

“Call a woman ‘miss’ or use their name if you know it.”

Franco blushed. He’d met some assertive customers in his
line of work but none who were forceful about something so insignificant. His
face was on fire, his heart pounding his confidence into pulp. “I’m sorry,” he
said, turning around to walk away because he knew he would not be able to go
through with the sales pitch without sounding completely embarrassed.

The woman stepped out onto the porch. “Hey, I didn’t say
you had to leave. I don’t recall telling you I wasn’t interested in your
magazines.”

Franco stopped and turned to see her with a small smile on
her face. He also saw the shape of her large nipples poking out of her blouse.
“Oh.” He forced the grin he used to charm female customers.

“Come on in,” she said. “I’m
Eurice
.”

“Hi
Eurice
,” he said, following
her into the house. “Thanks for your time.” He walked behind her, his eyes
instinctively moving to her rear end as it strained against the skirt.

When Franco was able to move his eyes away from the woman,
the first thing he noticed was the lack of décor. Nothing in the house
indicated that anyone was actually living there. However, there also was no
indication the woman was in the process of moving: no boxes or piles of
belongings prepared to be packed.

“Would you like some water?”
Eurice
said.

“Yes, thank you.” He
knew better not to decline any sort of beverage or food in this sort of
situation. When hospitality was extended, a salesman should always take
advantage.

Eurice
walked to the kitchen and out of sight. Franco heard the
clinking of glasses and the running of a sink.
More clinking
and then a cough.
She came back into the living room holding a cloudy
glass of water.

“It’s just bubbles,” she said. “The water pressure in the
sink is incredible.”

Franco took the glass and tried looking into the water
without appearing to be suspicious.

Eurice
said, “Have a seat on the couch and you can show me what
you’re selling.”

Franco held the glass with his right hand, hoping it
wouldn’t slip from his weak grip. His arthritis had been acting up lately.

Eurice
held her gaze on his hand and said, “Is your hand okay?”

“Oh,” Franco said.
“Uh, yes.
Thank
you.” He looked for a place to set it down before he was tempted to take a sip.
He sat down on the couch that lacked any style or design while he watched
Eurice
sit across from him on a plain white chair. In
between them was a table made out of unfinished wood. Franco placed the glass
on it and opened his messenger bag.

He said, “We have quite a few titles to choose from, some at
a considerable discount. In fact we have the largest selection of discounted
magazines in the state.” He pulled out a full-color catalog of titles his
company offered.
Eurice
took the booklet and
proceeded to peruse it for several minutes.

She stopped on the last page. “Well, this is interesting.”

“What’s that?”

“This magazine here,” she said, sitting up straight. “It
has my brother’s name on it.” She handed it to Franco.

The catalog page showed the cover for the second issue of
IMPERCEPTUS with an article by
Maurent
Drake. Franco
said, “Wow, that’s really something.”

“Yes, I haven’t spoken to my brother in quite a while so I
didn’t know anything about this.”

“What’s it about?” He perused the cover but had no idea
about the subject of the article. “Loop panic?
Imperium
waves?
Never heard of that sort of thing.”

Eurice
rolled her eyes. “Same old junk he’s been writing about
since he was a child. Frankly I have no idea what it all means.”

Franco knew this was the flashpoint of his sale. Either
she’d kick him out for reminding her of her estranged brother or she’d end up
buying something from him as a result of feeling a connection since she had
shared some personal information.

As soon as he was going to inquire a little more about her
brother, there was a sound from upstairs like a sack of stones dropping to the
floor.

Eurice
said, “That’s just my nephew.” She gestured to the
catalog.
“My brother’s son.”

“Do you think he’d like to look at the catalog? I mean, at
this magazine his father is in?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think that would be appropriate.”
She stared at Franco. He didn’t know whether he should hand her back the
catalog or just get up to leave. After several minutes of staring in silence,
she said, “You haven’t touched your water.”

Franco looked down at the glass. It was still cloudy. He
leaned forward and grabbed the glass, brought it to his mouth, and let the warm
water meet his lips.

