Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (2 page)

“Aqua Salaria,” “The Dreams of Yig,” “What the Sea Gives Up,” and “Zzzzzzzz!,” all appeared in my own small press magazine,
Fungi
. “Dreams of Yig” was written with Henry J. Vester and the title “Zzzzzzzz!” was a remnant of that tale’s origin as a satire on horror stories written as a radio drama; actually my earliest attempt at writing a Lovecraftian type tale.

“The King in Yellow” and “The Pallid Masque” have an interesting history. While not directly connected to the Mythos, they are present here due to Robert W. Chambers’ most famous weird stories having been retroactively included. Though neither “story” is directly linked to the Mythos, I, at least still consider them to be a part of it. Anyway, the first has the most interesting publication history: having been concocted by myself and Gregorio Montejo for
Fungi
, it was later reprinted in
Crypt of Cthulhu
before being enshrined in the 2001 Arkham House volume
Book of the Dead
. “The Pallid Masque” while not a direct sequel, was the second part in what I had planned as a trilogy of tales, the third part of which I may yet visit some day. I don’t mind admitting here that a great influence for the approach I take in these tales was Karl Edward Wagner’s classic “The River of Night’s Dreaming.”

“The Deep Cellars” appeared in
Anton Zarnak: Supernatural Sleuth
, a collection of original tales based on a character created by Lin Carter and edited again by the ubiquitous Robert M. Price. I liked Zarnak and, with permission, used him as a supporting character in a couple other stories featured in this collection.

“A Question of Meaning,” an attempt to tie in the Mythos with William Hope Hodgson’s Night Land, appeared in the first issue of Sam Gafford’s
Sargasso
magazine while “Second Death,” my sequel to Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness,” will be appearing in Robert M. Price’s forthcoming
Return to the Mountains of Madness
.

Finally, “Goat Mother,” perhaps the most disturbing tale in the collection, has been called by some the greatest Tcho Tcho People story ever written. Well, you be the judge of that. Although written to fulfill the requirements of a collection called
Eldritch Blue
, it was my attempt at trying to come up with a “fate worse than death” for its female protagonist. Although women have not been absent from my Mythos tales, rarely do they take the traditional male role of inheritor of a strange house filled with secrets left by its former owner. So this tale was a bit of a departure from the formu

Which is not to say I prefer formula to originality. It’s just that in my approach to writing Mythos tales, I never had any desire to expand or push the boundaries of what Lovecraft, his immediate Circle, and the first round of disciples had established. All I ever wanted to do was to play in the same sandbox they did, while along the way, tying elements they created closer together in new stories. Beyond that group, contributions to the Mythos exploded and became impossible to keep straight let alone to keep up with. So, mainly, in my own stories, I wanted to capture what it was about the Mythos that first captured my youthful imagination. But to learn more about my thoughts on Lovecraft and Mythos fiction, check out “Thoughts on Lovecraft and His Mythos” that brings up the rear in this collection.

The stories presented here cover about 20 years in my writing career and, I hope, a full range of style and subject matter (including a diverse choice of Cthulhuoid menaces!). So if you like your Mythos fiction close to the bone, in the tradition of, and boundaries set by Lovecraft and his disciples, you should have no trouble enjoying (if that’s the right word) these choice offerings.

Pierre V. Comtois
October 2013

ou’ve all heard stories of the glorious days of pulp magazines and how their editors abused and exploited their writers. Well, I am proud to say I have carried on that tradition, both in my 1980s Cryptic Publications titles and in my anthologies for Chaosium. The pulp editors would hand a writer a piece of cover art and assign him to write a story to fit it. I liked that idea! So I went it one better! I used to ask my writers to write up stories to justify particular titles I made up. Hugh B. Cave was always a good sport. He wrote up, now let’s see, “Brides of the Blood Fiend from Hell” and other prescribed goodies. And who can forget Chuck Hoffman’s loonily brilliant story that fully lived up to the title I gave him, “Plaything for the Chortling Fiend.” These tales were, of course, aimed at my Weird Menace title Shudder Stories. But I think the prize must go to the extraordinarily versatile Pierre Comtois, always (apparently) happy to craft a story for any occasion, in any sub-genre, to go with any wacky title. He wrote for me “Zombies from R’lyeh,” “The Old Ones’ Signs,” “Kamikaze Nudes of the Secret Pacific Empire” — this last for the one-shot Men’s Adventure homage/parody I put together,
Man’s Guts
. Go rent
Attack of the Sixty-Foot Centerfold
, and you will catch a scene in a doctor’s office waiting room where the bandaged Invisible Man is reading a copy of
Man’s Guts
!

