“If I’m in the big toe, who will lead us in battle?”
“The body has no dictators. Everyone is a leader. The construct is too complex to be governed by a solitary ruler.”
“What about the head? It’s the head that rules.”
“I will be stationed in the head alongside Lola and Commander Pink.”
“Traitors!”
Barthelme and Barthelme appeared behind them.
“What is it?” Commander Pink asked.
“Some vampires are rebelling, sir,” Barthelme said.
“They’ve gone mad from lack of blood,” Barthelme said.
“Actually, it’s the nails that are upsetting them,” Barthelme corrected.
“True, they do not favor putting nails through their flesh,” Barthelme nodded, “although they are quite starving.”
“Move forward with the construction of the giant vampire,” Commander Pink said. “At all costs. Tell them too bad.”
“We fear rebellion,” said Barthelme and Barthelme.
“Wait, I’ve got it,” Franz stepped forward. “I know just the thing to calm them down and put a little blood back into their systems.”
They all looked at him expectantly.
“Your legs, Lola. Your baby legs are the key.”
When nobody responded, Franz waved his hand dismissively and told them to fetch him a pair of bone saws, or the next best thing available. He added, “And set up two of these prison cells for surgery. When Lola and I are ready, line up the starving and send them in two at a time.”
“Ready for what?” Lola asked.
“It’s time to play doctor and lunch lady.”
“Oh, Franz. I missed you.”
Franz stepped forward and enfolded Lola in his arms. He kissed the tip of her nose and sighed contentedly. Since his return from the sea battle, he and Lola had not found a free moment to embrace. There was far too much work to be done. Someday, in a faraway future where Cthulhu was not threatening to destroy their planet, they would have all the time in the world.
“I love you,” Lola said, nuzzling into Franz’s neck.
Barthelme and Barthelme returned with an axe and a chainsaw, putting a halt to their intimate moment.
Franz took the axe and Lola took the chainsaw. She eyed Franz skeptically.
“Now start calling them in,” Franz said. His voice was cold and emotionless. There was a distant look in his eyes.
Barthelme and Barthelme left the cell and soon returned with the first blood-starving vampire held between them.
“Strap him to the table,” Franz said.
Barthelme and Barthelme strapped the vampire, who was too weak to protest, to the table on which Lola had earlier been wheeled into the cell.
“You want blood?” Franz asked the vampire.
The vampire offered a slow nod.
“You remove the legs and I’ll remove the arms,” Franz said to Lola. He turned and addressed Barthelme and Barthelme. “One of you should feed the blood from each limb back to the vampire. The other of you, collect the drained limbs in two piles. Got it?”
They nodded.
“Then let the operation begin.”
Franz wielded his axe in his remaining hand. Lola revved her chainsaw.
They cut the vampire up and Barthelme fed the blood back into the vampire, then handed the drained limbs off to Barthelme, who separated the arms and the legs into two separate piles. When the piles started filling up the room, Barthelme and Barthelme called for backup.
Two scientists entered the cell with wheelbarrows, in which they piled the limbs, and so added to the chain of operations. The legs would be used to construct the legs of the giant vampire. The arms would be used to construct the giant arms. The torsos of the limbless vampires were to be used for the main body and also the head. Nobody struggled as they were chopped apart. They were too weak to protest. No uprising.
After Franz and Lola severed the limbs of the last vampire, Barthelme and Barthelme dragged Fang Foot out of the cell. They’d left him there because they felt cruel.
Franz and Lola dropped their weapons and shuffled, exhausted and bloody, out into the main cavern of the underground. The giant vampire was complete, except for one big toe. Barthelme and Barthelme slid Fang Foot into place and there it was, magnificent in all its glory. Commander Pink leaned out of the giant vampire’s left eye socket and waved to them. “Come on up,” Commander Pink called. “The view is wonderful up here.”
