Lola shook her head. “I think they were just guardians of the Necronomicon. In case the book falls into the wrong hands.”
“Are we the wrong hands?”
“Can we focus on getting underground? The darkness is disappearing. We’re going to be a couple of vampire crisps.”
“Hey, that sounds kind of romantic.”
Lola pulled ahead of Franz.
When they reached the edge of town, sunbeams broke the black shell of the sky. Light passed through a hunchbacked, elderly vampire of indeterminate gender. For a moment, the vampire’s rheumatic skeleton lit up, visible beneath clothes and skin. The x-ray vision vanished and the vampire sizzled into a gray cloud that evaporated in seconds. All that remained was a shadow smeared across the ice.
More vampires—all old or disabled—cried out for help as Franz and Lola ran by. Some of them disintegrated and became shadows on the ice. Others were engulfed in flames. A few wept on covered porches, stranded now in houses that were islands, where soon they would starve and die alone or else be brave and throw themselves into the light.
“We’re almost there,” Lola shouted to Franz.
If one of them tripped and fell, the light would probably overtake them. They were that close to the end.
The stairwell to the underground appeared in the distance, about a block away. They would make it. They would not become shadows on the ice.
But a newborn’s mewling split the air, breaking the clip of Lola’s step.
She stumbled and fell.
Curse the sea wolves, she fell.
Franz scooped her in his giant arm and barreled toward the stairwell. He felt the light searching for blood, searching the earth like a dog, hungry for bodies to burn.
Lola squirmed out of his grasp and followed the cries of the baby.
“Lola, no!” Franz screamed as she disappeared inside a house.
He stopped running. Without her, he may as well burn.
“Lola, we have to go!”
At the very least, he wanted her in his arms when the light struck, so their shadows might be intertwined. As the ice melted, they would melt together.
She emerged from the house with the crying baby in tow. She met Franz in the middle of the road. Side by side they carried on. Only half a block to go before the chase would end. So close, yet Franz would give his limbs, his eyesight, anything, to reach the end a second sooner.
Franz reached the stairs first. Lola had fallen behind. The infant weighed her down. Franz turned to help her.
Moments from safety, a light ray screamed across the sky, razing her legs behind the knees.
She collapsed, the baby cradled in her arms. Franz stretched out his mutant arm and dragged Lola from the warpath of the light. She painted two red smears along the snow, frail red shadows of blood and light, until they found themselves underground, cast in total darkness once again.
The sunlight came from nowhere.
Sarah managed to shutter off the upper floor before any harm was done. Ella Lugosi and her two children were tied up, safe.
Sarah bided her time in the room that belonged to Cyrus. Shuttering the windows to keep out the light had actually calmed her nerves. She performed well under pressure. Now she was falling apart once more.
The record player was still warm. She moved the needle to the start of the record and it began to spin. Although the noise that came out sounded nothing like music to her, she turned the volume louder, so loud it hurt her ears. Anything was better than the obscene shrieks of Ella Lugosi.
Although Sarah wanted to untie the children, she just didn’t know how to handle them, couldn’t help viewing them as little monsters no better than their mother, after seeing them eat those eggs out of that hole.
Now light was eating up the world.
Side One of the record ended and she turned it over. Halfway through Side Two, a long-awaited text from Bruno buzzed in on her Ice Chatter.
Hey babelicious, I’ve been looking all over for you. You underground?
Underground? I’m at the Lugosi’s.
When Bruno did not respond, she texted him again. What is going on?
The darkness has died.
Save me.
I’ve got to get to Muscle Island.
Please.
I can save the planet with my muscles.
Come for me. Don’t leave me.
I won’t, babelicious. Hang tight.
I love you. She did not know if she truly loved Bruno, but she felt right then in that moment more capable of loving—and more desperate for the love of others—than ever before in her life. She also realized that if it had been Fang Foot, she would have spelled it “luv” instead of “love.” Despite his smooth looks and hip attitude, Bruno retained a sense of eloquence, even in his text messages. Perhaps, when this nightmare ended, they would live happily ever after.