Pierre reminds me of Val Lewton, whose films were similarly made to order from lurid titles supplied him by the studio:
Cat People
,
Curse of the Cat People
,
I Walked with a Zombie
, etc. (the last of which I have always suspected must have some sort of underground connection with the forgettable flick
Bride of the Gorilla
, with which it has a surprising amount in common). Lewton, you see, was saddled with the curse of a genuine artistic conscience, and he just couldn’t help making better films than they told him to make! The titles promise drive-in schlock (one of my favorite genres, rest assured), but what he turned in were real films with real cinematography, real scripts, taking place in what looked like the real world.

This is exactly what Pierre Comtois has somehow always managed to do: he has imbedded his horrors in the midst of real historical and personal circumstances. He gives you what you wanted and expected, and more. His devotion to pulp fiction is evident on every page, but, like the pulp writers themselves, he also shows the influence of classic literature. It is sometimes hard to remember that, while many beloved pulpsters wrote fanzine-level campiness and other masters like Lovecraft and Howard created whole new sub-genres, many more showed themselves to be real writers with the instincts and ability to publish in mainstream venues. Pierre falls in this last category. Such an approach lends the horrors a unique chill and power for their seeming to emerge from the “mainstream” world. This is the kind of narration that cannot work if it skimps on historical background, character development, etc., so it doesn’t. And Pierre Comtois doesn’t. Sure, he takes exotic journeys of the imagination to lands afar and unknown, but he is always documenting them in detail in the manner of an attentive anthropologist, and this book contains the compelling results. Enjoy them!

Robert M. Price
Hour of the Siesta of the Shoggoths

o you have to go to Josh Turner’s pasture again today?” asked Ruth Mills as she scrambled some eggs at the stove.

“Now Ruth, we’ve talked about this before,” said her husband, Daniel. “Josh and I have been planning to clear his south pasture since the spring and now that the harvest’s in, we’ve got the time to do it.”

“But why you? Why not someone in Dunwich?”

“Because we’re family…”

“I hardly consider a fourth cousin who’s related to you only by marriage, family.”

“Just the same, blood is thicker than water.”

“Especially in Dunwich, right?”

Clearly exasperated, Daniel threw his fork in his plate with a clatter.

It was the same conversation they’d been having for the past month, ever since Daniel began going to Dunwich to help Josh clear a thirty acre parcel of second growth forest. Every Saturday, Daniel would be up early for the 15 mile drive into Dunwich in order to get there with enough time left to get a full day’s work in. He came back late in the evening, sometimes after Ruth had gone to bed, exhausted but unwilling to slow down. Daniel wasn’t as young as he used to be and it didn’t help knowing about Dunwich’s unsavory reputation even if the reality didn’t quite come up to what some folks believed.

“Ruth, this is just business as usual,” Daniel was saying. “I help Josh with his pasture and some day when I need him, Josh will come over and help me with something.”

“You’ve never asked anyone for help before and anyway, it’s much better for Josh to come to Dean’s Corners than it is for you to go to Dunwich. I mean, most of the roads there aren’t even paved and there aren’t any town services to speak of…”

“Dean’s Corners wasn’t that much different until a few years ago.”

“But the point is, Dean’s Corners has moved into the twentieth century,” said Ruth, scraping the eggs into a plate. “Dunwich is still backward in almost every measure of what a properly ordered town is supposed to be.”

“So?”

“So if something happened to you out there, if you got hurt, the town doesn’t even have an ambulance service, let alone a doctor,” said Ruth. “Does Josh even have a phone at his place?”

Daniel shrugged.

“Nothing’s going to happen and some people
like
Dunwich’s isolation. I hear tell that a few folks have moved there occasionally to get away from all the hustle and bustle.”

“Just the same, there’s always been something creepy about that old town what with its half dilapidated farms and abandoned homes…”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to bring up all those stories we used to hear when we were kids?”

“They’re nothing to laugh about,” insisted Ruth, sipping at a cup of tea. “Why, just the other day, Myrtle Potter was saying…”

“Myrtle Potter is the biggest gossip in town,” said Daniel with contempt. “All she does is spread stories about people she has no business telling. You don’t take that stuff seriously, do you?”

“Of course not, but didn’t you tell me how you and Josh uncovered some funny looking rocks in that pasture?”

“Sure, but you come across rocks like that around these parts all the time,” said Daniel with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They’re no different than the stone circles in the hills around town. Remember how we used to go up to them to make out when we were kids? People used to be afraid of them so we thought what better place to fool around and not get caught? Nothing ever happened, right?”