They were deep underground and so there could be no possible view, technically speaking, but Franz and Lola agreed. Lola spread her batwings and began to flap.
“This is a lot different than jumping out of a window. Are you sure you can handle it?” Franz asked.
Lola took him by the hand and lifted them into the air. They flew to their commanding station, where the view was beautiful indeed.
The giant vampire stepped out of the underground and into the blackness of the dispossessed world. Franz and Lola sat behind the eye sockets of the vampire alongside Commander Pink. Franz felt claustrophobic in the hot and tiny operating room. The walls breathed in and out, in and out. The stale exhalations of vampire faces nailed together to form the walls and ceiling and the floor was suffocating.
The top of the giant vampire’s head nearly touched the stars. From this vantage, Franz thought the black planet looked peaceful, the type of place you might want to build a little house and raise a few vampires. He realized that Fang Foot and the other vampires making up the giant feet were probably not faring so well. The lowest rungs on the ladder were always the ones to get thrown to the monsters.
“Come on you bastard, show yourself,” Commander Pink muttered, guiding the giant vampire forward by pulling on certain of the strings that zigzagged like a spider’s web around him.
Franz took Lola’s hand. They stole a glance at one another before Commander Pink reminded them to keep their eyes on the outside world.
A glow appeared on the horizon, and slowly revealed itself to be a ship of stars. The ship floated in the air, high above the head of the giant vampire.
“Cthulhu must be near,” Commander Pink said.
“Should we destroy his ship?” Lola asked.
Before Franz or Commander Pink could respond, the giant vampire struck an invisible wall in the darkness. The vampire wobbled, dazed from the impact. Commander Pink jerked frantically at the strings to keep the giant vampire upright. A fall from this height might ruin them before the battle had even begun.
When they regained balance, each individual vampire that made up the giant vampire exhaled a gasp. The invisible object took visible form as a writhing mass of tentacles.
The giant vampire’s head tilted up. Franz squinted into the darkness, straining to see where the tentacles led. They were the tips of Cthulhu’s beard, he realized.
The tentacles swayed. Behind them, he made out two legs decked out in striped green and yellow spandex. Each leg was as tall as the giant vampire.
One leg swung back as if preparing for a punt.
Franz, Lola, and even Commander Pink screamed. Their screams went up with a thousand others. This was the end of the vampire race.
Why, in their final hour, was everyone so weak?
Franz squeezed Lola’s hand until her fingers crunched. She squeezed back. He welcomed the pain, waiting for the death kick to come, wondering what would come next.
He waited, but the death kick never came.
Eventually, he and Lola and Commander Pink opened their eyes. He imagined all the other vampires opening their eyes at the same time, blinking confusedly and then in fright, for they now stood face to face with Cthulhu. The eldritch horror had not brought his foot back to kick them, but to take a knee, for when he crouched down on one knee, his face was at the level of theirs.
Face to face: the vampire and the squid.
“You seek a fight,” Cthulhu said.
The giant vampire nodded.
“Then we shal
l fight in the way of the gods.”
Commander Pink turned to Franz and Lola. “Okay, this is where I need you. How did the elders fight in the Order of the Old Ones?”
“Gaul was pretty secretive about their battles,” Lola said. “Until the night he died. He told us how he defeated Fang Foot in a necromancy duel.”
“That’s not going to help us now,” Franz said.
“Why not?” Lola looked annoyed.
Franz gestured in front of them. The ship of stars had materialized between Cthulhu and them. The ship was no longer a ship. It had transformed into a table of stars, upon which lay platters stacked high with food.
“Sushi,” Cthulhu said, “to the death.”
Commander Pink pulled the strings controlling the giant vampire’s jaw and made it speak like a ventriloquist controlling his dummy. “You mean we’re having an eating contest . . . to the death?”
Cthulhu nodded.
“I want to ask him a question,” Franz said.
Commander Pink handed the jaw strings to him.
