Rob Ern

An old rocking horse never bodes well. As Gillian entered the unfinished nursery, her eyes were drawn to it immediately. It sat in the corner, covered in dust and bits of plaster. The paint was faded where it hadn’t chipped off completely. Yet, despite the neglect, there was strange vitality to it. The intricately carved legs looked tensed and ready, like a sprinter waiting for the pistol. Whoever had carved it — probably the original owners — had given it a sinister sneer and wide, terrified eyes. Where the top lip pulled back from the gums, she could see its teeth were pointed like needles. From where she was standing, she couldn’t tell if the teeth were painted or carved. She started to lean in to investigate but then thought better of it.

“Rookie mistake, Gillian.” She turned away to take in the rest of the room.

The nursery was only half painted; the bright yellow that covered two thirds of the room came to an abrupt halt near the bassinet. This place had probably looked like a bank commercial before the trouble. She could picture the two newlyweds playfully dabbing each other’s noses as they painted the nursery. Of course, the cliché came to a swift end. The painted footprints leading off the tarps and out of the room, indifferent to new carpets and refinished hardwood, were telling. These people left in a hurry.

The bassinette was wrought iron and looked even older than the rocking horse. Older than anything she’d ever seen. On the headboard, tiny cherubim and seraphim figures battled each other. The billowy white curtain that surrounded had been pinned to the side. Her eyes traveled upwards to the mobile that hung at the curtain’s center. Here, the same angelic figures were again doing battle, this time against a seven-headed dragon that pivoted in the center. When the wind blew, the tiny angels would circle the dragon, spears in hand, their tiny mouths shouting commands as they flew. The dragon’s wings were outstretched in defiance and Gillian could see that they too would catch the wind, turning the dragon in sync with its attackers so they would never catch it unaware. She stood there, transfixed by the battle, when she heard the first wooden creak.

There was no reason to turn quickly; she knew what she would see. The horse was rocking back and forth frantically. A large white paint chip had worked itself loose from the eye and had gotten caught on the horse’s lip on its way down. The horse now seemed to be closing its eyes and frothing at the mouth from the effort. With each frantic rock, it slid forward slightly, slowly closing the distance between itself and Gillian. The snarl was more pronounced and Gillian could see more of the needle teeth peeking out at her. Ever the professional, she simply turned and walked confidently out of the room.

The owners of the house, along with her producer and a cameraman, were waiting for her in the sitting room. The sounds of polite chit chat died away as she entered. A young couple sat on the couch. They set down their coffee mugs and looked up at her hopefully.

“Mr. and Mrs. Dobson,” Gillian began, “I think we can help you.”

Interior design is about making the best of things. Most of the people who Gillian helped on her show were first-time buyers who had barely scraped together their minimum down payments, often by working side jobs on the weekends. They were desperate to escape the rental market, desperate to own something. That desperation had them buying into more than they could handle. Once the papers were signed, problems emerged. Shifting foundations, drafty rooms, old pipes, and worse. The kinds of problems that required major renovations or simply selling. Both of these were options unavailable to overstretched couples such as the Dobsons. But, as a professional designer, there were ways that Gillian could make those places more livable. The bottom rung of the property ladder had splinters, and it was her job to sand them.

Of course, the Dobsons’ problems fell neatly into the “…and worse” category. All the people on her show fell into that category. While Gillian considered herself first and foremost an interior designer, that wasn’t what had propelled her to the prime spot on HGTV’s overstuffed renovation lineup. Gillian was a lapsed medium, and her niche was making over haunted houses.

She didn’t deal with removing or pacifying the spirits any more than a painter deals with a cracked foundation. She made sure her applicants understood that. She wasn’t just a lapsed medium in the sense she wasn’t practicing. In fact, she actively ignored the dead. And taking into account the substantial handicap of being able to actually see and hear them, she was quite good at it. This was her true gift. She didn’t help people deal with ghosts, she taught them how not to. Whatever had been in the Dobsons’ nursery would still be there when she left, but like that painter covering the cracks in the wall under a fresh coat of eggshell white, she would make it easier to live with.

