"Strange Eons"

 by Robert Bloch 

originally published Whispers Press, 1978

Albert Keith is having such a weird time.  He finds a dust-covered painting in a cheapjack antiques/junk shop near his SoCal home.  Said painting, even under the dust and grime, is a striking depiction of a canine, clawed horror in the process of eating a dude's head off.  Albert buys it, takes it home, and cleans it up.  When his slightly overbearing pal Waverley sees it, he has an interesting observation: why, it looks exactly like the painting H.P. Lovecraft describes at the end of his story, "Pickman's Model"!  That's not all - there's a signature on the painting - "R. Upton" ... just like the aforementioned tale's subject, Richard Upton Pickman. 

Albert, however, has never even heard of Lovecraft.  Which is a little funky for a dude who collects creepy native art and shrunken heads!  

Waverley gets very curious about the painting, where the junk dealer got it, and what else he might have from that find.  They arrange a rendevous, but when they arrive, they find the junk shop closed.  But the back door is unlocked.  Someone has ransacked the guy's stockroom, and left him dead, his face almost completely gouged away.  Deciding they don't want to talk to the coppers, Waverley and Albert head back to Waverley's place, where Waverley makes the point that the antiques dealer's demise resembles that of a character in Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear".  Hmmm.  What is going on here?  Back at Albert's pad, he finds his house has been broken into and, despite their being many valuables, the only thing taken is the painting.  Something more.  Waverley found a scrap of paper in the shop.  An old yellowed note to someone named "Upton".  Written in Lovecraft's handwriting and bearing his Providence address.

Waverely has learned there was indeed an artist named Richard Upton in Boston in the 20's.  arranges to visit a rare book dealer he knows of in Boston, named Beckman,  and check out the Boston-based warehouse source of the lot that included the painting.  Albert checks into a hotel, and Waverley gives him a stash of books by and about Lovecraft.  Albert digs into them.  That night he dreams about a phone call in which a voice on the other end tells him: "You fool - Beckman is dead."  Only it turns out this is no dream.

He manages to get Waverley on the phone to warn him.  Waverley sounds odd and congested and says he's broken his ankle.  He's on his way back to L.A., and wants Albert to meet him.  He's also sent him an envelope.  Albert's to bring it but not to open it.

Albert turns up and is let in by the hired nurse Waverley mentioned on the phone.  Waverley is bundled up in his study with a cast on his leg, dark glasses, hat, scarf over his face.  He opens the envelope and shows it is a hand-drawn map of some kind, executed by Lovecraft himself.  He explains that he's gotten to the bottom of the thing.  It's all a hoax.  Not unlike the letter Lovecraft once sent to author Robert Bloch, authorizing him to kill HPL in a story, signed by Abdul Alhazred, et al.  Albert isn't buying that - two guys are dead after all!  Seeming to have no other options, Waverley calls for the nurse who enters, holding a gun - and orders him to take the map back from Albert.  At that moment there's a fortuitous earthquake which levels the house - Albert comes to in the rubble, and finds the nurse out of action - for good - and one other thing - Waverley's gone but his hands and face are still sitting in his chair!  Albert hightails it back home through the disaster-ridden city, takes some pain-killers and a drink and contemplates what has happened.  There's obviously some crazy cult afoot!  

As Albert ponders all this, and realizes his own resemblance to one of HPL's typical characters - solitary, scholarly, plenty of time on his hands, heavily interested in spooky weird shit ... 

As he's pondering, he hears on television of a massive undersea quake in the South Pacific, near Tahiti et al.  Oh, and they give the L&L ... which rings a bell.  Looking at the map he got from "Waverley", he notes that its the exact location Lovecraft had marked on the map with an "X" and the word "R'lyeh".

So what does Albert do?

Well, the same thing anyone else would do, right?  Hightails it straight off for Tahiti!

Thanks to the quake, there's only one other passenger on the plane, Major Robert Abbott, late of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers (who sounds like he belongs in a Monty Python sketch - "dear sirs - I object to the content of that last sketch - why very few members of the British Army are miscegnated fish-people!  etc").  Anyway, after a few drinks Albert and Abbott are whooping it up like old buddies and the next thing you know, Albert's talking waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much.  He even asks Abbott is he's read Lovecraft (he hasn't - "is he a friend of yours?") and even gives him a copy of a Lovecraft collection - The Outsider no less!  Which would've fetched at least several hundred clams back in 1978, so that's a pretty nice loan!  Then tells him to get hold of him at his hotel tomorrow once he's read some of it (specifically, "The Call of Cthulhu") ("how do you pronounce that?" declaims Abbott).