Her Ice Chatter remained dormant. No “I love you too” ever materialized. She held out hope that something terrible had happened, preventing Bruno from confessing his true love for her. Perhaps there was bad reception underground. Perhaps Fang Foot and Bruno finally had a showdown and tore each other apart in a savage attempt to assert the dominance of their love. Perhaps Bruno was destroyed by light and died still trying to text her. So many things could have gone wrong. All that mattered was that he loved her, so she held out hope that alive or dead, he lived or died in her honor.
When they reached the diner, there wasn’t much left but a couple of charred tables and a dented fryer. The roof and walls had collapsed. Everything else, incinerated. The diner appeared to have been destroyed by a bomb.
Burn Girl looked hopelessly sad.
“Cthulhu must have done it,” she said. “He mentioned something about being summoned.”
Cyrus experienced a moment of pride and self-accomplishment. He believed that he and his friends had summoned Cthulhu after all.
The sadness left Burn Girl’s expression, replaced by a burning anger. She exploded into a column of flames. Cyrus leapt out of the way of the fire.
The flaming column reverted back to the shape of a girl. She smiled mischievously. “We’ll have to seek revenge on him. I will destroy Cthulhu for destroying my favorite diner,” Burn Girl said. “First, I’d like a milkshake. There’s another place on the other side of the sea. It’s not as good as this diner was, but the options are pretty limited down here. I hope you don’t mind walking.”
Cyrus did not mind walking. He made a mental note not to cross Burn Girl if he could help it.
Burn Girl took his hand and they walked away together, leaving the ruins of the lonely diner behind.
“Where is the Necronomicon now?” Fang Foot demanded.
Franz had just finished telling the Council everything that happened since they fled Gaul’s cottage with the Necronomicon. Although he’d planned on lying to Fang Foot, more of the incriminating truth poured out every time he opened his mouth. He wished Lola were conscious. She would shut him up and speak for them both.
Now Franz, Lola, and the baby were being carted off to a cell, where they would be held until Fang Foot decided what to do with them.
“You can’t lock us up,” Franz shouted. “We are not criminals, we are environmentalists!”
“Shut up. We’re giving you a periscope so you can witness all the environmental destruction you want,” said one of the guards.
“You’re making a mistake.”
The guards ignored him.
They tossed him into a cell, followed by Lola, who was wheeled in on a stretcher, and the baby, carried by a guard. The guard handed the baby to Franz. They locked the door. There was nowhere to go.
He set the baby on the stretcher right where Lola’s knees should have been.
The periscope, jutting down into the center of the cell, reminded him of the cylindrical chimney in Gaul’s cabin.
He peered into the viewer, entertaining a hope that he would look out and see Cthulhu saving the planet, on his way to
rescue them. Outside, orbs of fuzzy light blossomed in the air. He could make out the sea in the distance, pale crashing wave crests glimmering like the knife wounds of a stabbed ghost. He felt a shiny liquid diamond of sadness harden in his chest, knowing that Lion Man’s head must have burned out there. A shadow dispersed by the tide.
Far out on the horizon, a black speck loomed.
A silent ship?
When the speck did not move, Franz shook the periscope, assuming the speck had to be debris on the lens, or perhaps a dead insect trapped in the glass. Returning his focus to the viewer, he found the speck had quintupled in size. The speck had precisely quintupled. What did Gaul say that one time about the mystical meaning of quintupling?
The speck became a large shadow and gained focus. The shadow looked a lot like a winged squid. Franz squinted to get a better look, but blackness rolled across the sky and he saw nothing, not even the lights. The crummy periscope must have broken.
He checked on Lola. Her legs were still bleeding. She’d already lost so much blood. She would need to feed soon.
She smiled in her sleep. He kissed her and thought how nice a blood beer would be right now.