Her philosophy was simple: some haunted houses were scarier than others, and this has more to do with design than ghosts. The Dobsons’ place was a perfect example. It was an old Victorian three-story house in a quiet neighborhood overlooking the cemetery. The house had shifted and it now seemed to lean hungrily towards the sidewalk. Outside, an old elm, many years dead, pushed back against the house. Its branches dragged across the second floor windows as though it were continually feeling for a way in. The lawn was a patchwork of dead grass and thorn bushes which had begun to spill over onto the front porch. It looked terrifying to deliver a paper there, let alone to live in.

“Dressed like that,” she whispered when she was sure the cameras were off, “you’re practically asking for it.”

The spirits usually pushed back. They didn’t like someone getting rid of their billowy drapes or creaky wooden shutters any more than a carpenter would like you opening their toolbox and throwing out all their hammers. In fact, this particular spirit had tried just that but an attentive cameraman had spotted them in the trash. “The Residents,” as Gillian referred to them when she had to, could be annoying, but they were rarely dangerous. Ghosts preferred to haunt people when they were alone, and Gillian’s crew observed a strict buddy policy. Anyone wandering off on their own could expect a pink slip when (or if) they returned. The crew was also forced to take mandatory ghost training which consisted of a Netflix subscription and a large viewing list. In the end, it all boiled down to Gillian’s golden rule: “If you have ever seen a blonde girl do it in a horror movie, don’t.”

The work itself was hectic. Gillian walked through the house, room by room, giving instructions while her design team followed scribbling notes. The first order of business was the south kitchen wall. It had a nasty habit of bleeding whenever someone was alone with it. Here, Gillian broke her rule and posted a production assistant with paint swatches. Once they matched the shade, they would have to get new appliances in. She sent another PA off to call their sponsors at Sears.

Her crew didn’t need to be told everything. While she led the design team around imparting her vision despite her visions, electricians and carpenters went to work. Chandeliers were lowered and replaced with bright, non-swinging track lights. Creaky floorboards were pulled up and replaced. Old toys were gathered from the nursery and the attic. So far, they had the rocking horse, mobile, and several porcelain dolls stuffed into garbage bags by the front door. Two staff members were replacing all the curtains with smart looking venetians. Ghosts could not jump out of venetians. In fact, Gillian knew we took with us to the next life the frustrating inability to lower venetians properly. Even the dead had to shimmy them down by alternating pulling one string and the opposite corner of the blinds. And they too knew it was probably better not to bother in the first place.

“It’s not going to make any difference you know…”

She brushed past the spirit without acknowledging it, her team still in tow. He was an older looking man dressed in dark robes that hung down over his face. If she had cared to look into the history of the house, she would have recognized him as Herman Phillips, the reclusive and mysterious architect. However, looking into it was dangerously close to trying to solve the situation, which she very much opposed.

There was an unrealistic expectation on mediums. People thought that just because they see the dead they should dedicate their life to helping them. When she was growing up, the only advice she ever got was maybe if she tried to help them, they would leave her alone. Helping seemed like a lot when these ghosts made her life a waking nightmare. If a living person broke into her house and somehow threw open all the cupboards when she went downstairs for a glass of water, they would be arrested. She would not be expected to tell that person’s estranged spouse how they really felt. If anyone else jumped out of her shower at her every time she got up to go the bathroom, she could get a restraining order. But no, society seemed to think it was the teenager’s fault for not agreeing to solve cold cases in her spare time.

“But you have a gift!” they would say.

So what? She was also good at math but that didn’t mean it was okay for her math teacher to sneak into her room in the middle of the night and throw all her clothes in the air until she agreed to take the advanced class. For a while, it seemed to her that medium was the only career path that existed outside the confines of free will but she was determined to resist as long as she could. Then, one day shortly before she graduated high school, she realized that she could put a lock on her drawers and her clothes wouldn’t fly out. She took down the shower curtain later that same day and was able to use the bathroom after sundown for the first time in years. She applied to design school a week later.

“When the goat with a thousand young emerges this open shower design will not save you!”

They were in the bathroom now. The plumber was putting the finishing touches on the rain shower. The ghost had been following them since the main floor. She was the only person who saw him and was for that reason the only one pretending not to. But like the craziest man at the bus stop, the ghost had seen a flicker of recognition and latched on. He continued to shout as the crew pulled mirrors of the walls. Ghosts loved to appear suddenly in mirrors and Gillian always did what she could to deny them a venue

“The old one aw. . . .”

