What is weird?

     What is weird?  The typical answer to this may be "anything out of the ordinary", something that is perceived as "supernatural", or something uncanny.  To be a bit more specific and define weird fiction, I believe that it is a blend of genres or themes that branch out a bit further than just the realm of horror.  Scientific, religious, mythical or even psychological disturbance themes mixed with fantasy or sci-fi.
     A work like King Rat is labeled as 'weird', but doesn't fit so easily under these definitions.  Though it pulls a lot of folk-lore from the legend of The Pied Piper, it mixes this with a modern setting and the typical gothic 'family bloodline and destiny' theme.  Weird is a good word for it, as these pretty different things are wound together to create a world that, to be frank, felt pretty weird.
    What I'm more accustomed to as weird are stories by H.P. Lovecraft or Arthur Machen.  These authors take classic horror conventions like mystery and murder and mix them with the mythic, psychological, and cosmic unknown.  King Rat, although introducing a different 'weird' to me, does what I expect a 'weird' book to do.  It broke the rules of the familiar, in a slightly uncanny way.  As Lovecraft had said about the 'weird genre':
     "The true weird tale has...more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains... A certain atmosphere...must be present; and there must be a hint...of that most terrible conception of the human brain--a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space."
     Our interest in the weird keeps us sane.  We look for an escape from reality, and what better to offer that than the unexplainable and completely unrealistic?  It's true that elves and dwarves are not real, but even more far-fetched are themes pulled from the cosmic unknown. Or better yet a mix of what we know to be familiar, but slightly off.  The uncanny, such as I encountered in King Rat, can sometimes be the weirdest of all.  Take something we know, like a modern setting, and give it a twist.  If we look in the mirror and don't recognize what we see, it'll interest us a hell of a lot.