The next day Abbott shows up, now dressed in Bermuda shorts, and, rather than asking Albert what kind of a nutcase is he and why's he having him read this loopy pulp sci-fi when he could have been curling up with the latest Destroyer novel - actually completely understands the implications of why Albert's come there (good on him cuz I wasn't entirely sure) and wants to help.  Oh yeah, and he can totally help - getting a boat, depth charges - everything he needs.  Won't be easy but he knows the country, the culture, and has them military connections - just leave it all to him.

Albert, who ain't too-itghtbray, says hooray and goes along with everything.  So the next thing you know they're on a Japanese "fishing" boat with a creepy little crew and a silent, taciturn captain, heading out to X marks the spot.  

And sure enough, there it is, sticking out of the ocean.   The black isle itself, all black rock, weird angles, creepy structures, bad fish smell.  Everyone gets out and heads up to the door, Albert intending to drop some boom-booms in for ol' tentacle face.  But as they get there, Abbott lets slip that he doesn't have the bombs.  Didn't bring them, in fact.  And no it wasn't just a mistake.  Its only then that Albert notices the crewmen are kind of ... fish-looking.  Too late for old Albert - he ends up a Cthooby Snack.

Back in L.A., Albert's ex-wife Kay, a model, gets the news that Albert fell off a Japanese fishing boat in the middle of the ocean while drunk, and drowned.  All of this sounds a bit odd to Kay, being as Albert didn't fish and didn't drink much, but the I.D. is without doubt and sworn to by witnesses (a certain retired British army major and a certain sketchy crew of a certain sketchy Japanese fishing boat), and anyway she inherits his house and his money (did I mention he was independently wealthy?).  Kay makes her way over to Albert's old pad, trying not to dwell too much on his weird fate, which brings up suppressed memories of her seeing a drowned bod dragged up out of the ocean when she was a tot.  While poking around Albert's house and starting to spook herself out, she gets an even bigger spook when someone turns out to be in the house!  Someone being Ben Powers, from Albert's bank, there allegedly doing an inventory for probate purposes.  After some awkward and wary conversation, Kay succumbs to Powers less-than-clear charms (I'd have kicked the sucker out!) and agrees to have dinner with him.  Over dinner he asks if she's ever read H.P. Lovecraft (she's never head of him).  Then drops the subject.

Later that night, Kay talks to the bank rep, Danton Heisinger, who tells her she couldn't have met Ben Powers.  Powers died of a heart attack two days prior. 

Heisinger gets with the police and asks questions, also filling Kay in a bit on Lovecraft and asking what possible connection he might have to Albert.  

Meanwhile, Kay's agent, Max Colbin, dispatches her to a photo shoot at the Starry Wisdom Temple.  She meets with Rev. Nye of the temple, a suave, very dark-skinned Caribbean(?) man who asks that she attend an introductory meeting, if only to understand more of the Temple's beliefs.  She notices a copy of Lovecraft's The Outsider in Nye's office.

Kay attends with her photographer Al Bedard in tow, and finds herself in a lecture which make the Lovecraft Mythos sound like the latest in New Age enlightenment. Prophesying apocalypse and the coming of a new age, Nye produces what appears to be the Shining Trapezohedron (c.f. "The Haunter of the Dark") and Kay finds herself in a semi-hallucinatory state, and sees handicapped people suddenly being healed.  

Next thing you know, Al is waking her up and taking her to the car, complaining about a phony faith-healing and light show.  On their way out, Kay spots the fellow who was posing as Ben Powers in the crowd.

Kay knocks herself out with some sleeping pills and wakes up late.  She decides to call Heisinger, and her agent and tell him she's not doing the photoshoot at the temple. But the line's dead.  Then there's a knock on the door.  It's the phone repair guy - seems the landlady already reported the problem.  Can he come in?

Oops!  When Kay opens the door, it's the Phony Ben Powers.  Who shoves his way in, reaches into his canvas tool bag and pulls out .... a Lovecraft book!  

