Cthulhu Fhtagn! by Laird Barron & Walter Greatshell & W. H. Pugmire & Orrin Grey & Richard Lee Byers & Molly Tanzer & Christine Morgan & Wendy N. Wagner & G. D. Falksen

Author:Laird Barron & Walter Greatshell & W. H. Pugmire & Orrin Grey & Richard Lee Byers & Molly Tanzer & Christine Morgan & Wendy N. Wagner & G. D. Falksen
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Cthulhu Mythos, horror, H. P. Lovecraft
Publisher: Word Horde
Published: 2015-08-15T05:00:00+00:00

Return of the Prodigy

T.E. Grau

It was over the “Complimentary Anniversary Cake for Two!” that Gary finally sprang the news.

Minutes before, the Vahlkamps were wrapping up another predictably silent ceremonial dinner at The Drover, where they had memorialized each anniversary for the last thirty-four years. The occasion was once again ushered in with identical iceberg salads, butter-grilled Omaha steaks, and long looks around the room over smeared cocktail rims, searching for familiar faces and forgotten gossip.

But this night was different. This was the thirty-fifth, and after enduring exactly 12,775 days of intermittent harping on the fact that he had never taken his wife Gladys on a honeymoon following their traditional Lutheran wedding, Gary decided to man up and do the right thing, if only to find a little goddamn peace.

You see, Gary was a frugal man, but not inappropriately so, considering the circumstances of his upbringing. Born with the sluggish blood of German stock on the cusp of the Platte River Valley, he wore his innate thriftiness as a badge of honor. It was the right thing to do. It was the Nebraska thing to do. Gladys, a former Kansas City socialite and theatre actress of little renown, was quite the opposite, and although she loved her husband as a historian loves a bygone civilization, she always chafed at his chintzy ways. But the heart doesn’t deal out fairly, so she suffered his shallow pockets mostly in wifely silence. Mostly. That would be her story, anyway.

But on this night, Gary bit the bullet. He didn’t like the taste, mixed as it was with the floury chocolate he was trying to work out of his bridgework, but he understood that men sometimes do things they don’t want to do. The burden of the masculine, and all that jazz.

Gary finished his Beam and water, placed his hands on the tablecloth, and made the pronouncement. Gladys was ecstatic, and nearly spilled her Mai Tai as she leapt with surprising speed across the table and planted a series of awkwardly received kisses on her husband.

“Hawaii, right?” she asked rhetorically.

Gary, long since accustomed to her odd fascination with Don Ho, tiki parties, and all things Polynesian, just smiled. “You’ll see,” he said with one of his patented, ex-jock winks that first wooed Gladys all those years ago, all the while searching his internal map of the South Pacific hard earned back in ’68.

Gladys blushed and hugged him tight. Gary inhaled her Avon perfume that always smelled like Raid on her skin. “I love you,” she whispered. Gary grunted and patted her arm. Gladys released, and clapped her hands like a schoolgirl, drawing much-needed attention from the room, and trundled off to the bathroom, squealing happily through tears.

Gary sat back, exhaled, and ordered another drink.