Eurice
was still staring as he took a sip and swallowed.

Footsteps stomped down the stairs. Franco looked at the
young man entering the room.
Eurice
said, “Lucasse,
something wrong?”

The young man said, “No, I just heard you talking to
someone. Who is this?”

Franco stood up and offered his hand. “I’m Franco. I’m, uh,
selling magazine subscriptions.”

Lucasse
took a step back. “I heard someone mention my father.”

“Uh, yeah, he….” Franco said but was interrupted by
Eurice
.

“Looks like your father wrote an article,” she said,
grabbing the catalog and throwing it at
Lucasse’s
feet.
“Last page.”

Franco watched as the young man slowly bent down, picked up
the catalog, and looked at the cover of the magazine.

“Can I order this?”
Lucasse
said.

“Well, the catalog is for subscriptions to each magazine
not a specific issue,” Franco said.

“But I want this one. Where can I get this one?”
Lucasse’s
fingers were tracing invisible shapes on the
page.

“Uh, well, I can try to maybe find something to point you
in the right direction. Honestly, my company doesn’t have much to do with the
individual magazines. We’re more on the distribution side of things but I’ll
see what I can do.”

Eurice
stood up. “You don’t have to do that. My nephew has more
than enough reading material.”

“I want to read the article, Aunt
Eurice
,”
Lucasse
said, rolling up the catalog and placing it
in his pants pocket.

“Give that back, please,”
Eurice
said, her face turning harsh and shadowy. Franco thought she looked like twenty
years old than before. Wrinkles appeared where there had been none.

He said, “Oh,
it’s
okay. I have
plenty of catalogs. He can keep it.”

“No, it’s not okay,”
Eurice
said.
“It’ll only fuel his obsession and allow for another one of his…..episodes.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,”
Lucasse
said. “I have every right to know about this.”

Franco watched as the young man and his aunt stared each
other down. The living room grew darker, black tendrils creeping up the walls
and across the ceiling. Even
Lucasse’s
face was
becoming covered in blackness.

While the room was filling with octopus ink darkness,
Franco felt his legs buckle and his stomach turning inside out. He fell to the
floor, his nose hitting the wood like a hammer. The last thing he saw was
Eurice’s
dark high heels clip-clop towards his face,
finally engulfing him in a warm, malodorous abyss.

Then: tulips.

IV.
Of
Obdormition
and Demise

Roux could see them at the edge of the park. There were
three of them.
A woman and two men.
What were they
waiting for? They were just
standing
there. He couldn’t be so
sure
they were watching him but thought so.

The other people around Roux started to spread out away
from him as if predicting the events that surely were going to transpire. There
was going to be blood spilt in the park. There was going to be a body put to
rest in a most violent way.

Roux looked away from the three strangers. His eyes went
down to his book which was now curling away on the cement like a small, pulpy
beast. The words on the pages were unrecognizable.

His thoughts turned away from the three on the edge of the
park.

He thought of his brother
Maurent
and how their relationship had been strained over the last few years. Roux
couldn’t identify one particular reason as to why it turned out that way only
that it involved something
Maurent
had written. What
was it again?
An article?
A book?
Roux couldn’t remember. That period of time was submerged in his head under
eight years of thick, regret-laden dust and psychological abuse.

He couldn’t blame his brother entirely for the state of
things. Roux had done many terrible things in his adulthood, things he had
tried prying from his brain through the use of alcohol, rituals, and pills. His
life had taken a turn for the worst on the dawn of his eighteenth birthday when
Maurent
had taken him to the beach to present Roux
with a
gift
.

It was a gift of hardened love and abuse, gritty like the
sand they stood on, the sand they knelt on as
Maurent
attempted to make Roux pray to some abstract, philosophical mutation. It did
not work out as planned. Though
Maurent
wanted to
ready his brother for an oceanic
mactation
, Roux had
not been so easily swayed by his words. He was skeptical. He was, at heart, an
unbeliever
.