“It appears you are late for our appointment,” declared Lovecraft. “And it is no laughing matter for a writer to be without a reliable pen.”
“Wouldn’t know about that, HP. I’m a confirmed typewriter myself.” Howard scooted into the seat opposite and pointed out the window, where Lovecraft could see the Chevy looking somehow refreshed—though he knew nothing had been done to improve its outward appearance.
“I don’t know how anyone can compose on those loathsome clattering machines. To my dying day, longhand will always be my preferred method.” Lovecraft lifted his pen again, then decided against another futile attempt and let it drop to the table with a clatter.
Howard smiled, reached into his pants pocket, and pulled out a small gift-wrapped package, which he placed ceremoniously on the table. “In that case, HP, happy forty-fifth birthday, ya old coot!”
Lovecraft was visibly stunned, but he quickly resumed his usual aloofness. “So,” he said, “this is the reason for the painfully transparent subterfuge this afternoon.”
“Yep.”
Lovecraft picked up the thin package and turned it back and forth in his hand. “I did not even recall it was my birthday until I opened up my journal a few minutes ago.”
“Go ahead and see what’s inside already!”
Lovecraft carefully unwrapped the paper and opened the box. It was a state-of-the-art black fountain pen monogrammed in silver with the initials “HPL” on its shaft. He turned the black pen in his fingers, feeling its balance, watching the light glint off its glossy black finish, and he felt his throat go tight. It took a great effort to conceal the fact that his eyes were on the verge of tearing, and it was a moment before he was finally able to summon words to his lips. “This is most… fortuitous,” he said, “…particularly in light of the fact that I was about to discard this… poor excuse of a writing tool.”
Howard smiled at his friend’s struggle to find the right words. He knew he’d succeeded with the gift and didn’t mind the palpable awkwardness that lasted the next few moments.
Finally, Lovecraft rose. “Bob, I was about to go to the Western Union office next door to send Klarkash-Ton a telegram to let him know when we expect to arrive. I shall return momentarily.”
“Good idea.” Howard buried his face in the menu in front of him. “I’ll go ahead and order for the both of us while you’re gone. What’d ya want?”
“Actually, I was just going to have a bowl of vanilla ice cream.”
“Go on, I’ll take care of it.”
Lovecraft stood momentarily with his new pen in one hand and his old pen in the other. As he left, the turned back to Howard.
“Oh, Bob.”
Howard looked up. “Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
Howard said nothing. He smiled and returned to the menu.
Outside the restaurant, Lovecraft held his old pen the way he might have held a dagger. He looked up at the ominous banks of dark clouds, the distant flashes of lightning. “It is… finished,” he declared, and he did something so uncharacteristic he surprised himself. He flung the old pen as hard as he could into the night, and felt great relief tinged with foreboding when he heard its distant clatter. It reminded him of how he would drop pebbles into the well when he was a boy, how that hollow, wet echo would haunt him afterward.
THE DISCARDED PEN lay on the pavement not far from the gutter. From around the corner, at the end of the block, a flat black sedan approached, gliding quietly over the dark tarmac. Through the windshield, on the driver’s side, one could see the silhouette of a man-so much a silhouette, in fact, that it seemed to be cut from black paper. In the passenger seat the other man seemed to be having some sort of seizure. His head and neck jittered as if the car were rattling over a cobblestone street, and he made clawing gestures with his thin, black fingers, making them appear even more slender. There was no noise from the car, but what happened next should have sounded like an explosion or the shattering of glass; the man’s figure scattered into a million pieces and then solidified again, with an unbelievable suddenness, into the form of a gargoyle like creature whose black wings were so wide they seemed to fill the interior of the car. The driver continued, nonchalantly, and the car stopped, without a sound, its front left tire exactly parallel to the pen. The driver’s side door of the car seemed’ to slide open-though by all rights it should have swung open-and from the shadow inside emerged another shadow, the tendril of a shadow, and it quietly looped itself, tentacle-like, around the shaft of the pen. And though the shadow did not move in any way, it seemed to leech away at the light that illuminated the writing instrument, turning it dim, and then dark, and then into nothing.
LOVECRAFT STEPPED INTO the Western Union office and paused before he approached the counter. Seeing his confusion, the clerk pointed soundlessly to a stack of forms on a shelf along the far wall; he made writing gestures, indicating that Lovecraft should fill one out.
“Thank you.” Lovecraft produced his new pen and began filling out one of the forms, relishing the texture of the point against the paper. It must have been an expensive pen, because it moved smoothly, without a scratch, across the cheap paper fibers. He filled out one form, then tore it neatly in two and wrote the same thing on a fresh one, just to practice his penmanship. When he slid the finished telegram across the counter to the clerk, the young man merely glanced at it out of the corner of his eye.
“Probl’y won’t get it till tomorrow dusk.”
“That’s an awfully long time, isn’t it, old Chap?”,
The clerk made a dismissive gesture, tossing his head. Lovecraft’ noticed what was preoccupying all his attention: he was practicing one-handed cuts on a fresh deck of cards.
“Well then, how much will it be?” asked Lovecraft.
The clerk shuffled the deck, making a crisp fluttering noise, and he flipped over the first three cards to indicate the amount. A veritable cardsharp.
Lovecraft frowned as he drew some coins from his breast pocket to pay. When he opened his palm, his eyes locked on to the image of the Indian head on a nickel. A single feather, pointed forward; an angular, aquiline profile. Aquiline-that was to be eaglelike, and the coin next to it was a quarter, tails up to reveal the eagle with its wings spread wide. Spread eagle. Lovecraft blinked, as if to clear his vision, but then suddenly he was jolted as if he had been struck in the face.
The first image was simply the face of the old shaman framed in firelight. It was comforting, like the face of his dear grandfather Whipple Phillips. Imanito wore a serious but tranquil expression, as if he were thinking of something dire and yet remaining calm. The fire behind him flickered, and then it suddenly all surged in one direction and Lovecraft heard a voice-not Imanito’s voice, but also somehow certainly his: “Red horse woman is in danger. Go to her.” Lovecraft felt his eyes tremble in their sockets. The image went black, and then with every twitch of his eyes the same thing flashed again and again: Imanito’s face disintegrating, turning, in jagged steps, into the black silhouette of the Night Gaunt from his childhood nightmares. Lovecraft shuddered and lurched back in the face of his childhood terror. Involuntarily, he tore at the air in front of his face and turned his head to the side, craning his neck so suddenly he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head.
“Hey, Mister, you okay?”