Quiet Haunts and Other Stories Read online

The Children are Our Future

  Mr. Spain leaned forward in a friendly manner. He excelled at doing things in a friendly manner. After twelve years as the psychiatric councilor at Oak Ridge Middle School, he could talk in a friendly manner, gesture in a friendly manner, and even call security in a friendly manner. Right now, he tried to smile in a friendly manner, but it was hard. These kids got uglier every year.

  “Now, Becky,” he said in as friendly a manner as he could manage. “Lots of young people have trouble adjusting to the new environment when they get to middle school...” He let his voice trail off, hoping Becky would take the cue.

  She didn’t. The sixth grader slumped in the chair swinging her feet, watching him with bulgy eyes that didn’t line up right.

  Forcing another smile, Mr. Spain went on. “Sometimes it makes them angry, or maybe sad, that other people seem to be getting along better. And they vent all those bad feelings in different ways. For example, they may disrupt class or do things just to get attention. Or maybe they start hanging with a group of friends that, well, might not be the best people to hang with.”

  “They’re not my friends,” Becky said.

  “Well, I’m not talking about you specifically. I’m just talking about what lots of peop–”

  “Yes you are, and they’re not my friends.”

  He mentally backtracked, searching for another route. “Well . . . If they’re not your friends, who are they?”

  “They’re my acolytes.”

  Mr. Spain opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. He closed it and stared at the girl for a few seconds. Then he opened it to try again. Then closed it. Finally, he managed, “I’m sorry?”

  “They’re my acolytes.”

  “Oh . . . Kay.” Mr. Spain retreated into the manila folder on his desk: Becky’s permanent record. He thumbed through the pages, nodding occasionally as if her vaccination record held the answers.

  He could have gone into private practice. He could have had an office downtown, helping bored housewives deal with their yuppie non-problems. But no, he’d wanted to be down in the trenches. He’d wanted to roll up his sleeves and make a difference.

  He hid in the folder for as long as he could, clinging to the vague hope that Becky would just go away. She refused. Mr. Spain could feel her glaring a hole through his bald spot. After a minute, he looked back up, leaning forward in a friendly manner. “Now, Becky, lots of young people have trouble adjusting to the new environment when they get–”

  “You already said that part.”

  “Oh, yeah, well, what I’m getting at is that sometimes they make up stories to make their lives seem better and more exciting. And there’s nothing wrong with that, nothing at all, but it’s important to know what’s real and what’s make-believe. Understand?”

  Becky didn’t answer. Her face was blank, her mouth was a thin crooked line. Her cheeks puffed out as a small, croaking burp escaped.

  Mr. Spain burrowed back into the folder on his desk. He couldn’t concentrate while looking at her. She was so weird, it messed with his head. Pulling himself together, he skimmed the notes from the councilor at Becky’s elementary school, looking for something solid to hold onto.

  “Your mother has had some emotional problems, hasn’t she?”

  “She’s deranged. Every night she tears at her belly, screaming into the darkness, cursing the day I was born.”

  “I see.” Still no handhold. He kept skimming. After awhile the councilor had stopped writing notes, filling page after page with sketches of burning eyes and bleeding stars. On the last page, there was one more sentence. It was written backwards, and Mr. Spain furrowed his brow trying to read it. “And your dad’s name is Cth . . . Cth . . .”

  “Cthulhu,” Becky said.

  “Coo-thoo-loo,” Mr. Spain parroted. “Is that his first name or last?”

  “It’s the name whispered in the stygian shadows. It’s the name that fills brave men with horror and gibbering, animal madness. It’s the name of the Great Old One, the Eater of Dreams, the Star-Born Reaver of the Unworthy.”

  Mr. Spain nodded. “So, are you telling me your dad can be get angry, Becky?”

  The girl snorted. “He’s a being of unspeakable terror and beauty. With a wave of his hand, he has swept mighty races into oblivion. Soon he will reclaim the Earth, and every man, woman, and child will cower under his reign.”

  “I see . . . And is he ever mean to you?”

  “No. I’m one of his seed. When the new age comes, I’ll dance by his side to the screams of the doomed.”

  Mr. Spain nodded. In the margins of her file, he wrote, Idealizes strong male role-model?, then scribbled through the question mark. “Well, okay. But are you sure he’s never yelled at you, or maybe hit you? I promise it’s okay to tell me, Becky.”

  Becky shook her head. “Right now, he’s mostly dead.”

  “Mostly dead?”

  “Dead but dreaming upon his throne in R’lyeh.”

  The gears in Mr. Spain’s head freewheeled. “So . . . He lives in North Carolina?”

  Becky rolled her eyes. “Not Raleigh. R’lyeh. The immortal city of the star-spawn, its verdigris-shaded spires lost beneath the waves eons ago.”

  Mr. Spain studied her, then slowly dropped his face into his hands. Alone in the dark there, he imagined the downtown office he could have had–the sunny waiting room, the calming beige and blue decor and maybe classical music playing softly.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  He looked up and smiled (in a friendly manner.) “Well, it’s pretty hard to swallow. What I mean is, sometimes students come see me, and maybe they’ve been treated badly by other people, so they make up stories to try and make themselves feel better. Like, one girl may tell her friends that her mom is a famous super model. Another may tell people her dad is a, um . . .”

  “Dread being of unimaginable age and power with nought but contempt for the whole of human civilization?” she offered.

  “Exactly. And maybe after telling people the same story over and over, they start believing it themselves. Now, doesn’t that sound just a little familiar, Becky?”

