The Dunwich Romance (3 page)

It was in a place well behind her that she put the unsettling thoughts, to enjoy this moment of comfort. The rent in her gown betrayed a breast, and when she glanced errantly up, she captured the giant’s big, dark, and somehow sensitive eyes seeming to marvel upon its shape, but then they flicked away. It was an ordinary thing for men to look approvingly at Sary’s body, a gesture which she, in secret, loathed, for such glances reminded her of her father; now, however?

The notion of this unusual man’s appraisal...charmed her.

From the first, a shyness, a
tongue-tiedness,
was intimated—a
gentleness,
even, in spite of the potential terror that his unnaturally overgrown physique commanded. Yet, the query whirred at the most rearward portion of her cognizance: what might the day’s
remainder
bring?

“Haow silly’a me!” she chirped. “Hope ya dun’t think me rude. Yew gone ta all’a that trouble helpin’ me and heer I am not even tellin’ ya my name! It’s Sary!”

His eyes seemed to float all about her. “Ee-yuh, I know it.”

“Yew dew?”

“Wal, sure. I seen ye heer’n thar.”

“Whar?”

The man shrugged, now maintaining a forward gaze. “See ye strollin’ past Sawyer’s cow field on occasion, and Ten Acre Meadows, and comin’ out the old covered bridge a number’a times when I be up in the hills, the bridge that branch off the Aylesbury Pike.” He loped on, the large boots crunching down knee-high grass. “Maybe just a week past, I seen Doc Houghton droppin’ ye off at Dean’s Corners after givin’ yew a ride in his fancy motor.”

“Oh, yeah, Doc Houghton. He gimme a ride ever so often,” Sary acknowledged, and to refer to his motor-car as “fancy” was no magnification of the truth; a
Duesenberg,
he’d called it. It was Sary’s understanding that Dr. Houghton enjoyed some success in his trade, more so than one would expect of a simple country physician. Still, rumors circulated that the good doctor supplemented his income handsomely by, one, foreshortening the lives of the elderly at the financial behest of relatives in wait of inheritance and, two, the drastically illegal termination of pregnancies. And while she did acknowledge that the doctor had given her much-needed rides in his exorbitant motor, she did
not
acknowledge that, with some frequency—and for a princely two dollars, no less—he bid her to his home in Aylesbury for the expressed purpose of masturbating as he half-stood on his head, while Sary slid a disturbingly stout mattock handle in and out of his anus and smacked his testicles with her opened palm. The sought-after climax involved the redeposition of his semen from his penis to his mouth.

No. Sary did not acknowledge
that.

“I’ve know him for a spell,” was all she said in augmentation.

“So I figgered,” said her carrier next, “and since I knowed him myself on account ‘twas him who come to the haouse when my grandsire was a-dyin’, I didn’t see no harm in my askin’ him what it ‘tis you’re called, so’s he tolt me. He tolt me ‘Sary.’ Oh, and I seen ye onct, tew, last yeer, when I was comin’ daown off’a Sentinel Hill. You were swimmin’ in the lily pond ‘tween the Corey’s’n the ole mill ruins.”

“Yeah. I warsh there when I can, when it en’t tew cold...”

“But it weren’t on purpose, mind ye,” the man seemed to add with some haste. “I can’t have ye thinkin’ I were watchin’ yew with any bad intentfulness. Jess happened ta see ye when I was comin’ daown.”

The implication made her smile, and she actually touched his hand. “That’s okay. Lotta fellas seen me with nothin’ on. But I can tell, yew wouldn’t watch me on purpose, not all sneaky like.”

The man, oddly, seemed to gulp. “Hard not tew, I’ll-I’ll admit ta ye, though, ‘cos I can’t lie to good folks. Naow, bad folks, wal, I reckon it en’t no transgression ta lie ta
them
...”

Sary peered at the words. “What’cha mean by
that?
”

“Wal, bad folks, see, they lie ta me withaout thinkin’, so’s it’s only fittin’—”

“No, no,” came her interruption. “I lie tew bad folks ever chance I get. But what’cha mean by haow it’s hard not tew? Hard not tew
what?
”

Several more sturdy lopes of contemplative silence. Was it the heat of the day that broke beads of perspiration out on his forehead? “Hard
not
ta look at a gull naked when she be beautiful as ye.”