She pushed her ear buds in.

Later that afternoon, Gillian was busy filming the requisite shots of her rolling up her sleeves and helping the crew when her assistant tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey, uh, we found something in the basement you might want to see,” he said.

She doubted that but followed him anyway.

The basement was musty. They were adding lighting but there wasn’t much to be done down there. In fact, their only contribution in this area had been building a small annex off the back porch that they were going to move the washer and dryer into. Now, there was no need for anyone to be down here at all. It was the electrician that found the room.

Behind the dryer plug was a bricked-over secret room. It was dark and windowless. As Gillian swept it with the beam of her flashlight, she saw what appeared to be large ceremonial candles. The intern struck a match and Gillian blew it out.

“We are not going to light those,” she said

She stepped through the hole in the wall and into the room. It didn’t take long for her crew to string lights through it. It was a small space. The walls were plastered in arcane symbols and something about the room’s geometry seemed…off. A granite altar occupied the center of the room. Two production assistants found excuses to leave, not being afraid of the room as much as the now inevitable heavy lifting. Atop the altar was a massive tome bound in what Gillian sincerely hoped to be leather. Well shit, the Dobsons had a secret Book of the Dead. She’d never seen one before but she knew how to handle them.

“Look upon it, look upon your do . . . ”

She handed the book to her assistant and put the ear buds back in.

“Get rid of this. Don’t read it, don’t open it, don’t even think of putting it in the trash. When Joseph is done taking apart the bassinet, you ask him for his blowtorch,” she said in a tone that left no room for misinterpretation.

He hurried off with it, carrying it with his sleeves in the likely case that it was in fact not leather. She looked back at the spirit who was standing at the altar screaming at her like a country preacher. For a moment, his mouth synced with her music and he appeared to be giving a furious sermon on having kissed a girl and liking it very much. Against her better judgment, she laughed.

The reveal was her favorite part of the show. She did it with a degree of ceremony that walked a fine line between popularity and possible litigation. Gillian and her crew stood behind a large semi-trailer that any lawyer could see was quite different from a bus. The Dobsons returned from a one-week spa vacation and stood there with her and the crew. Gillian drew out the moment with the usual questions: “How was your vacation?” “Are you nervous?” “What are you expecting to see?” When she finally decided they’d had enough, they all counted down from five and yelled the show’s catchphrase.

“DRIVE…THIS…SEMI . . . AWAYYYYYYYYYYYY.”

The Dobsons were awestruck. The gardener had done an amazing job with the front lawn. The elm and the bushes were gone. The dead grass had been replaced with artificial turf. Nothing good could grow in that evil soil but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be the envy of their neighbors. The house still leaned towards the sidewalk, but with the lighter paint job it looked peckish at best. Mrs. Dobson began to cry.

“Are you ready to see the inside?” Gillian asked for the benefit of the cameras.

Mrs. Dobson nodded and the entire group began to cross the street. They hadn’t reached the meridian when the ground began to shake. Gillian instinctively pulled the Dobsons back and they all ran for the cover of the semi. Suddenly, massive tentacles tore through the artificial turf. Each was easily as large as the semi itself. A low guttural scream rose from the ground and filled the air and sickly green light bled from the chasms in the ground. Everyone except Gillian, who was able to shove her ear buds in, fell to the fetal position with their fingers in their ears. She watched as the writhing tentacles pulled the house apart, ripping it into chunks that they then pulled down into whatever dark dimension or hell they were reaching from. A chunk of the second floor was torn off and, for a moment, the second-floor guest bathroom with the new Jacuzzi tub and heated towel rack was visible. Gillian resisted the urge to pick the Dobsons up for a quick look.

It only took a moment for the tentacles to drag the entirety of the house down into oblivion. When the last piece was down, the chasm closed. Once it was gone she could clearly see the backyard (though she supposed it was just “yard” now). There, next to the old tool shed, stood her assistant. He was holding a blowtorch in his hands and, in front of him in the fire pit, something smoldered. It appeared to Gillian that, in a purely dimensional sense, the Necronomicon had been load bearing. Live and learn. In hindsight destroying the book did seem now dangerously close to trying to solve the problem. As the rest of the group got uncertainly to their feet, she pulled out her cell phone.

