Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

by Mark McLaughlin

  On the screen, blood-red letters sprang up on a lime-green background:

  NAMELESS CITY FILMS

  In Association with

  HEADLESS JACKAL PRODUCTIONS

  Presents

  A Film by

  Dzaal Dzoukadzouki, Jr.

  DARK SUMMONING

  OF THE

  INSATIABLE TOMB-LEGIONS

  “Great title,” I commented.

  “Shush!” Anton whispered, turning one admonishing eye toward me as he kept the other eye riveted to the screen. Not many people can do that. “I haven’t watched this yet. I’ve been waiting to see it with you!”

  “Really? That was nice of you,” I said.

  The opening credits rolled on:

  Written by

  Dzaal Dzoukadzouki, Jr.

  Directed by

  Dzaal Dzoukadzouki, Jr.

  Produced by

  Dzaal Dzoukadzouki, Sr.

  “Figures!” I muttered to myself, noting the producer’s elder status. “Looks like daddy wrote the check for all this. Hope he got his money’s worth.”

  Starring

  Dzaal Dzoukadzouki, Jr.

  Dzandra Dzoukadzouki

  Dzamuel Dzoukadzouki

  Dzeke Dzoukadzouki

  Kitten DuBois

  Raynebeau Catorce

  Diamanda Hamogeorgakis

  Ming Placebo III

  Glork

  Hellgar

  Krogg

  Slobdoth

  Yerk

  Ghlupp

  And Featuring

  Attila the Wonder-Goat

  The movie began in a torch-lit, subterranean chamber where a tall, hawk-nosed character, presumably Dzaal Dzoukadzouki, Jr., was using a chalice filled with blood and a long-handled paintbrush to paint a peculiar, circular symbol on the filthy stone floor. Around him, robed figures chanted and hummed in low, unearthly tones. I guess daddy’s money wasn’t enough to buy Dzaal Dzoukadzouki, Jr. a decent musical score for his movie.

  “By the Sign of the Messenger of the Crypt Gods,” Dzaal intoned, “I call forth the sacrifice! Bring to me the blood-beast!”

  At this point, one of the robed figures led Attila the Wonder-Goat into view, and after catching a glimpse of what dangled between his lanky thighs, I could see why he was considered so wondrous.

  Dzaal pulled a long, rusty dagger from out of the folds of his robe, and within a few minutes, Attila the Wonder-Goat was reduced to Attila the Generous Serving of Desert Sushi.

  As the robed assembly feasted, Dzaal again picked up his paintbrush and used various fluids from the dead creature’s carcass to add a few final flourishes to the design on the floor.

  “From the dead, velvet blackness of the night sky,” he moaned, “the full moon shines its necromantic energy down upon the Nameless City, signaling that this evening, the tomb-legions are ready to surge forth from out of the stinking bowels of the Earth! Arise! Arise, oh insatiable ones! By the power of the desert moon, I bid you to arise!”

  At that summons, a fearsome yet oddly muffled howling sounded. Then came a distinct, frantic cacophony of digging and scratching, mingled with more howling and assorted shrieks, grunts, and eager whimpers. Before long, jagged cracks appeared in the stone floor, radiating out from the center of the bloody pattern.

  A sinewy, long-taloned claw—a grotesque, bestial parody of the human hand—burst through the stone surface, followed quickly by another. These writhing claws raked and tore at the floor until they had created a hole large enough for the creature to pass through…

  Great God in Heaven and all His tiny cherubs! I shall never forget the sight of the monstrous head that poked up out of that rough-hewn hole.

  The thing looked like an especially unsavory cross between a mangy hound-dog, a Tasmanian devil, and a scruffy, drug-addled, middle-aged British rock star. Its thick, drool-flecked lips quivered with rage as it glared, red-eyed and ferocious, at the screaming followers. I noticed that Dzaal was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he’d known what was coming and had left his relatives and extras to their ignominious fate.

  The frenzied intruder leaped out of the hole, landing squarely on its misshapen, clawed feet. Its body was an unspeakable, shaggy mass of ferocious muscle and bullish bones. The gigantic phallus that slapped against its powerful thighs made Attila’s male organ resemble, by comparison, a quaint Vienna sausage.