Sary lay numb in her hammock of strong forearms. Scarcely in her entire life had she been complimented, save for infrequent endorsements of “customers” with regard to the skillfulness and even ingeniousness she demonstrated via certain of her carnal modus. One time Elmer Frye retailed to her: “Stew Face, yew could coax a nut aout a dead man’s dick, yew could”; once, also, “En’t nevuh cum so fine in all’a my life as I jess did naow, gull. If yew’re face warn’t so Gawd-damn
awful
on the eye, why, I’d wring my flop-tit wife’s fat neck’n marry
yew!
” So much for the compliments directed toward “Stew Face.” This man seemed much nicer, however, which he’d made evident thus far, not to mention some subjective component about his tenue that she ascertained via her intuitions. Finally came her reply: “Oh, yeah, I know fellas find it pleasin’ to look at my body withaout no clothes on. Jess not my face.”

The man halted as if bidden by an inner quandary; he looked at her with directness, in her face. “En’t jess ye’re body I’m talkin’ abaount, no. Ye’re face, tew.
All’
a ye.”

Sary felt a tempest in her head. What benefit could there be in his making false statements to her? What strategy could exist through inauthentic compliments to potentially make her compliant for sex, when that she’d already offered?
This fella could’a fucked the tar aout’a me whethers I fancied it or not,
she reminded herself. What he’d just communicated comprised, indeed, the kindest words ever spoken to her. “Ee-yuh.” Again, he redirected his gaze ahead. He whispered, “Ye’re jess...so...beautiful...,” and then recommenced in his steady, long-strided lope across the field.

A mile must’ve passed behind them in which she rode in silence, antsy, confused. Sary, in fact, felt as though she understood nothing at this moment, save for one verity. Being in his arms, feeling shielded from all harm, furnished to her an emotion that scarcely visited her bleak existence: happiness.

A second mile must’ve lapsed when she thought to ask, “Hey! I’se forgot! What’s
yew’re
name?”

“Wilbur,” the deep, warbling voice informed her. “Wilbur Whateley.”

Three

July 28, 1928

My fear now iz it will get too big to keep contained by time Equinox comes round. Sinse I fail at Miskatonic, I had no choice but to make the trip to Cambridge and ast to copy their version of p. 751 of the Latin. But they treat me the same, and I calculate it was Armitage who told em to do just that. May Yog-Sothoth blast that man and throw his body evurlasting into the Basin of the Shoggoths. What difference it make to Armitage? Just another fool like the others, cant understand bout someone who look and think different. But now I keep hearin my
grandsire’s words—what he last say to me that night just bfore the Whippoorwills try and get him, “More space, Willy!” he say a-gaspin, “more space soon! Yew grow—an’ THAT grows faster.” Well, I done what he told me...but that One inside just keep growing. Got to keep it qwelled, keep its size down so it dont bust quarters afore the time. Have been feeding it smaller varmints, no more of Sawyer’s Alderney cows.

Getting nervous. I maye have thougt out things improper. If only Grandfather hadnt up and die.

It all be in the house now, whole house, like Grandfather want. Was easy tearing out the ceiling and planking all the windows and doors. I got the old tore out wood in a big pile in back but I know the town folk are talkin bout it. Some of them creep up at night, they do, lookin, snoopin. I live in the sheds now, so Im sure they see that. It can only be the most stalwurt of em, though, for the thing’s drippings have gotten more volumous, raising more and more a its smell. Somtimes when I see these folks and their snoopin, I’ll read one of the Alko Hexes that putts on em the burdin of nawwzeeating dreams, or give em blood in their pee and cum.

I pray ta Yog-Sothoth on High fer His wisdom. I hope He help me do it all right at the right time.

