New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (37 page)

June cried out. She'd stumbled; he heard her fall, and the thud of her head against something: then silence. The figure was lumbering towards him, its bulk quaking. For a moment he was sure that it intended to embrace him. But it had reached a pit, almost concealed by undergrowth. It slid into the earth, like slow jelly. The undergrowth sprang back rustling.

He stood gazing at June, who was still unconscious. He knew what he would tell her'. she had had a bad LSD experience, that had been what she'd seen. LSD reminded him of something. Slowly he began to smile.

He went to the pit and peered down. Faint sluggish muddy sounds retreated deep into the earth.

He knew he wouldn't see his parents for a long time. He touched his pocket, where the envelope waited. That would contain his father's explanation of their disappearance, which he could show to people, to June.

Moonlight and shadows raced nervously over the pit. As he stared at the dark mouth he felt full of awe, yet calm. Now he must wait until it was time to come back here, to go into the earth and join the others. He remembered that now; he had always known, deep in himself, that this was home. One day he and June would return. He gazed at her unconscious body, smiling. Perhaps she had been right; they might take LSD together, when it was time. It might help them to become one.

Notes on Contributors

A. A. ATTANASIO was born in Newark, New Jersey, but has travelled widely and now resides in Hawaii. The author initially encountered H. P. Lovecraft in his seventh-grade literature class: The Colour Out of Space disguised beneath a jacket for Sir Walter Scott. Attanasio's first science fiction novel, Radix, was published by William Morrow and Company.

RAMSEY CAMPBELL was born in Liverpool, which has provided a setting for many of his stories. Since 1973 he has been a full-time writer and also reviews films for BBC Radio Merseyside. Such spare time as he has is occupied by listening to music from Bach to Tippett, reading far less than he would like, relaxing with jigsaws, and watching wrestling matches. His collections include The Inhabitant of the Lake, Demons by Daylight, and The Height of the Scream, and his most recent novels are Obsession and The Hungry Moon. One of his ambitions is to write a single successful Lovecraftian story.

BASIL COPPER is one of the most prolific writers in this field. For thirty years he was a journalist, and ultimately editor of a Kent newspaper, but he has been a professional author since 1970. Not all of his nearly sixty books repose within the domain of the macabre, but those which do include such renowned collections as From Evil' s Pillow, And Afterward, the Dark, When Footsteps Echo, and Voices of Doom; the Gothic thriller Necropolis; and a science fiction novel, The Great White Space. More recently Copper has donned deerstalker and inverness to create a new series of adventures featuring the London detective Solar Pons.

DAVID DRAKE lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he is assistant town attorney.

Previously he was at~ached as interrogator to the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam, and his stories based on that experience have appeared in Analog, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Galaxy. Drake is the author of a fantasy novel, The Dragon Lord, and of the science fiction collection Hammer's Slammers.

STEPHEN KING is the most phenomenally successful horror writer of his generation, whose novels such as Carrie, The Shining, 'Salem's Lot, and The Stand have become contemporary American classics of the genre. King has long been an admirer of Lovecraft, and his contribution to the present volume was conceived during a period of residency in London where he visited a fellow writer, Peter Straub, in Crouch End: an innocent beginning for a nightmarish story. Other books by this author include the novels Firestarter, Pet Semetary and Misery, and a nonfiction study, Stephen King's Danse Macabre.

T. E. D. KLEIN lives in New York City in an apartment on the West Side, surrounded by fantasy books, Hopper paintings, a pet mouse, a preserved tarantula, sculptures, and much else. After receiving degrees from Brown and Columbia Universities, he spent a year teaching high school in Maine and three years working in the Paramount Pictures story department. He has written articles for the New York Times, and his fiction has appeared in various anthologies, including the Years Best Horror series.

FRANK BELKNAP LONG is the only member of the original Lovecraft Circle to be represented in this anthology. His affectionate and informative memoir of those days, HPL: Dreamer on the Nightside, is available from Arkham House, which also has published two collections of his weird tales, The Hounds of Tindalos and The Rim of the Unknown, his short Mythos novel The Horror from the Hills, and a volume of poetry, In Mayan Splendor. In Dreamer on the Nightside he compares his fiction with Lovecraft's: 'My own stories followed a somewhat different pattern in their approach to the macabre and were less cosmic.' But Lovecraft approved of his work and undoubtedly would have enjoyed the present nostalgic story, 'Dark Awakening.'

H. P. LOVECRAFT is the most influential American author of weird fiction in this century. Among the many writers who acknowledge his influences are Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, August Derleth, Henry Kuttner, Fritz Leiber, and Colin Wilson, nor should one forget the Illuminatus! trilogy or the Lovecraftian jokes of Gahan Wilson. His collected fiction, and five volumes of his letters, are obtainable from Arkham House (USA).

BRIAN LUMLEY was born in Horden, a colliery village in County Durham on the northeast coast of England, and served as a sergeant in the British Royal Military Police. The author loves 'Robert E. Howard, Lovecraft, budgies, his wife, three kids, kite-soaring, his typewriter, fish and chips, and brandy.' His most recent novel is the horror epic Necroscope II: Wamphyri!

MARTIN S. WARNES was born in Bradford, England, where he works in the textile industry. 'The Black Tome of Alsophocus' is a posthumous completion of the 1934 Lovecraftian fragment The Book,' previously published in Dagon and Other Macabre Tales.

RETURN TO THE CAVES OF ABOMINATION

Mythmaker, visionary, conjuror of nightmare, outsider in his own century, H. P. Lovecraft called a whole universe into being: Great Cthulhu, the blind idiot god Azathoth, the sunken realm of R'lyeh, the infamous Necronomicon-a world peopled with a festering pantheon of creatures who stalked upon the Earth before humanity's spanning...

H. P. LOVECRAFT T.E.D. KLEIN

STEPHEN KING A.A. ATTANASIO

RAMSEY CAMPBELL DAVID DRAKE

FRANKBELKNAPLONG MARTIN S. WARNES

BRIAN LUMLEY BASIL COPPER

In their own startlingly modern interpretations of the Cthulhu Mythos, these contemporary adepts of abomination will guide you to the caves of abject, unrelenting terror, where vast unspeakable presences wait in the clammy darkness. Then they will turn off the lights...

'The writers here have incorporated the Cthulhu elements subtly and skilfully in wellcrafted, powerful tales'

LIBRARY JOURNAL

'A memorable anthology for weird fiction fans'

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

ALSO IN PAPERBACK FROM GRAFTON BOOKS

TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS (edited by August Derleth)

Front cover illustration by Tim White

FICTION/HORROR'

UNITED KING90M œ3.50

NEW ZEALAND $14.95 RRP INC. GST

AUSTRALIA $10.95 (recommended)

ISBN 0-586-20093-2

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