  “A ghoul!” gasped Anton. “An actual undead entity! I’ve seen pictures of them in the Necronomicon, which I’ve studied at length at the Arkham Public Library. It has to be a real ghoul—this cheap-ass movie certainly didn’t have the budget to create a fake one!”

  More shaggy monstrosities, all as well-hung as their leader, squirmed forth from out of the depths until they outnumbered the robed worshippers. The ravenous creatures then threw themselves on the hapless humans and began to rape them, male and female alike, with animalistic gusto.

  But the licentious savages weren’t satisfied by mere sexual pleasure alone. No indeed. They took huge, flesh-ripping, bone-breaking bites out of the arms, shoulders, necks and heads of their victims as they impaled the poor souls on their engorged, regally empurpled members, thrusting and biting, biting and thrusting, until there was nothing left of the ravaged worshippers from the nipples up.

  “The camera-man must be well-hidden,” I observed. “They don’t seem to be bothering him.”

  As it turned out, I’d spoken too soon. Apparently one of the creatures must have seen through whatever facade had been used to hide the technician, because at that moment, the savage lunged straight toward the camera—and then the screen went black.

  “Oh!” I cried. “Is that all?”

  “Yes,” Anton said. “It’s considered an unfinished masterpiece.”

  “Well, not sure about the ‘masterpiece’ part,” I said, “but it’s certainly unfinished.”

  Anton scowled at me. “You don’t seem all that impressed. Those were real ghouls, I tell you! Real!”

  “Oh, I’m sure they were,” I said. “But the question is: What exactly is a ghoul? If a ghoul is some sort of huge, malformed human—a monstrosity, but still a part of Nature’s grand and yet sometimes ostensibly ridiculous plan—then yes, certainly those were ghouls. But if a ghoul is an undead, supernatural entity…Well, those creatures never actually did anything supernatural, did they? All we saw were freaks on film, albeit oversized freaks with an undeniable taste for cannibalism and necrophilia. Though is it still considered necrophilia if both participants were alive when they started but one was killed in mid-fuck…?

  “Perhaps those ‘ghouls’ we saw were merely escapees from some mental asylum or facility for the incredibly violent and deformed. Perhaps they’d been imprisoned in a room directly below that chamber we’d seen. Maybe listening to that ritual directly overhead had whipped them into a murderously erotic frenzy. We didn’t see them do anything that a really strong, crazy, malformed human couldn’t do.”

  Anton pouted. “Oh, poo! Here I thought I’d found something super-incredible! Now you’ve spoiled my fun. I guess I blew all that time and money on nothing!”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I replied. “I mean, it’s still safe to say, that’s probably the world’s most exotic snuff film, right?”

  Anton’s pout turned into a grin. “Hey, you’re right! That still makes it highly collectible and well worth the investment. Speaking of snuff films, let’s take a look at this other movie I found…”

  And so our conversation and evening of movie viewing turned down a different track. Several hours later, I bid my host goodnight and returned home.

  As time passed, I found my thoughts returning again and again to the videotape Anton had shown me. Could those outlandish flesh-eaters really have been just hungry, overgrown rapists, or had Anton been right all along?

  After all, would that many gigantic sex-freaks all look so much alike, and all be so well-hung? Maybe they actually were part of some malignant subspecies, diabolical in
its origins. Unsettling thoughts began to fester in my mind. Those creatures did have remarkably brutish, beastly features. But then, I reminded myself, so did my high-school gym teacher…

  I happened to run into Anton at the Arkham Public Library just a few days later. I was walking down a shadowy hallway when he came bustling out of the Forbidden, Unspeakably Dangerous, Never-To-Be-Checked-Out-By-Anyone Section with a notepad in his hand and a huge smile fixed on his ruddy face.

  “Ah, just the fellow I wanted to see!” he said. “In fact, I was hurrying to find a phone so I could call you. I’ve just finished taking another look at the Necronomicon, and also The Big Book of Ghouls, the Cultus Cannibalicus, and Lord Smudgington’s Field Guide to Nasty Things that Eat People. Based on descriptions from those authoritative tomes from long ago, I can now state without a single reservation that those slobbering bipeds in that videotape meet every single criteria one might expect of a ghoul.”