Best thing that happen today was I finally meet her, Sary. Was the fattest a the Hutchins boys trine to hurt her and fuck her aginst her will. Made her take his dog’s dick inner mouth an it made me so mad. Wanted to kill that boy butt thouht it best to bust up his nuts and give him pain like he never know. Kilt the dog, shot it. Remind me when I kild the Hutchins colly Jack back in 1916. Elam Hutchins promise ta kill me fer it but a while laytur I see him rimmin one of his wells so I walk up till I’m standin over 10 cubits off and he starts a-railin at me and shakin his fist so I jest smyle and recite one of the Ambulation Spells from p. 124 of Remigius Secret Chapter, and I red it in the Eltdown Langwidge, so it work extra good, just like Grandfather say. Elam fall right into that wellhole, he did. He still alive today but lives in one of them chairs with wheels. I no he wont do nuthing bout me nooterin his boy, for feer of what I’d do ta his hole family.

But Sary. She sleepin on my cot jess behind me, wearin my Mother’s black dress. I sit heer writing an keep lookin back at her laying so beautiful like that. Erlier while she be asleep I went out an bring back the dog carcass n feed it to that One inside. But before I come back in the toolhouse ta write this I got thinkin about Sary and got all hot till I cudn’t stand it any mor so I had to make my seed come out with my hand. Doin that a lot sincce that first time I see her at the pond. Cant help it.

Sary’s so beautiful. She all low feeling bout how her face look but I cant calclate what she meens. It’s ALL uv her that’s beautiful, even her voyce, even her name. She make all that’s round her beautiful jest by standing theer. Way I feel about her is sumpthin I never felt before, ever.

So far nothin bad happen. Thoght she wudn’t want to come back hear cuzza me but that didnt happen, then I think shee’d wanna leave right off on account of the powerful smell of that One’s drippings. I mention it—the smell, nott that One insyde—but—praise the name of Him Who Is Not To Be Named—Sary tell that becuz of a ailmint when she was a tot, she got no sense a smell at all! I know that Yog-Sothoth is blessin me.

Leest for today, I guess. Must stay humble an keeep wurthy. What I want more then anything is ta open the Gate proper for Yog-Sothoth, but the onlee thing I want below that is for Sary ta have good feelings about me. I’d give anything for her to feel about me what I feel thinkin bout her. I could do it with one of the spells in the Von Prinn but that woudn’t bee honest. She a good person in a whole range of bad folks. Would be false for me to MAKE her have a fancy for me cuzza a spell.

But when we’d got bak, I fed her, fixt her tore gown, then we talkt some which was nice. Got distrakted, though, bein’ so close ta her after pinin so long. She’s so nice, so wunderfull.

She’s still now. I jess look at her and smile.

Got that hot sence agin tingling below. I’ll hafta go out and beat off myself again. When I do it while thinkin about her, it feel so mutch better, and all I can ponder is what it ud feel like if SHE made it come out. Hard too even reckon it.

But thatll not happen. Got to be reelistik. Got past the smell part but theres still ME. I know I don’t look like NUTHIN like men hereabouts under my garments. If Sary ever wan ta do it with me, what ud she think lookin at my body with no clothes on? She’d likely run out skreemin.

In the name uv the Shining Trapezohedron! Everything bout Sary, not just her bodee but all of her, when I think of it, I get this stranje, warm, confoundin feelin in the place where I gess my hart is.

Pleese, Yog-Sothoth. Hear my prayer.

Four

Never before had Sary laid eyes upon this particular house, which was reasonable inasmuch as the manner in which it seemed to hide furtively behind the hill. Betraying not even an inkling of fatigue, Wilbur had transported her in his arms a considerable distance until he’d turned into the wooded fringe that half-circumscribed the Whateley property. The house had quite oddly been built right into the weedy, rock-knobbed hill itself, nearly as though the hill were attempting to consume it. Ramshackle barns, most with concaved roofs, sat greyly and decrepitly farther out, while closer stood several aged but sturdy sheds, one of which released a plume of sooty smoke—Sary estimated this to be the previously remarked upon smokehouse.

“Heer it ‘tis,” said her tireless bearer. “Property been in the family for couple’a centuries. See, thar be lots’a Whateleys raound heer but the fust, comin’ direct from Salem, built
this
haouse.”