Returning to the periscope, Franz observed a twitch inside the blackness, a shudder as of congealed heart blood.
The tentacled darkness convulsed, swallowing the last of the sun blossoms in spiny obsidian mouths that disintegrated into each other like the beckoning Rorschach embryos of a ruined organism.
As Cthulhu flew over the icy planet, sewing seeds that would sprout into all the ingredients necessary for a perfect hamburger, he sang a little song to himself:
Old Cthulhu had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
And on his farm he had a cow, E-I-E-I-O
With a “moo-moo” here and a “moo-moo” there
Here a “moo” there a “moo”
Everywhere a “moo-moo”
Old Cthulhu had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
Old Cthulhu had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
And on his farm he had a pig, E-I-E-I-O
With a (snort) here and a (snort) there
Here a (snort) there a (snort)
Everywhere a (snort-snort)
With a “moo-moo” here and a “moo-moo” there
Here a “moo” there a “moo”
Everywhere a “moo-moo”
Old Cthulhu had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
Old Cthulhu had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
And on his farm he had a horse, E-I-E-I-O
With a “neigh, neigh” here and a “neigh, neigh” there
Here a “neigh” there a “neigh”
Everywhere a “neigh-neigh”
With a (snort) here and a (snort) there
Here a (snort) there a (snort)
Everywhere a (snort-snort)
With a “moo-moo” here and a “moo-moo” there
Here a “moo” there a “moo”
Everywhere a “moo-moo”
Old Cthulhu had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
The underground thundered with the cheers of the vampires. Their beloved darkness had returned, but peering out upon the world, Franz understood that this was no ordinary darkness. Something was not right about it.
Behind him, Lola stirred.
“What’s happening?” she murmured.
Franz pried himself from the periscope and hurried to her side. “Cthulhu has risen. The darkness has returned.”
Lola smiled weakly. “I’m so happy, Franz. We did it. We saved the planet. Is the baby all right?”
“Yes, the baby is sleeping, here by your . . . legs.”
“What’s wrong, Franz?”
“Are you in pain?”
Lola’s brow furrowed in worry and confusion. “Why, not at all. Should I be?”
“What’s the last thing you remember before blacking out?”
“I recall the baby in my arms and you, reaching for me, pulling me close.”
Unsure how to tell her outright that she was crippled, Franz helped her sit up on the stretcher. Perhaps it was best if she saw for herself.
“Oh, I’m happy to see the baby is fast asleep. So much trauma for a fledgling. We can raise him as our own, can’t we? Or is it a her?” Lola giggled. “I suppose we must confirm a gender before deciding upon a name. If it’s a boy, how do you feel about naming him Forrest? I’ve always been fond of the name, personally.”
Franz realized that Lola was in shock. No state to learn that she was crippled, let alone aid him in plotting an escape from the cell.
Seeing the darkness rolling nearer, Franz felt a panicked urge to escape before whatever was lurking within the black cloud decided to attack.
“Oh dear, where have I misplaced my legs this morning?” Lola said, and then she started to scream.
The baby awakened and matched her screams with a shrill, blood-starving wail, then outdid her by two octaves.
“Give me the baby,” Lola stammered, clawing at the bandages around her leg stumps.
“You’ll bleed to death.”
Lola flashed him the listen or I’ll rip your fucking head off frown, the evil twin of the listen or fuck off smile.
He laid the baby in her arms and watched helplessly as she guided its toothless gums to the burnt and bloody stump of her left leg. The sight of the baby suckling his wife’s gushing wound made Franz sick—and reminded him how hungry he had felt since being awoken by Lola to deal with Lion Man’s death. He couldn’t possibly suck on her stumps, could he?
Disgusted with himself, he turned back to the periscope. What he saw in the darkness made jelly of his knees.
The icy landscape was melting, pulsing, swelling up in gelatinous mounds that resembled hills until they opened up their mandible jaws and lolled their hairy beast tongues in the air.