  “Cthulhu is my dad,” she said, knotting her arms across her chest. “And nobody is ever mean to me. The passing of my shadow make them quake with fear.”

  “Uh-huh, but maybe there was somebody who didn’t quake? Somebody who was mean despite all that?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, Becky. But I just want you to to know that–”

  “Stupid Veronica Woodham called me ‘fish-face’ at lunch last week, and all her stupid friends laughed, but they just think they’re so great because they went to see the Jonas Brothers last month, and Veronica’s dad is their lawyer or something, so they got to go backstage, big deal, like I care, plus I heard Heather Lawrence got so nervous she threw up on Nick, and the security guards kicked them out and almost had them arrested because they thought she did it on purpose.”

  “Well, it wasn’t very nice of Veronica and her–”

  “I tried to summon the Hounds of Tindalos to come through the angles of space-time and devour them, but it didn’t work and just made the cafeteria smell like dirty socks. And they all laughed and started yelling, ‘fish-face, fish-face.’”

  “Well, Becky. It wasn’t nice of Veronica and her friends to call you names, but maybe you could have talked to her instead of . . . summoning things. Did you think about that?”

  “Whatever. Stupid Hounds of Tindalos.” She kicked the leg of his desk. “Can I go back to class now?”

  “Actually, Becky, that’s what your teachers wanted me to talk to you about. You see, they think you’re a very exceptional girl. And they want to make sure you’re in a class where you’ll get the sort of attention you deserve.”

  “What? You’re sticking me in special ed?”

  “Now, Becky, I don’t want you to get upset. This is just a place where you’ll get a little extra attention.
And be around kids just as exceptional as yourself and won’t have to worry about what people like Veronica might say. Doesn’t that sound good?”

  “I can’t believe you’re sticking me in special ed,” she huffed.

  He would have had Van Gogh prints on the wall. The ones with sunflowers. And photos of himself on the fishing boat he could never buy on a school counselor’s salary. But no, he wasted every day in a windowless misery box with nine hundred pimple-faced hyenas because he’d wanted to show them all the beauty they possessed inside.

  “Fine, you want to know the truth?” Mr. Spain spoke through grinding teeth. “Yes. We’re sticking you in special ed. Know why? Because you’re creepy. You look creepy, you say creepy things, and you creep everybody out, including me. There. Happy? You’re a creepy, creepy, very creepy little girl, and you’re going to special ed, and if you can’t play nice with the other short-bus baboons, we’ll find an even deeper hole to bury you in, got it? Now get your stuff, get up, and let’s go.”

  Becky stood up, grabbing her backpack and slinging one strap over her shoulder. Ignoring her scowl, Mr. Spain prodded her out of his office. Classes were still in, and their footsteps echoed through the empty halls.

  “You know what your problem is?” Mr. Spain hissed as they walked. He should have kept quiet and smiling out here, but it felt so good to finally tell off one of these little beasts. “Books. Most kids spend every waking moment sitting in front of the TV. Sure, they’re all turning into diabetic sex-maniacs, but at least they’re all turning into the same thing. But kids like you, oh no, nobody ever knows what you’re going to come up with. Had an eighth grader in last week. He’d just read On the Road and wanted to travel across America. Kid’s afraid of spiders for Christ’s sake, and now he wants to hitchhike to San Francisco.”

  They approached the last door at the end of the hall. Grabbing the knob, Mr. Spain said, “Take some advice, Becky. Watch Jersey Shore. Watch lots of it. It’ll be good for you.”

  A bustling, happy pandemonium filled the classroom. The little tater-heads sat around activity tables with scissors, glue sticks, and salt shakers full of glitter. Scraps of yellow construction paper fell ankle-deep on the floor. Seeing them all together, Mr. Spain wondered if something was wrong with the city’s water supply. Every one of them was funny looking, with too-wide mouths and pale, greenish skin. He spotted the seventh grader the faculty had named Catfish Boy for the thin quivering tentacles trailing down from his upper lip.

  They were very intent on whatever the hell it was they were doing, decorating paper stars with magic markers and plastic googly eyes, then pinning them up on the bulletin board. The special ed teacher stood nearby making sure nobody swallowed a thumbtack. When they came in, he walked over. He looked pretty special himself, rail-thin, with slicked-back hair and a vulture-beak nose.

  Mr. Spain put his friendly smile back on. “Becky, this is Mr.–”

  “Lovecraft?” she murmured.

  “That’s right.” The teacher grinned, holding out his hand. “And you’re Becky. How do you do?”

  She pumped his arm up and down. “I . . . I’m a fan.”

  “Me too.” He gave her a wink. “I heard what you tried to do in the cafeteria.”

  “Yeah, didn’t work though.”

  “Bet it was a pronunciation problem. That Tindalosi dialect is tricky. We’ll work on it.”

  “Awesome.”

  They just stood there, smiling at each other like idiots.

  “Yes, well,” Mr. Spain finally interrupted. “Looks like you’ve got quite a project going on here.”

  “Oh, yes. Today we’re studying astronomy.” Mr. Lovecraft waved a bird-boned hand toward the bulletin board. “Want to help us, Becky? The stars have to be just right.” He led her over to the activity tables. As Mr. Spain started to leave, Becky glanced at him over her shoulder.

  “That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange–”

  Mr. Spain pulled the door shut, cutting her off mid-sentence. Nothing she had to say could possibly be worth listening to. He was just glad she was somebody else’s problem now.