Which he demands she read.  Now! He briefly explains that he had nothing to do with the real Powers death, but he is the one who cut her phone line.  And his real name's Mike Miller. And he's "not officially" a government agent.  And he'll explain more after she's read the book (which, incidentally, is The Outsider and Others - the first Arkham House book.  Damn!  Copies of that must have been easy to come by back in `78!  Last time I looked it was going for $5,000.  There were shit-tons of Lovecraft paperbacks floating around in the 70's.  How come none of these guys went for those??) - at which time he'll also restore her phone line.  He leaves.  But when she does the obvious thing and tries to flee the apartment, she finds there's a guy with a gun waiting right outside, telling her to get back in and start reading.

So, she sits down and reads a bunch of it.  Most of it, she says later.  Anyway, after several hours Mike shows back up, repairs her phone line, talks to her about the book, explains that Rev. Nye and the Temple are a nutty cult inspired by Lovecraft's fiction, gives one of Bloch's patented lectures on psychology (these are found in nearly every Bloch story, post WWII, and as far as I can tell, all of his novels.  See Psycho for example.  In any case while Bloch clearly had a strong interest in the subject, its clear that by `78 his thinking and knowledge was still firmly stuck in the 1950's), and enlists her aid in helping bust Nye.  They want her to go through with the photo shoot, hoping it will lead them to Nye's HQ.  They'll sub out Al with their own agent, Fred.

So Kay accepts the summons to a place off the Pacific Coast Highway, north of Malibu.  A private museum.  Set high, high on a cliff above a fog-shrouded bay, making Kay think of "The Strange High House in the Mist".  She and Fred are welcomed in the museum by a scruffy young guy (allowing for another Bloch trope - the patented rant against beatniks, hippies, and basically anyone young who subscribed to any sartorial, fashion or popular entertainment not approved of by Bloch, i.e. anything post WWII - see pretty much any story or novel written by him from 1945 on and you'll likely find a rant - jazz, rock, beatniks, hippies - Bloch disdained it all) and led to chamber full of huge statues of the Egyptian gods, and Rev. Nye in full regalia.  So Kay does her posing.  As they pack up to leave, the scruffy guy steps in and shoots Fred (just like the typical rock music fan he is - per Bloch!).  Kay is interrogated by Nye, who basically tells her the Temple is a sham, but the whole Great Old Ones thing is real.  And he has some need of her.  He intends to save her life, so he says.

Nye steps out, Kay clobbers the scruffy guy (who's a wimp and a dumbass on top of being a drug addict and a rock music fan - just like all rock music fans - per Bloch) and manages to escape via a trap door which leads her way, way, way down into a man-made underground cave - where she's attacked by rats! rats!  thouuuuuuuusands of rats! She finds her way into some high-tech cryo chambers where all manner of people, young and old, are preserved in weird cryo tanks.  But she can hear things moving in the halls, coming after her.  Things that flop and croak and howl...  she keeps running down corridors and tunnels, the things in pursuit, until she finally finds her way to the mouth of the tunnel, runs out, falls, and finds herself rescued by Mike, who gets them on a boat, dynamites the tunnels, and takes her to safety.  Where she awakes the next day.  In Washington (that's safety?).

It turns out Mike has now brought Kay into a super-secret, apparently government-run (which government?) operation that is pursuing the same possibilities - i.e. this may be the work of international criminals imitating Lovecraft's fictional ideas, but there are so many correspondences and prophecies coming true that its likely what Lovecraft was writing wasn't entirely fictional.  To that end, they're sending a nuclear-armed sub out to the site where R'lyeh is believed to have risen, to nuke Cthulhu in the event he actually is there (apparently none of them ever read Derleth's "The Black Island").

Kay (whose presence among what's otherwise a mix of apparently scientists, military personnel, et al - some are in suits, some are "hirsute" - Bloch hate-speech for anyone not properly clean-cut in his estimation - is not exactly clear - scientists, military men and ... a model?)  but she's put up "safely" and starts an affair with Mike for good measure.

While Mike goes off to take care of oh-fficial stuff for a couple of days, Kay is left in the "capable" hands of fellow agent Orin Sanderson, a soft-spoken southerner who seems just fine and mostly minds his own business.  The next day, Kay awakes from a disturbingly realistic dream about R'lyeh - and of Cthu's tomb being open - and empty.  Orin takes her via private plane allegedly to the R'lyeh site, telling her the mission has been accomplished.  But along the way, reveals that he is no longer Orin ("the exchange was made while he slept" - referring to the body exchanging process used in "The Thing on the Doorstep").  Kay is taken to Easter Island, where a horde of cultists, and Rev. Nye, enact a ritual that clearly is meant to involve Kay mating with a Great Old One. A tentacled horror is summoned, and Kay passes out as it takes her in its "arms".