Franz pulled the strings, forcing some awkward gibberish out of the giant vampire’s mouth before he got the hang of it.
The giant vampire said, “This is Saint Caution speaking. I suspect you know that my wife and I are the ones who summoned you. We were told that you were a superhero. We were told that you could save the planet. All you’ve done is destroy it. I want to know why. I want to know if there’s anything we can do that will convince you to return to the eldritch pit of nothingness from which you came.”
Cthulhu let out a mighty, evil laugh. He slammed a squiddy fist against the table of stars, rattling the gargantuan sushi platters. “Fools,” he bellowed, “I saved this planet from you. Vampires are a disease. Now we shall play my favorite war game. If you defeat me, I will return to the seas and you may begin your loathsome civilization anew. Sushi to the death begins!”
Before the death game could properly begin, a giant arm rose out of the sea and punched Cthulhu in the face.
When Bruno arrived at the location of the Lugosi’s house, the house was no longer standing. He experienced unbearable heartbreak and rage, at Cthulhu but also at himself. He never told Sarah that he loved her. He should have done so when he had the chance. He bit his tongue to stave off tears because only cowards cry. He cried anyway. He loved her.
He raised his giant arm into the air and sped off. He no longer cared if he lived or died. Only revenge mattered. First against Cthulhu, then against himself.
Speeding through the blackness, he spotted the megalithic squid god squaring off with a giant vampire. His initial thought was that Cthulhu had brought a friend along, but as he came nearer, he realized the giant vampire was made of other vampires. Despite his loss, he had to grin at the ingenuity of his fellow vampires.
The giant arm closed its hand into a fist, ready to punch Cthulhu back to R’lyeh.
But before Bruno had an opportunity to avenge his lover’s death, he was smashed into oblivion.
Bruno flailed as tatters of his giant arm fell around him. Cthulhu had destroyed his vessel with a single punch. He reached out for the ruined shards of muscle raining down, but it was pointless. He was falling and so were his dreams. Every bone in his body would break when he hit the ground. He thought of Sarah. He loved her now, when his life was over, more than ever. Was it always like this? He was clutched by a sickening fear made worse by a regret that he hadn’t lived and loved better, that in the end Muscle Island was a failure. Nothing hurt more than the death of an ideal, not even the ground when you fell from the sky and broke all your bones and became a big black nothing. At least then you still retained some hope as you fell. Bruno had two great hopes in the world, Muscle Island and Sarah. Both were dead. And then so was he. How he felt so much better being nothing, but there was all that losing everything he had to go through to get there. If he could have lived it all over, he would have dropped the cool act and just married the girl. They’d live happily ever after on Muscle Island, or maybe just happily, in some one room apartment.
“Oh my sea wolf! He killed Bruno!” Franz shouted.
“There’s no time to mourn,” Commander Pink said. “We’ve got a sushi battle to win. Look, it’s already begun.”
Cthulhu picked up an orca roll (a whole orca whale sliced and displayed over rice filled with salmon roe and carrot). He dipped a tentacle in wasabi and painted a green line down the orca’s back. If anyone were around to measure the quantity of wasabi on this single sushi roll, they would have totaled a sum of three gallons . . . and realized why Cthulhu was so insane.
Cthulhu swallowed the orca roll in a single bite.
The vampires, who had never eaten sushi, picked up an orca roll from the table of stars and spread an identical line of wasabi across the sliced orca’s back.
As the vampires that made up the giant vampire’s left arm raised the sushi roll to the massive mouth, Franz wondered what the green stuff was, and if it was potentially harmful, or some sort of trick on Cthulhu’s part.
The giant vampire took in the whole roll, just as Cthulhu had done.
And immediately regretted it.
The vampire that made up the giant nose exploded, splattering vampire blood all across the table of stars.
The greatest effect was seen on Commander Pink, for he controlled the strings that governed their collective body.