  “That might be so,” I said, “but I think you’re missing my point. Again I must ask the question: What exactly is a ghoul? Consider this! Maybe the deformed, insane, anthropophagous, but definitely earthly sex-fiends of yesteryear were deemed ghouls by the scholars of that time because they didn’t know any better. Being less scientific than today’s academic types, they would have been perfectly happy to ascribe supernatural traits to said psychopaths.”

  I must confess, I was taking a perverse enjoyment in countering Pickman’s feverish assertions. I did not tell him that in fact, I’d been questioning the validity of my earlier thoughts and theories concerning ghouls.

  Again Anton pouted, so I gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Now, now, don’t be crestfallen,” I said. “Remember: as we discussed, it’s still one of the world’s most provocative snuff films. Plus, you should be happy that undead ghouls really don’t exist—you wouldn’t want a batch of them popping up at your place and nibbling on you!”

  “Oh, I’m sure they wouldn’t care for my meat,” he said. “I eat a lot of garlic and onions and seafood. They’d probably find my flavor very peculiar!”

  “Now, let’s not give ghouls and cannibalism and all that mumbo-jumbo another thought,” I said. “Let’s head back to the motel and have some gin-and-tonics at the Ha-Ha Hut.”

  “An excellent idea,” Pickman said with a tepid half-smile. It was clear he was still chagrined by my input regarding his rare videotape, and probably would be for some time, in spite of his efforts to try to be positive about it all.

  I decided to drop the matter entirely. If he ever brought it to my attention again, I would change my stance and, in the spirit of camaraderie, agree with his point of view. After all, I didn’t want to lose his friendship over such a trivial matter—or so I thought at the time.

  But then…

  Then came that terrible night of ultimate horror—a night of the full moon, I might add—when I came home from a restaurant dinner with a group of friends and found the most mind-boggling message conceivable on my answering machine.

  The message chilled my blood through and through, and caused even the shortest of my short-hairs to stand on-end. Needless to say, I never actually saw what was going on at the other end of the line—I only heard it. But what I heard was enough to make me fill my stylish slacks not only with the steaming No. 1 of fear, but also the stinking No. 2 of terror.

  “Damn you!” shrieked the voice of Anton Matterhorn Pickman. In the background, I overheard the most awful screaming…and howling…and yes, assorted shrieks, grunts, and eager whimpers. “Damn you for drumming those damned doubts of yours into my damned head! Because of you, I simply had to know the truth—I had to try the ritual with a full, necromantic moon looming high in the sky. In the basement of my own business, Pickman’s Motel, I gathered a motley assortment of lowly vagrants and ne’er-do-wells to help me with the summoning. I even had to buy a goat!

  “But now—! The goat is dead and the worshippers are being eaten and fucked to death even as I speak!”

  Causing the death of vagrants is one thing—but dealing death to a poor, innocent goat is quite another. That was a sin I could never forgive, and at that moment, Anton stopped being my closest friend. But considering that I’d found out about his sin from a message, and that his life was obviously in mortal danger during the time he was making the call (the guy pretty much had one foot in the grave and the other on a greased Slinky), there was an excellent chance he was already dead by the time I’d listened to his words, so it’s not like I would’ve had to worry about running into him at parties.

  The message continued. “I’m calling you from the basement phone—it’s all happening right behind me! Why the Hell am I even jeopardizing my life by taking the time to call you, when I should be running to safety? It’s like I’m some sort of witless character in some sort of melodramatic horror story!

  “My God—those things, those ghastly things! If you were here, trembling in their horrendously demonic presence, you wouldn’t doubt their supernatural origins for two seconds! And by the way, when they dug up through my basement floor, they didn’t emerge from some underground prison that just happened to be down there. You’ve got to admit, that was a pretty stupid theory you had about where the movie’s ghouls came from. What are the odds that there’d be a room right below the ritual filled with super-strong, sex-crazed cannibals? Come on, give me a break already!

  “But what’s this? One of the ghouls is shambling this way! Get away from me, you red-eyed, sharp-toothed devil! Get your damned paws off me! Get away! Get—”

  Oh, if only those words had been the very worst of that madness-inducing message! For after a series of shocking screams, followed by a great deal of bone-crunching and what sounded suspiciously like intestine-slurping, I heard a different voice on my answering machine.

