Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
The Lurker in the Lake
Did you know that there's a giant octopus in Lake Erie?
One that has wrecked ships and been responsible for hundreds of mysterious disappearances over the years?
To the uninitiated, this eldritch being is generally, unimaginatively, known as the Erie Octopus, but those of a, shall we say, darker disposition call this Old One instead by his true name: Yog-Nazathog.
High school was a great time to discover to world of Lovecraft. At the time we lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, AKA New Arkham (after the witch-hunts of the late 17th century, the most stalwart worshipers of the Old Ones fled west, and founded a port on the southern shores of Lake Erie), so as a budding writer, naturally I wrote about what I knew.
The story itself is long gone. (I don't think I actually called it The Lurker in the Lake, but I may have.) It took the form of a series of letters from various people that eventually revealed the usual Lovecraftian Dark Powers poised and ready to spring just beneath the outer layer of seeming reality, italicized last sentence and all.
With the cruel superiority of adolescence, a friend and I used to terrorize his little brother with tales of the Erie Octopus. There you'd be, standing on the cliff looking out over the lake, when suddenly you'd feel it: the tentacle around your waist, gripping inexorably, lifting you up off your feet, lifting, pulling, and you scream, scream....
Poor little Larry believed implicitly in the Erie Octopus. One day, down at the Lake, we really had him going.
“Ohmigod, look, there it is....!" "The Octopus!" "It's coming in!" "Shit: run, run, run!”
We ran.
Finally Larry's mom made us stop. He was beginning to be afraid of the Lake. When you live near a body of water, you have to respect it, but you can't fear it.
Oh, but then came a night. Payback, you could call it.
On hot summer nights when there was nothing else to do, I used to go down to the Lake. I'd climb down the cliff, build a fire on the beach, and swim out as far as I could. Then I'd swim back to the fire, dry off, and warm up. I'd get dressed, climb back up the cliff, and go home.
One night, having swum out as far as I could, I turned around to look at my fire. Treading water, I hung there suspended, watching the flames.
Then I felt it. The smack across the butt.
I don't know what it was, but it was big, and it was alive. Whatever it was, for a moment, I almost believed.
In a Lovecraft story, of course, it would have been the tentacle around the ankle: done in by his own story, and well he deserved it too, the little shite.
In spite of which, I learned three things anyway.
One: it really is possible for the human body to leave the water entirely, even with nothing to push off of.
Two: With the proper motivation, I sure can swim fast.
Three: You need to be really careful about what stories you tell.
They somehow have a way of coming back to smack you in the butt.
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I remember reading Lovecraft back in the 70's. I even have that book of his poems "Fungi from Yuggoth" around somewhere. In the 80's I got the Call of Cthulhu RPG from Chaosium, I think they are in their 5th or 6th edition now. Lots of interesting stuff from Chaosium.