Commander Pink coughed and sputtered as his face turned red. His nose began to bleed. His eyes bugged out and his face elongated until he held the visage of a horse and whinnied loudly.
His knees buckled and he dropped the strings and vomited between his knees. Without a controller, the giant vampire slumped over. Franz pushed the sick commander aside and seized control of the ropes, raising up the heavy head of many from the starry table.
Franz and Lola led the giant vampire in a valiant sushi effort. They picked up a method of using the many mouths of the vampires to eat a plethora of sushi. The more sushi they fed the mouths, the bigger the vampire grew.
Finally, Cthulhu got frustrated. He knocked the table of stars aside and punched the giant vampire in the face.
The giant vampire sailed into the sky.
Burn Girl and Cyrus came ashore.
Burn Girl apologized for her unladylike behavior in the diner.
Burn Girl and Cyrus built a cannon out of the barrels.
Burn Girl and Cyrus got a bunch of lobsters to haul the pickle cannon on their backs to the location of a battle in the distance.
Some ghouls approached them.
Burn Girl said, “Boo,” and frightened them away.
The view from outer space was like a painting by Franz’s father.
The giant vampire slowed in its ascension and plummeted back to the planet.
Crashed into the ground.
Cthulhu planted a foot on the vampire’s back and roared triumphantly. Tentacles began creeping into the vampire, eating some of its people parts and crushing others, or sucking their heads off. It was a slow, painful death.
Before Cthulhu could destroy the entire giant vampire, a flame appeared on the ice. Franz saw it. And the little flame was running side by side with Lola’s younger brother, Cyrus. They were shooting at Cthulhu.
Shooting pickles.
Cthulhu’s hatred for pickles distracted him from the giant vampire, which gave Franz and Lola enough time to recover and raise up the body they commanded.
They sucker punched Cthulhu, who stomped his great squid feet.
The giant vampire grabbed hold of Cthulhu’s cape and flipped the cape over his tentacled face. While Cthulhu struggled to tear the cape from his eyes, Franz jerked madly at the strings, and the giant vampire leaned in close, bit Cthulhu on the neck, and sucked his blood. Franz and Lola and all the rest felt replenished for the first time in ages.
Cthulhu collapsed mightily to the earth. The giant vampire cheered. They had defeated the eldritch eco-warrior!
No.
Cthulhu w
as not dead. He laughed a very evil, sinister laugh.
And then the squid god exploded.
Burn Girl jumped up and down in celebration of the death of Cthulhu. She turned to give Cyrus a big hug, but Cyrus had been incinerated in the explosion of the god. The pickle cannon had turned to ash too. The giant vampire was in a million little pieces. Burn Girl doubted that anyone survived the blast. That was Cthulhu’s kamikaze mode. A little bit sad, Burn Girl turned back toward the sea. As she shuffled along the shore, she made a decision to open her own lonely diner. Even if there were rarely any customers, she’d be glad to warm the lonesome hearts of those weary travelers who found her diner. It would be a place where all the lonely could gather, a place she could finally call home.
Franz and Lola awoke in the ruins of their vampire comrades. It seemed everyone else had been torn apart by the blast. Lola’s baby legs were missing. Franz offered to find some good matching legs among the bodies.
“I don’t mind being legless, really,” she insisted. “I would rather be legless than walk around on someone else’s legs.”
The darkness had settled back to normal, pre-sunlight, pre-Cthulhu conditions. The sea and the ice were red as far as they could see. All the bloodshed and evil-dwelling had reverted the planet back to how it used to be.
“I’m so sorry,” Franz said.
“I told you, I’m okay legless.”
“No, for your family. We never found them. They must be—”
Lola silenced Franz by putting a finger over his lips.
“Our families are gone but we still have each other. I will miss them so much, but I’ll remember them for as long as I live. Vampires were never meant to live forever. Someday we’ll die too. I accept that. In the meantime, you are all the family I need.”
Cthulhu Comes to the Vampire Kingdom Page 10
