Midnight Echo issue 12 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Australasian Horror Writers Association
Published: 2017-12-24T16:00:00+00:00

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EVERYTHING IS SQUAMOUS

Simon Dewar

Rupert hadn’t left the diner feeling particularly heroic. As he made his way home he passed a truck parked by the curb and was almost bowled off his feet when two burley men carrying furniture stepped out of a doorway. He stumbled back into a puddle of dirty water pooling on the pavement, his splashing feet flinging mud about him.

'My coat! My pants!' a man behind him cried, distressed beyond reason. His voice was strange and shrill. His accent was from out of town.

Rupert turned to take stock of him. He was an odd-looking white man, wrapped in a long coat, collar up. His spectacled face was freakishly long, his lips drawn back over his teeth in a sneer.

'Sorry, sir,' Rupert said and tipped his cap. He was, of course, sorry. He hadn’t seen the man and would never have intentionally splashed someone and dirtied them. 'Are you okay?'

'Of course not, you wretch,' the man cried. The man’s hand shook as he lifted it to his face and covered his eyes. After a moment, the hand slipped away, that long face composed once more. The sneer was firmly back in place.

'It’s him,' one onlooker interjected. 'That writer! The one who writes them devil stories for them magazines.'

'Il suo nome è Lovecraft. Quel bastardo che scrive queste storie blasfeme!' an moustachioed Italian cried and shook his fist. A crowd began to gather, people peering over each other’s shoulders to see what the fuss was all about.

'Calls us apes and beasts, he does. Says we ain’t even human,' a pretty young black woman called to Rupert. She wore a long blue dress and a small blue flower in her hair.

The man looked from side-to-side, as though he wanted to slink away and hide. The crowd, jeering now, pressed forward driving Rupert closer.

'All of you! Get out of my way,' Lovecraft cried franticly. The Italian man was screaming now, a small crucifix on a chain around his neck in one hand, his other a clenched fist.

'He’ll not help you, fool!' Lovecraft shouted and pushed the man, sending him careening into the girl in blue who stumbled back into the ring of onlookers.

Seeing the girl stumble was too much and Rupert stepped forward and wound back his arm. 'My own ma’s a writer. And you’re giving all ’o’ them a bad name.'

Lovecraft looked Rupert in the eye and that sneer returned once more. 'Your mother is squamous,' he hissed.

So Rupert slugged him, and the gangly man spun to the pavement splashing back into the puddle. There was a moment’s silence among the onlookers, until one man began to cheer and threw his hat in the air.

'It's Jack Dempsey! Jack Dempsey!' one onlooker cried and cheered the young black man who stood vindicated and hero-like above the fallen writer. Dock workers, layabouts and passersby, all stopped and threw their caps in the air, and shook Rupert’s hand and made a real to-do. An elderly European man unlimbered an accordion from his shoulder and soon everyone was capering and dancing to the merry tune.

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