The Dunwich Romance by Edward Lee Page A

“Wilbur, what the heck juss happened? I could’a sweared I saw...” but did she, did she really?
    Had she really seen Lang willingly swallow Wheeler’s urine?
    Had she really seen Tobias consume the spit-can’s contents, and Henry Wheeler eat his own feces? And...
    Did Wilbur really have FIRE comin’ aout his hands?
    Wilbur’s wedge-like face took on an aspect of desperate mediation. Did his hand tremble slightly in Sary’s grasp? “All I done is make them ugly fellas think things they’d otherwise not think.”
    “Huh?”
    “It be hard to ‘splain. Ever heer’a mesmerism? ”
    “Wal, no—”
    “Haow ‘baout hypnosis?”
    Sary shook her head. The words meant nothing to her. “Was it-was it...some kind’a magic yew was makin’?”
    Wilbur’s evident nervousness loosened a bit. “Naw, nuthin’ like that really, though I can understant why some’d think as sech. Tain’t nothin’ really but science if ye look hard, jest a way of distractin’ a man so’s ta make him do whut he dun’t wanna. I only make him think he wanna.”
    Science? Distraction? Sary wondered. She’d had no proper learning, and knew she possessed little in the way of intelligence, but she was aware of what those words meant. So he made Henry Wheeler THINK he wanna eat his own shit?
    “It be best ye juss not think ‘baout it,” Wilbur said with a different emphasis, and the emphasis told her this: that somehow, through some means Sary could not cogitate, Wilbur had indeed induced those appalling Dunwichers to debase themselves exactly as she’d seen.
    The sudden realization brought upon Sary such a potent sensation of delight that she nearly giggled aloud...
    “Let’s git aout’a here, afore someone come in,” Wilbur suggested. “The state patrol been comin’ through Dunwich lately too.”
    This latter component of Wilbur’s information was one that Sary was depressingly aware of. The state patrol had indeed commenced to infrequent patrols of Dunwich since a rash of disappearances had been reported among several of the more remote country-branch families. Sary doubted the efficacy of such patrols, but saw them more as an excuse for the officers to travel off their regular beats and, in a number of cases, threaten to arrest her for vagrancy violations unless she could find in herself a willingness to offer them various sexual gratuities...
    “Yeah,” she agreed. “Let’s go.”
    Wilbur led her out into the now deepening dusk, but before heading for the road back—
    “Wait a sec,” he remarked as if something forgotten had just alighted itself. “Whar’s that rock candy you come fer?”
    Sary bristled. “Them poop-heads in there didn’t even give me chance ta buy some ‘fore they started messin’ with me.”
    Wilbur went back into the store only to return just as speedily, bearing a five-pound sack of rock candy.
     

Eight
     
     
    July 29, 1928 midnight
     
    Was good I got that notion to go to Osborn’s cuz just as I thoght them loafers in there were puttin a hard turn to Sary, looking to fuck her against her will and whatever else come inta their dirty heads. But afore they cud have there way, I did one of the Fire Ensorcellments I learned while saying the newest Pnakotic stanzas that corresponted with paragraf 1106 on Al Azif like my grandsire taut me to do. It work better than ever which tells me I’m getting the right intonations. Did me good to see them men get whats comin to them. Got all distrakted, though, cuz after she get ma’s black gown back on, Sary take hold my hand. Was reel nice and made me feel like I never had, had trouble keepin my mind straight. Anyway, she ast me if it be Magick I pulled on them men but I just kinda moseed around the topic. Don’t know how shed feel if I told her the whole thing. As for them loafers, I kinda laugh to myself. Theyll be sick for a few days, but I don’t calclate theyll bother Sary no more.
    We walk home, and Sary ask me about the disappearances cuz she