  This new speaker’s sepulchral tones rumbled with the repugnant vehemence of a plateful of rancid crab-salad working its way through the coiling intestines of a flabby casino waitress who always hits the buffet after her shift, no matter how long the food has been sitting out. The voice was gloatingly wicked—wickedly gloating—and altogether bloatsome, loathsome, insidious, lugubrious, and a lot of other snazzy adjectives, and this is what it said:

  “Blecch! Your buddy sure tastes like crap!”

  Squidd, Inc.

  Henderson snapped one day in the department head meeting and began speaking in tongues: “Ulala pizani! Y’kha Shub-Niggurath ghakala! Azagga pupago ma’azu!”

  Henderson’s seat is right under the huge chrome Squidd, Inc. logo mounted on the wall, and his outburst was more than a little blasphemous—an affront to our disciplined business world. Or so I thought. We all looked to bulbous-eyed Old Man Squidd, our flabby corporate pooh-bah, to watch the fireworks.

  The Old Man sat up in his chair (a formidable task for one so huge) and said, “By God, Henderson, I like a man with Spunk.”

  * * * *

  Spunk. Spunk. Spunk with a capital S became our watchword, our password, our office shibboleth.

  At that time, Squidd, Inc. specialized in the production and distribution of pharmaceuticals, with interests in medical equipment and biochemical research. I was Director of Sales, and I longed for Spunk like the cartoon coyote longs for roadrunner meat.

  I’d been with the company for twenty years; my hair had turned grey and my skin had grown spotty in the service of Squidd. My chair at the meeting table was choice: only three seats down from the Old Man. But did the younger Directors have any respect for my years of experience? Sorry, no. Whenever they deigned to speak with me, their smug expressions told the story too well. They saw me as nothing more than a corporate leftover—a dried-up old piece of sushi.

  I wasn’t about to let the matter of Spunk, and my lack thereof, cripple my standing with the company. I prayed at my desk: Gods of Commerce, I need more than just daily bread. Lead me deep into temptation and give me a magnum of champagne, a midnight-blue BMW, a penthouse office, a stock portfolio to die for, and most of al
l, a generous helping of high-energy, high-octane, high-and-mighty Spunk.

  Amen.

  * * * *

  McCallum, Director of Public Relations and the youngest of our lot, tried his hand at Spunk the next week. He entered the department head meeting wearing a studded black leather collar and an orange Mohawk.

  Old Man Hawthorne gave him the big thumbs-up. “Spunky,” he said, winking one of his staring sea-green eyes. “Damn Spunky.”

  Each executive at Squidd, Inc. took their own personal walk on the Spunky side (except myself—my time had not yet come, my glorious dawn of Spunk). Abernathy patched his pinstripe suit in gingham and replaced the handle of his briefcase with a corncob, like the mayor of Dogpatch. Van Doring donned the robes of a Tibetan monk and delivered his marketing report in a complex but undeniably Spunky combination of Morse code, sign language, and hula dance. Johannson filed his teeth to points, then decided to get in touch with his feminine side by personally designing a red velvet, off-the-shoulder business suit, perfect for the office or a night on the town. Ms. Devlin, the only woman in the group, thrilled the Old Man with a brilliant display of Spunky initiative. She shaved her head, carved notches in her ears, and had a blue-green dragon tattooed across her face. She chain-smoked clove cigarettes and insisted that we call her ‘Lobo.’

  * * * *

  I was sitting at my desk, thinking about Spunk, when I began to make paper airplanes. As I folded in the wings of my seventeenth memo pad stealth bomber, I stopped to consider the printing at the top of the sheet. The stylized cephalopod depicted in the logo stared back at me. Its gracefully curving tentacles seemed to be reaching out…but not to crush me. To embrace me.

  I put in a request for an extended leave. And not for just a week. This particular leave would eat up all of my vacation time. Sick time. Holiday time. Personal time. I had to pull some strings and cash in some favors, but I finally managed to swing it. I then arranged for my work to be covered by several efficient but lackluster lackeys (Rule No. 1 in the white-collar jungle: never hire anyone with more Spunk than yourself). I divided my duties among these underlings in a complex, piecemeal fashion, to prevent any one of them from attempting a coup in my absence.