Autumn Cthulhu by Laird Barron & Evan Dicken & Wendy Wagner

Author:Laird Barron & Evan Dicken & Wendy Wagner [Barron, Laird & Dicken, Evan & Wagner, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: literary horror, fiction anthology, Science Fiction, horror anthology, short story, collection, Lovecraft, Mythos, story stories, cthulu
ISBN: 9780996694100
Google: OPu-DAEACAAJ
Publisher: Lovecraft eZine Press
Published: 2016-05-04T15:43:51+00:00

III

The blade burns in the grip of the noble

Heart. Take it, and your heart be made known.

James Ogin “Dyrnwyn”

Of course, Will won’t mention the incident with the enormous bear in his essay, in part because his father will not have explained how the creature’s appearance connects to Carson, exactly. In all fairness to his dad, Will will have avoided asking for such an explanation, on the let-sleeping-dogs-(or bears)-lie principle. On top of that, the event will seem too strange to write down and hope to be believed. Nor will Will mention something that happened a couple of days prior to Carson’s decision to leave, but that, with the passage of time, seems to have heralded it. It occurred in the evening, after homework and dinner. He was at the family computer, playing Hungry Games. Due to the unusually warm weather, the windows in the computer room were up, admitting a slight breeze, which nudged the curtains. So involved was Will in surviving to the death match portion of the game and then, once there, in defeating the other finalists, that it took a while for him to register the voices outside the windows: his father and Carson, promenading back and forth along the stone path that ran from the front steps to the driveway. As interested in the conversations of adults as any boy his age, Will rose from the computer chair and moved to the couch, which sat below the windows. Lowering his head to give the impression he’d switched places in order to read, he glanced outside.

His dad was wearing a pair of old karate pants and the black t-shirt printed with the Famous Monsters of Filmland cover showing Godzilla and Gamera squaring off. Carson was dressed in long, olive shorts and a faded red t-shirt with the Flash’s yellow lightning bolt on it. Dad’s hands were clasped behind his back, which, Will had learned, he did to aid the impression he was taking what you were saying to him seriously. Carson’s hands were a flurry of motion, in front of him, at his sides, back in front of him, weaving through the air as they did when he was speaking about something that mattered to him. Will looked down at his imaginary book. He couldn’t hear much of what his father, who tended to talk softly, was saying. It was easier to distinguish Carson’s words, though not what they were referring to. “Absolutely,” he said.

Dad murmured.

“The weather, for one thing. It was like this the last time.”

Dad said something that ended in, “—incidence?”

“Not with the dreams,” Carson said. “Not together like this.”

Dad asked another question.

“A sign.”

“Where?” Dad said.

“Somewhere close,” Carson said. “I don’t think there’d be anything on your property, not yet. But somewhere close.”

Will couldn’t hear his father’s next remark, but the nod he gave toward the driveway suggested he was inviting Carson to walk it. “Yeah, sure, that’s a good idea,” Carson said, and the two of them set off in that direction.

There was fishing gear in the back of the SUV that Will had been meaning to bring in since yesterday.

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