Good Thoughts
W. Paul Ganley

W. Paul Ganley is best known as the publisher of Weirdbook, the longest running small press horror and fantasy magazine currently going. He also publishes hardcovers and trade paperbacks, including volumes by Brian Lumley, J. N. Wi-liamson, Darrell Schweitzer, and myself, always handsomely illustrated, often by Steve Fabian. One of the finest horror stories of the decade, Michael Bishop's "Beyond the Walls of Tyre," appeared first in Weirdbook after being rejected elsewhere (it has since proven itself a classic). Paul's own weird poetry and short stories, all too rare, have appeared in Joseph Payne Brennan's Macabre, Meade Frierson's HPL Tribute, August Derleth's Arkham Collector, Fred C. Adams' Spoor, C. C. Clingan's The Diversifier, plus Eldritch Tales, Space & Time, and several others. "Good Thoughts," an understated little shocker, appeared in the late Dale C. Donaldson's Moonbroth.

Reni lay by the roadside and groaned. Her scrawny body ached everywhere they had struck her, but still she knew she had been lucky. This time they had only hurt her a little. They had not raped her, as they had done some weeks earlier.
Tank, the short bloated one, had started to unbuckle his trousers when Willi, leader of the wolf pack, had laughed sarcastically and clapped him on the shoulder.
"We can get better than that scroungy stuff," he said. "Knock it off, stupid." And the gang had gone tearing along the deserted farm road toward town.
No one paid them much attention because they were clever.
If they molested a girl it was one who belonged to no powerful family, but one like Reni who was all alone in the world. If they beat and kicked a drunk for the sheer fun of it, it was a vagrant whose death, if it happened, would not be important.
That other time Reni had almost died. Fourteen, very young and thin for her age, nothing had ever prepared her for what the wolf pack had done to her. Seven young men they were, from wealthy families who would back them against most of the trouble that might ensue. She hated them.
Old Kato had found her by the roadside. Even the wolf pack avoided Kano, though he had no apparent influence or power. He was a strange man, a man who lived away from the village in an old cabin he had himself built. It was whispered that he had mastered a demon that kept him clothed and fed, and no one dared to take a chance of crossing his path.
Kano had found her, taken her up, and carried her to his hut where he had covered her entire bruised body with a healing salve. He had done this without a flicker of expression on neither his aged face, nor a hint of sexual desire in his look or his touch. She was grateful most of all for that, and she rested.
After she had recovered she had come to see him nearly every day. His voice and manner were friendly and soothing, and he had obviously taken a liking to the friendless waif... he who had no friends himself.
Scarcely five weeks after he had rescued her, he told Reni that she might never see him again. Her face fell, and she knew that tears were coming into her eyes.
"I am dying, my dear one, and must first undertake a long journey," she heard him say quietly.
"No... No!" was all she could reply.
"I may not die in this place."
He removed an amulet from around his neck and placed it over her head. It looked like an ordinary black stone, a jagged chunk of anthracite, threaded with a most common piece of cotton twine. He pushed the stone down under her ragged blouse.
"I have long wished to pass on this magic stone to a deserving person," he said formally, "but never have I found one who could carry its burden. Now I have decided it shall be yours."
She thanked him, although tears still dimmed her eyes.
"Perhaps you should not thank me for it," said he. "It is a dangerous gift. You must be careful to think only good thoughts when you wear it. It can bring you and others much good fortune, but you-must force good thoughts into your mind when you wear it."
His voice had lowered, and she was not certain, but she thought he added, "... as I have not been able to do for a long time."
The words of admonition came back to Reni now as-she lay in the dust, the hot sun baking her tears into dried streaks of salt. She looked about her. Willi had torn the amulet from about her throat, leaving a narrow line of blood to mark her neck, and had glanced scornfully at the lump of black rock.
"Worthless junk," he said disgustedly, tossing it to the side of the road.
Had he supposed she would be wearing a diamond? That was what she was thinking, bitterly, as she hunted in the dust at the roadside for her precious amulet. When she found it, she clasped it hard in her left hand and ran home.
Home, for Reni, was a tiny cubicle in the Village Inn, a restaurant and hotel for wayfarers, located at the extreme edge of the village. She worked as a maid and a dishwasher, and in return was fed scraps from the tables and given a tiny bed to sleep in. Her father had once owned the Inn, but he had lost it and killed himself after her mother had died.
Reni threaded the black lump with another piece of string; unraveled from the coarse fabric she wore, and cleaned herself. A small drop of her blood dripped unnoticed on the amulet and slowly dried there. All of the rest of the day she went about her work, ate her bread crusts and gravy at dinner, and crawled into her tiny cot to sleep.
She hurt all over and she hated all over. Think good thoughts? Reni hated, and she held the amulet in her warm palm as she did. Its warm feel comforted her, and she slept. Outside, a big yellow moon rose. The wolf pack hunted for excitement, more dangerous than would have been a pack of real wolves. A slight breeze grew, cooling the air a little.
At midnight the door of Reni's little room rattled. The room had once been a storage closet, and looked out on a back alley. Reni still slept, dreaming of hate. Outside the door Tank and Rob worked at breaking open the old lock. Both were drunk and neither had found himself a girl, willing or unwilling. It had been a bad night. The others of the gang were taken care of, but not Tank and Rob. Then Tank, in a fierce moment of sodden inspiration, had remembered Reni.
"She's better than nothing," he had muttered to Rob, and the two of them were off to the Inn.
The door was old and the lock was worn, and the two young men were strong. They pried it open and pushed the door inward. The tiny room was dark. They heard heavy breathing.
"Use your torch," Rob whispered, and Tank flicked on his small penlight. He directed it at the bed.
He sucked in his breath violently. His hand shook. The light danced on the walls, flickering momentarily over the large form that was crouched on the ancient cot. Then the thing sprang. Tank's last breath ended in a croak and a gurgle.
Rob turned to run, finding his voice in a high feminine scream. Then the beast was on him, tearing and growling, and soon he, too, ceased to move.
The demon crouched, snarling, above the figure of its victim. Its mighty jaws ripped open the belly and dug for the liver, which it gulped quickly. Then- slinking, it moved away toward the other end of the town where the five other members of the so-called wolf pack were ending their revels.
Snug in her bed, Reni slept peacefully, her hand clutching the amulet.
She dreamed of hate.