Black Letter Day

"Black Letter Day" is a short story by author Ian Davey. It is the first part of his Bh'Yhlun series of post-apocalyptic Mythos fiction.

Synopsis[]

In a post-apocalyptic future where the Old Ones and their Shoggoth servants rule the world, a survivor named Lucy recalls how the end of the world came about while attempting to make her way to Glastonbury, rumoured to be a place of great power and a refuge for survivors.

Through Lucy's musings we are told how her boyfriend Georgio, a filmmaker, came across a cop of Feery's Notes on the Necronomicon and, combined with pages from a copy of the original book held in the British Museum, devised and distributed a leather-bound promotional screenplay (titled Francesci's Cult of the Necronomicon), before filming a visual translation with Hollywood funding. When the film was screened, many of the viewers were driven insane, and their collective insanity caused the rebirth of the Old Ones.

The story ends with the revelation that the city of London, along with many of its inhabitants, has been transformed into a colossal living tower named Bh'Yhlun, whose purpose appears to be to "terraform" the Earth into a place more comfortable for the Old Ones.

Characters[]

Lucy, one of the few survivors of the apocalypse, now using a combination of narcotics to retain control of her sanity.
Giorgio Francesci, a visionary filmmaker, subsumed into Bh'Yhlun at the end of days.
Professor Stanley Pickman, a veteran cultist who aids Francesci in the creation of his work.

Publication History[]

"Black Letter Day" was first published in Nightscapes #1 in June 1997, and later appeared in Dark Legacy #3 in January 1999.

Trivia[]

The mention of a riot during which many people disappeared in the Crouch End suburb of London is likely a nod to Stephen King's Mythos story "Crouch End".
Although the servitors of the Old Ones are named Shoggoths, the creatures themselves bear little resemblance to the beings described by Lovecraft, being engineered by the Old Ones rather than the Elder Things, and seemingly having little to no ability to change their shape.