"Black Man With A Horn"

 by T.E.D. Klein  

originally published New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Arkham House, 1980

Our narrator (in keeping with Lovecraftian tradition, he is yet another Unnamed Narrator) is man in his late 70's, a native New Yorker now whiling away his last days in his late sister's Florida bungalow.  He's a once-respected now nearly forgotten horror story author, and was a personal friend of HPL himself.

On a plane flight some time earlier, UN encountered a strange, garrulous fellow named Mortimer who's wearing an obviously phony beard and says he's on the run from enemies.  Formerly a missionary in Malaysia, he apparently ran afoul of the "chauchaus" - a degenerate inland tribe, who kidnapped and killed his colleague ("they grew something in him").  UN doesn't take the fellow very seriously, but later he surreptitiously sees Mortimer freak at the sight of a John Coltrane album cover depicting Coltrane blowing his horn, silhouetted against a tropical sun.

Sometime later, taking his grand-nephew on a tour of the NYC Natural History Museum, he spots a ceremonial robe from Malaysia depicting several human figures running, apparently in terror, from a gigantic figure that seems to be blowing a horn.  The image reminds him of the album cover, and of Mortimer's reaction to it.  More digging reveals that this figure is "Shoo Goron" or "Shugoran", a herald of death or disaster.  Or perhaps a figure of death itself.

He learns that Mortimer, who had contact with UN's sister, has disappeared in Miami, and Malaysian man is sought for questioning.  There is a picture in the paper, and UN recognizes him as a man he saw on the same flight on which he met Mortimer.  The Malaysian fellow had a package of what UN took to be Asian food, which dribbled glop and produced a "treacly" smell which UN also detected at the museum.  UN goes to Miami to visit his sister and continues his investigations.  At the hotel where the mysterious Malaysian stays, he learns that the mystery man apparently had a small black child staying with him.  A young restaurant worked is found dead, his lungs inexplicably drawn up into his throat and mouth.

UN returns to NYC.  His sister moves inland from her Miami home after the place is vandalized, long claw-like marks running from roof to ground.  She passes not too long after.  UN goes to her place but can't bring himself to move on.  There are a spate of burglaries in the neighborhood.  One night a woman reports seeing a huge black man wearing scuba gear peering in her window.  Tracks like the marks of scuba flippers are found outside her home.  UN knows that this entity is coming for him.  And getting closer...

Oh man is this a great horror story.  Words fail me.  

In the classic HPL tradition, Klein builds the tale up, fact by fact, detail by detail, incident by incident.  Things that at first seem inconsequential or even amusing (the first part of the story - after the doomy intro - which is doomy but not silly - is lighthearted [and slightly gross]) soon becomes very consequential, and disturbing.   The most chilling moment, for me, comes when UN reads the transcript of a lost documentary on Malaysia, wherein a boy who has just drawn Shugoran becomes terrified even talking about it.  The concept so often repeated in the Mythos: it's dangerous to even know about it. 

Even though it has (yet another) UN, the character Klein draws here (expertly) is a real character.  Sad, lonely, and yet intelligent and sympathetic.  A synopsis does not do justice to Our Narrator (supposedly based on Frank Belknap Long).  You can see even yourself drawn into this web of darkness, seemingly instigated by nothing more than a chance encounter on a plane.  

And therein lies the saddest, and most unsettling part.  It was, seemingly, only a chance encounter on a plane.  But Our Narrator, like Mortimer, simply comes to Know Too Much.  Too much for the very real threats he faces to let him live.  These Tcho Tcho's - not the pulpy pygmies of Derleth's tales, but rather a genuinely sinister tribal cult, are clearly very smart, and very skilled, stalkers.  Incidentally - has anyone figured out why the Chaosium folks consider Shugoran to be an avatar of Nyarlathotep?  I see no clue to such a conclusion in the tale.

Another fine touch is the other characters attempts to rationalize the bizarre things they encounter.  We know (or soon realize) that Mortimer is no crank, that the winged hide hanging on the wall is no catfish,  most of all that the figure seen outside the window is not a tall black man in a scuba outfit.