Hooves and claws sprouted up like trees, giving the place a look of enchanted fairytale woods gone terribly wrong. And though the world itself was now a monster, there also lurked monsters within the monster.
Franz could see them creeping between the limb trees, stalking over the mounds of hair and teeth, flying and crawling and birthing yet more impossible, loathsome things.
The ghouls ate each other. They ate each other and they ate themselves. The earth ate them up as well.
One of the freaks in plainest view of the periscope was among the most shameful and mortifying. It was a bifurcated penis writhing half-hatched from a galleon-sized tumor that encased its scrotum-torso like an egg. The penis monster struggled to break free of the egg-tumor as an army of malformed and diseased ghouls lay siege upon its flaccid necks. The ghouls tore into the wrinkled flesh with rotten teeth and claws. Blood and pus garnished everything in a sickening rust-tinged hue.
“What’s happening out there, honey?” Lola asked.
Franz closed his eyes. He told her there was a war going on.
When he opened his eyes, one of the penises was falling, screaming, crashing to the ice and into the jaws of a nearby earth-mouth. The ghouls were fighting with the remaining penis when two more dickheads sprouted from the gored vacancy created by the first. The ghouls fled too late. The penis hydra spit flaming sperm, leaving the ghouls faceless and blind. The bellies of the ghouls bloated until they popped, spraying guts and bone all slathered in sperm.
The penis hydra stiffened, its three heads raised to the sky, and howled in triumph.
The penis hydra destroyed all enemies.
Unaware of the penis hydra, the vampires rose from the underground, dancing into the new darkness that had befallen the planet. From the expressions on their faces and the way they embraced and high-fived each other, he could tell what they were thinking. They were thinking that a new dark age had arrived, that the storm of light was a brief contact made by the gods of disaster to exterminate the vampires who were too weak or stupid or old to enjoy the decadent bounty of the new dark age.
Behind him, Lola and the baby were crying. Franz wanted to tear himself away from the periscope and comfort them, but the disaster held him rapt, hyp
notized.
The penis hydra, the vampires, the mounds of teeth and flesh, the ghouls; all were dwarfed by the hulking green mass of tentacles and beefcake brawn that zipped past and circled the planet twice before hovering in midair above the monstrous parade, like a rocket ship preparing to land on a blighted planet.
The earth quaked when Cthulhu’s feet touched down. Franz clutched the periscope, unable to stand on his own. The stretcher teetered wildly before crashing into the door. The baby slipped out of Lola’s arms. Its head cracked open on the concrete floor. Gray infant brains oozed out in pitiful spurts.
Franz released the periscope and staggered toward the baby. He knelt down beside the limp body and tried to scoop the brains back into the gash, but its brains turned to liquid in his hands.
As the earth settled, he was shaking his head at Lola, who turned away from him and wept.
They relived the same old tragedy once again.
Cradling the dead baby in his arms, a brilliant idea struck Franz.
He ripped off the baby’s legs.
Blasted by yet another wave of brilliance, he removed the baby’s arms.
“Lola,” he called soothingly, “I need you to close your eyes and stretch out flat on your back. I need you to trust me more than ever.”
“Franz,” she said, her voice breaking.
“Yeah?”
“The baby’s dead, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, praying she would not turn around and witness what had become of the baby.
“And I’m bleeding to death, aren’t I?”
“Please, lie down.”
Lola lay down, eyes shut, her body rigid on the cold floor.
“Promise you won’t open your eyes until I tell you to,” Franz said, kneeling in the blood that had already pooled around Lola’s leg stumps.
“I promise.”
With nothing more than an infinite toy box full of love and hope, Franz set to work fitting the baby’s arms into Lola’s stumps. If the baby’s hands would hold the baby’s legs, and all stayed in place just so, Franz believed Lola could be walking again in no time, granted that Cthulhu didn’t blow up the planet first.
Cthulhu Comes to the Vampire Kingdom Page 6
