January 10th

  The next morning I awoke with a start. I was terrified I’d wake up to see a mob of people bearing down on me. But the lobby was empty. I looked around and saw Erin at the vending machine.

“What are you doing?!!”, I whispered.

“Don’t worry. I think we’re safe. I saw a pack of them pass by an hour ago but they didn’t even glance at this place.” she said over her shoulder.

“I’m not sure that’s any insurance they won’t attack.” I said

“I have a theory. I think that they are done with the violence for right now.”, she said, coming back to me with a pack of peanuts for both of us. “We’re gonna have to pool our change I think soon.”

I looked at her eyes. They were wide and exposed the fear behind her act of nonchalance. I wondered if maybe some part of her was still in shock. I knew some part of me was. I took the peanuts and ask “Why do you think that?”

She sat down next to me and opened her package. She seemed to think about it and then said “Because they control things now. I don't think they have to worry about any more attacks. Have you ever read Lovecraft?”

I goggled at the change in subject. “You mean the Cthulhu guy?”

She smiled, “He wrote more than that, you know. There was this one thing he wrote about… maybe it was some other writer, I can’t remember. I was an English teach in high school, I certainly read my share of student essays trying to evoke him and they run together. Ut there was one… Nyarlothotep. He was a sort of… I don’t know. Meme? Maybe that’s the best word for it. Anyway he spread himself through a sort of religion that’d turn violent at his whim. But he wasn’t always violent. I think, if I remember right, he was more just wanting to be worshipped… after his fashion anyway.”

I sat back and considered this. She continued, “Obviously we aren’t dealing with Lovecrafts elder gods here, they weren’t real. But this feels kinda like that.”

I remembered the face on the TV. “What did he look like?”

“In human form? It was vague. Lovecraft was always vague but a tall Egyptian looking guy… I always kinda pictured him as Boris Karloff from the Mummy movies. In his true form? Lovecraft was always even more vague about that stuff.”, she said.

I sat there and considered… That face had been exactly like Boris Karloff. I shook my head.

We didn’t talk much more that day. I think Erin was still working through her experiences. I knew I was still dealing with mine. I still had the image of a severed arm being held like a club in my mind. I could imagine what Erin might be seeing.

As night fell I watched Erin’s eyes slip closed. I let her say where she was. That face I had seen on the TV still haunted me. I wondered if maybe Lovecraft had been writing more truth than fiction.

I walked to the window and peered out into the gathering gloom and wondered what might be out there. A mob of bloodthirsty crazy people willing to rip me limb from limb? A pack of savage worshippers of a fictional god that gathered his flock through twitter? Were they even now writhing on the ground naked in front of some obscene idol?

I was starting to think like a Lovecraft novel now. I shook my head to clear it and walked back to where Erin lay and laid down beside her. We slept through the night and neither of us awoke until the sun lasted through the windows.