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Once upon a time, I was visiting the East Cobb Borders and
read from a Call of Cthulhu
role-playing game manual. The manual begins a proposed gaming scenario describes
how in many cases the Great Old Ones and other horrors from beyond are
worshiped in rural, isolated areas. What happens if these areas become
suburbanized? The book uses the phrase "supernatural Love Canal," a
reference to a New York neighborhood built on top of a forgotten toxic waste
dump. That scenario got my creative gears turning and soon spawned The Thing in the Woods, which takes
place in the small town of Edington just south of Atlanta. Edington is rapidly
becoming a bedroom community for Atlanta, much to the annoyance of Phil
Davidson, owner of a local barbecue restaurant and the high priest of a cult
worshiping an alien tentacle monster in the local woods.
However, this is not a book about evil "rednecks."
H.P. Lovecraft, the man whose writings on Cthulhu and other cosmic horrors, was
classist toward
"degenerate" whites and rural folk as well as a racist toward
non-whites and "ethnics" like Italians. I'm not going to look down my
nose on people who live outside the big cities, the people who
disproportionately serve in the military and produce much of our food. This
is reflected in three of the Edington-born characters in The Thing in the Woods.
The female lead in Thing
is Amber Webb. She's an Edington native, a high-school senior like Buckhead
transplant and story protagonist James Daly. Instead of a being a cultureless
hick, she's active in the local arts scene and the community theater, including
a major role in the play Once Upon a
Mattress. She has no objection to another white teenage girl dating an
young Indian man from Atlanta, and when other members of her small-town girl
posse believe James to be a murderer, she's open-minded enough to dig further
rather than merely assume. We all know what "assume" stands for,
after all. And when the cult unleashes its wrath, her initiative and sheer
nerve come in handy.
Another character from Edington is Sam Dixon. Sam served in the
1991 Persian Gulf War (he explicitly references Medina Ridge,
and the First Armored Division was at other battles as well). Given his
references to "damned blue on blue," at times he was in danger from
both the Iraqis and his own side. Since the war, he's worked at the local sheet
metal plant and done well for himself. He is a devoted husband, although he and
his wife are unable to have children. Although he serves Phil and the
abomination in the woods, he has a very strong sense of fair play and duty
toward his fellow veterans and isn't drinking the racist Kool-Aid poured by
another cult member who is a bigot.
It's that moral sense that propels his story arc. I am reminded of Romans 2,
which states every man has the law of God written on their hearts.
Even Phil, for all his many faults, is not without his virtues. He's a
decorated Vietnam veteran, a member of the Third Marine Division who saw action
as a junior officer at the
Battle of Con Thien. He pays his restaurant employees more than the typical
wage to keep the wheels of the local economy spinning and to encourage employee
loyalty. This is much like the great industrialist Henry Ford, who
paid his employees more than the usual wage for the auto industry to ensure his
employees could buy his cars. Phil also has members of the cult keep up
properties left vacant during the recession, to ensure they don't get stripped
for metal or become drug houses. Although his methods are extreme and immoral, keeping Edington a functional community in an dark time
is very important to him. And he's a father and grandfather who prioritizes the
welfare of family, even very distant relations like his cousin's stepdaughter,
Sam's wife Brenda.So if you like the style and concepts of H.P. Lovecraft but are tired of evil hick stereotypes, check out The Thing in the Woods
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