25 years later.  An assassination attempt is made against the mayor of Los Angeles by someone likely a member of a terrorist organization called "The Black Brotherhood".  Junior reporter Mark Dickson is there.  After reporting to his editor/producer, he makes his way to visit his foster father, Judson Moybridge.  Their conversation is odd, as Moybridge denies there is such a thing as The Black Brotherhood and demands Mark stop poking into it.

It seems Moybridge wrote a book about the events of 1978, The Fall of Cthulhu, in which he outlined how a cult of crazies exploited fears aroused by a series of quakes and other natural disasters, and the sudden destruction of Easter Island via a nuclear explosion - actually the result of a nuclear test gone wrong - by attempting to link these events to H.P. Lovecraft's fiction.  The disasters soon stopped, the doomsayers were discredited, and Lovecraft's books went out of print and now can't even be found in reference libraries.  

Mark is unsettled by Moybridge's reaction,  He heads off to spend the night with his girlfriend - cue hot sex scene!  But that evening a monster quake arrives.  With the neighborhood literally falling apart, Mark and his GF cut across a cemetery to try to get to safety, but the graveyard is shrouded in fog and they are attacked by ghouls.  Mark loses his Gf - but eventually he does find what's left of her.  He makes his way to Moybridge's house but finds it ransacked, and finds Moyvridge's bod floating in the pool.  There Mark is taken by deep ones.

He awakes in a house in the Santa Cruz mountains, hosted by Nyarlathorep, who exposes Mark to the light of the Shining Trapezohedron as he explains.  

Moybridge's book was a lie.  An attempt to discredit the Lovecraft-was-telling-the-truth crowd and keep the world from discovering that Lovecraft actually was telling the truth.  Cthulhu was on the rise in 1978, and was given a setback by a nuclear blast which also took out Easter Island (oops!).  But you can't keep a good Cthulhu down.  Oh, and Nyarlathotep escaped the blast.  Along with Kay Keither.  Pregnant with the child of a Great Old One. And guess who that child grew up to be....?

And then, the Great Old Ones begin their return...

I've sometimes thought I'd like to write a Cthulhu Mythos novel, using all the tropes (people, places, things) somehow woven into one grand adventure.  Not because I think I'd produce such a great work of art - just that it would be fun to do.

Robert Bloch was a more accomplished writer than I'll ever be.  But I think his motivation here may have been pretty much the same.  Except also that Bloch knew Lovecraft, and in some ways I think this was meant as a loving tribute to his old mentor, as well as a chance to just have fun playing with all the Lovecraft-ian elements (interestingly, Bloch never once invokes his own additions to the Mythos, Ludvig Prinn et al).

The whole book can be taken as a kind of meta-fictional homage a Lovecraft, with deliberate references to "Pickman's Model", "The Lurking Fear", "The Statement of Randolph Carter", "The Whisperer in Darkness", "The Haunter of the Dark", "The Strange High House in the Mist", "The Shunned House", "The Rats in the Walls", "Cool Air", "The Thing on the Doorstep", "The Dunwich Horror", et al.

This is a fun read, but it isn't prime Bloch, which is too bad.  Becuase if it was, it could have been one hell of a ride.  As it is, its still entertaining, with some stumbling along the way.  

The Lovecraft story references start out clever but get heavy-handed, perhaps because he crams too many of them into the first 80 pages or so.  The "Randolph Carter" bit in particular could have been handled less clumsily.  The whole constantly forcing someone to read Lovecraft's writings - couldn't they just tell them about it? - borders on comical.  So is Miller's enlisting of a civilian (Kay) to help with a sting like this - I couldn't help but think of Tony Perkins putting on Tuesday Weld in Pretty Poison. The secret cabal section is pretty damn dull until the climax.  And it takes up about 35 pages! The final portion feels rushed and inconclusive.  While its handled deftly, we're still already set up to suspect who Mark really is, coming in from the last story.  A bit of misdirection would have helped a lot.  Too much of the novel reads like Bloch's 50's-60's suspense/crime novels and not enough of it creeps into horror territory.

On the other hand, there are winning moments where Bloch old mastery shines through.  Kay's chase down the darkened tunnels is effectively suspenseful and creepy, and Bloch evokes the (likely) Deep Ones while still keeping them creepy and offscreen.  Mark and his girls' run through the fog-enshrouded, ghoul-haunted graveyard is a triumph. 

All in all, Strange Eons is a fun and worthwhile read, but no classic.