The Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country


 
 
 
 
 
 
 Dedication
 for Nisi,
 who wanted more
 
 
 Epigraph
 Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you will carry up my bones from here.”
 —Genesis 50:25
 “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
 —J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting Vishnu
 
 Contents
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Epigraph
 1857: The Last Temptation of Simon Swincegood
 Part I: Carry Up the Bones
 The King in Yellow
 Welcome to Nevada
 Union of Past and Present
 Red Pawn
 The Train
 Lights Out
 Go Deeper In
 The Bomb Test
 Great Dismal
 Poker Room
 On the Beach
 The Children of Roanoke
 No Heaven at All
 Return to the Red Pawn
 Bone Ladder
 Return to Earth
 Hitching a Ride
 Get You Home
 
 Part II: The Body Snatchers
 
 Ruby’s Glass Slipper
 A Question for the Reverend
 Over the Rainbow
 The Winthrop House
 The Woman in the Basement
 Parley with a Dead Man
 Like Prince Charming
 An Appeal to the Lodge
 What You Don’t Forget
 The Fourth Man
 Return Flight
 Cash Up Front
 Confession Time
 Annuit Coeptis
 You’ve Got Nothing
 
 Part III: The Destroyer of Worlds
 Gita
 The Last Piece
 Scene of the Crime
 Something’s Happened
 What Are You Doing Here?
 The Cowboy
 Making Connections
 Let Them Go
 Plan of Attack
 The God of Death
 Oak Woods
 
 Coda: To the Dreamlands
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 Also by Matt Ruff
 Copyright
 About the Publisher
 
 1857
 The Last Temptation of Simon Swincegood
 He kills the dogs before he runs.
 Simon has heard the ignorant whispers of other slaves plotting escape. How they will wash away their trail by wading in rivers, or mask it with some stronger scent: Peppercorns. Vinegar. Turpentine. Horse piss. He knows it’s all foolishness. Even an ordinary coonhound can track a man through water, or tell a fugitive’s sweat from the staling of a horse. And Master Swincegood’s hounds aren’t ordinary. Bred from Egyptian stock, they are descendants of the hounds of Pharaoh, survivors of the debacle of the Red Sea. Nothing on foot can elude them for long.
 Hecuba, the midwife, claims that she can fly. Each night she casts her soul aloft, above the reach of dogs or men. She’s been to the North many times, she says; and to the future, and the lands of the dead, and to other, stranger places. But it profits her nothing. However far she travels, she remains tethered to her body by an unbreakable cord that each morning reels her in, to wake once more a slave.
 Other slaves, lacking even a temporary power of flight, have sought more earthly means of emancipation. Ezekiel, who was keeper of the hounds before Simon, tried to mail himself to freedom. He packed himself in a trunk with one of Missus Swincegood’s ball gowns that was bound for a party in Delaware. But the wagon that was to take the luggage to the train depot was late; Ezekiel began to suffocate, and prematurely pulled the stopper on the air hole he’d drilled for himself. The hounds, already suspicious about his absence, were on him in seconds.
 Master Swincegood gave Ezekiel fifty lashes and sold him away south. When Master made Simon the hounds’ new keeper, he warned him not to repeat Ezekiel’s mistake. Simon took the words to heart. He cannot say how his own bid for freedom will end, but he knows how it must begin.
 He enters the barn just before curfew. He finds a lantern and lights it, and goes to the pen where the dogs sleep. Four pairs of amber-colored eyes look up at his approach, watchful and curious. They’re smart animals: they know it’s not time to be fed, and if they were needed for a hunt, a white man would be coming for them.
 Simon doesn’t give them time to think about it. He opens the gate and points at Little Boy—at fifty pounds, the runt of the litter. “Follow,” Simon says.
 He crosses the barn to the stall of Adolphus, the mule, and takes the shoeing hammer from its peg on the wall. He side-eyes a warning at Adolphus as he does this; the mule, adept as any slave at playing dumb, stares back vacantly. I don’t see nothing, boss.
 Leaving the lantern in the barn, Simon leads Little Boy to the old well out back, the path lit by a nearly full moon. In the shadow of a tree near the path’s end, Simon pauses. “Set,” he says. Little Boy sits obediently. Simon squats beside him. He cocks his right arm and points with his left and says, “Look there.” Little Boy looks. Simon swings the hammer. The back of Little Boy’s skull gives way with a wet crack and he drops, lifeless.
 Simon stands up and begins removing the boards from the mouth of the well. The well was covered after Simon’s younger brother, Luke, had his accident. Simon’s other brother, Peter, had been teasing Luke, telling him there was a tunnel at the bottom of the well that led all the way to Canada. Luke knew that was nonsense, and said so, but Peter kept insisting it was true, adding that it didn’t really matter, anyway, as Luke was too much of a coward to see for himself. It was that last part that proved fatal, for while Luke didn’t mind being thought a fool, he couldn’t bear to have his bravery questioned. So he tried to climb down, and fell, and hit his head, and drowned. Now the well is tainted.
 Go on, drink, Simon thinks, tipping Little Boy headfirst into the well shaft.
 When Simon goes back to the barn, Whitefoot has pushed open the gate to the dog pen and is looking out. Volunteering to be next. Simon crooks a finger at him.
 After Luke died, Peter ran away. The hounds tracked him to a neighboring plantation and treed him in a hundred-year-old oak. When Peter