The last section of the book looks safer for the human trying to shelve it — tales inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The first of these, in the tradition of Zealia Bishop’s “The Mound,” deals with the Lovecraftian Western. The “rules” of that cosmos blend the essential part of American thought, the great frontier, with the great nothingness at the center of the Lovecraftian cosmos. This deceptively pulpy story deals with themes such as colonialism and the imposition of Christianity upon native peoples with the tropes of cosmic dread and cannibalism. Again, we see the Fultzian twofold punch: Come for the horror, leave with deeper questions about history and metaphysics. I have no doubt that this little volume will garner great reviews in the magazines and webpages that review short horror, but the lasting taste here is not that of cheap soda (which most short horror gives us), but the bitter otherness of absinthe.
The paradigmatic tale of the book, the story that Fultz has been teaching us to read, is (perhaps) “The Embrace of Elder Things,” a sort of comic book Rembrandt. The surface read will be appealing to a certain type of fanboy anywhere. It is not only a Lovecraftian homage, but also (Yidhra save us!) a Derlethian homage complete with star stones. Even pulpier, it is set on a lunar colony quite suitable for seventies sci-fi, back before the United States turned its back on the challenge of reaching other worlds. The setting and the background make this a sort of candy treat to humans that spent their teenage years reading Arkham House collections. But in the midst of this green cotton candy two very deep ideas emerge. Our hero’s mother despairs of his fate as his otherness is discovered by the intolerant world. Mom’s fears are connected with the frontier-ism of the other tales: If sonny can only make it to the mines of Mars, he can safely be what he (secretly) is. Fate, however, brings the tale’s two big ideas to the very surface. Idea number one is that growing up, shaped and protected by human love, one learns to love not only specific humans but humanity as a whole. Idea number two — you can’t run from what’s inside of you. If you are Other, you are Other.
“The Embrace of Elder Things” is about accepting how deeply weird, how deeply Other you might be and reconciling it with the reflection of a mother’s love. Here is the deepest of Lovecraft’s fears (as seen most poignantly in “The Outsider”), the fear of not belonging, of being hated, of being one of “Them,” reconciled with the nobility of human love in a cosmos where love and light are decidedly not the norms. This tale is exemplary of Fultz’s magic — it can be read by humans that know how to make the Vulcan salute and thrive in SF nerdy coolness, but it can also be enjoyed by humans who have come to understand their very depth-of-thought sets them aside from humanity. Such stories will lack the vociferous support of the current intelligentsia, who prefer a trendy nihilism, but will in the long run actually be of use to the humans who will build the future. Not bad for a story with a rock from Mnar.
I see our time is done and you are about to shelve this little book. Having given you the critical tool to re-read these stories, I leave the re-reading as an enjoyable homework. But I leave you with my deepest wish that you introduce other readers to this little book (after all, it’s hard to sell short story collections) by talking up its horrific wonders and NOT by talking up its philosophical underpinnings. Face it — a lot of readers aren’t as deep as you.
When I shared this introduction with Fultz he asked if I was serious. I told him I was not Sirius but instead Mu Draconis, my wit being dry but spicy. For the few of you who google that you will discover that, yes, I am indeed nerdier than you.
— Don Webb
Austin, TX
2022
THE WEIRDNESS
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The River Flows To Nowhere
I hate the city.
I hate the nonstop rain and the blood-salted asphalt slick as snakeskin. I hate the smells of mildew, petrol, and despair. The acrid fogs, the vagrants gathered like clumps of fungi beneath rusting bridges. I hate the eternal night of the city, how the sun never shines there. It’s an endless labyrinth of neon canyons, trash heaps, and the husks of dead factories.
It changes you in ways you never thought possible.
I hate the city, but I understand it. That’s why I get hired for cases like this. It’s the only reason I go back to the streets again, something I swore I’d never do. I’ve broken that vow many times. Every time the money runs out and the booze runs low. Every time some desperate client with a hefty bank account wanders into my office.
The clients talk, sometimes they cry, and I just listen. Usually it’s a remorseful father, the kind who spoils his kid relentlessly and can’t figure out why junior ends up hating him. Sometimes it’s a lady. A mother or a sister. Out of her mind with worry or guilt.
The last thing anybody wants to do is go into the city. So they show me a picture, write me a check, and one more time I break that promise I made to myself. After an hour or two at the bar I head for the old highway. Far sooner than I’d like, I’m staring at a jagged skyline. The city steams like a technicolor volcano beneath a black shroud of smog. It’s always night in the city.
I take a one last look at the setting sun, slip the border guard a sawbuck, and drive into a maze of endless twilight. Walls of rusted iron and rotting stone rise up to swallow my vehicle.
I take a good slug from the flask of Old Kentucky nestled inside my jacket. I’m sweating and nauseous. That’s the way it always goes when I come back here. I hate the city.
But I’ve got a job to do.
Her name is Dorothy, if you can believe it. I’ll try to keep the Oz jokes to a minimum. Dorothy McIntyre. Nineteen years old. Beautiful girl. Her mother hired me for the usual reason: no other options. Dorothy’s story sounded all too familiar. Ms. McIntyre explained it from behind a tear-stained handkerchief. Dorothy’s father had been out of the picture for some time. Ms. McIntyre didn’t talk about him or what his line of work had been. I could’ve guessed.
“Dorothy was a good girl until she met that…boy,” she said. “They call him Roach. A horrible name for a horrible person.”
“Any idea his real name?” I asked. She didn’t know a thing. They never do.
“First, he got her hooked on drugs…”
“Junk?”
“Yes, I believe that’s what they call it.”
“Anything else?”
“No,” said the mother. “At least I don’t think so.”
“So Dorothy and this Roach never drank?”
“Oh, yes, there was drinking…I thought you meant—”
“It’s all right. Go on, Ms. McIntyre.” I offered her a glass of bourbon, the dregs from my last bottle. To my surprise, she drank it down in a single gulp. Momma had done her share of drinking.
“She started staying out all night with him. Coming home a mess. A few days into it I caught him in her room. They were doing drugs. Junk. Dropping it into their eyes. I remember the veins on my daughter’s arms pulsing and throbbing. Her eyes rolled back in her head, she barked like a dog… I thought she would die right there. I drove that boy out of the house with this…”