“Hi Jenny, can you put me through to legal?”

Epilogue

Ultimately they settled out of court. The Dobsons had signed a waiver but Gillian didn’t need that kind of press. This was the easy victory for the poor couple. While “acts of god” was technically included in their policy the insurance company waged a prolonged legal battle over which god that referred to. Eventually, the court sided with the Dobsons, agreeing that while the comparatively kind Old Testament god might have been what the company intended, nothing in the wording of the policy explicitly excluded the Great Old Ones who sleep at the edge of space and whose names are madness to anyone who dare to speak them aloud. As the latter are more apt to be destructive, this has had a terrible effect on rates.

ROB ERN is a currently pursuing an MPA in the Canadian prairies. In addition to writing short fiction he enjoys horror movies, travel, and the occasional pint.

Paul “Deadeye” Dick

Somewhere in Southern West Germany, October 1973

We were lost and neither one of us wanted to admit it. But that’s what happens when you have two doctors in a car. Since receiving our Doctorates in Journalism at Arkham’s famous Miskatonic University, we had ridden high, hanging ten, on the crest of an awesomely prosperous wave. Our work depicting the Vietnam War, counter-culture, cults, and political animals of the last decade (the last two had a lot in common in our opinion) was a sensation. But though our journalistic work for Rolling Stone Magazine and other publications was renowned, so was our appetite for destruction, drugs, and hedonism.

And though these appetites knew no bounds, our pockets did. We were still professionals, however, and knew that we had to accept any assignment that came our way to fund our next altered state of being. Thus was the lot of a guerrilla gonzo journalist. Strike fast. Strike hard. Deliver the truth. Deliver that deadline. Then disappear back into the deep, dark jungles of the drugged subconscious.

And so we ended up here in rural Southern West Germany, nominally to cover some hazy, human-interest piece on an Oktoberfest-style event in a friendly, tourist trap mill town called Freundreich. I had been far too out of it to drive as I’d taken a little too much of “the glowy stuff” that Hunter had stolen from the dorm of that douche, Herbert West.

“The glowy stuff” was some kind of adrenochrome extract mixed with a bunch of other high-priced chemical special effects that stimulated “The Third Eye” of the pineal gland. It came on in waves like a cross of Mescaline and Methedrine. More than once I thought I’d turned into a goddamn reptile. I also felt we were being pursued by the giant spectral entity of some ancient, alien intent.

This bat-winged squid beast blanketed the night sky above us and followed our car, hankering to suck our souls through our assholes with its crazy, drinking straw tentacles the size of tree trunks.

“Jesus, crying in heaven, what the deuce is that thing?” Hunter spat in hushed tones.

My writing partner and long-time friend, Dr Hunter P. Lovecraft, was a man of many letters. Some of which were letters banning him from different countries and others restraining orders from political figures he had savaged . . .

Writing by himself, Hunter had penned many stories of weird fiction dealing with sleeping ancient alien entities that wanted to take over the earth from us humans, when they were awoken by their subhuman cults. In Hunter P. Lovecraft’s stories, Humanity was insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. Sometimes Hunter got confused between these stories and reality, especially when he took a little too many drugs.

My name is Dr. Duke Raoul Gonzalez, or “Gonzo” for short, and together my friend and I had explored and wrote about our adventures and experiences within the dark heart of the American Dream. Now we were lost in the heart of a European nightmare.

Hunter too had seen the spectral, bat-winged, squid-like creature. But it may have been the influence of shared hysteria and his stories combined with the blotter acid he had not long eaten.

To his credit he got it together enough and managed to take an emergency evasive manoeuvre off-road, away from the thing. This, however, quickly became a wrong turn, through a wood that seemed to move with us on stubby legs, and then ending over a fog-covered bridge. The sign we passed said, “Willkommen Zu Insmund.”

Welcome to Insmund. Welcome to hell. No sympathy for these poor devils . . .

We had known the terror of watching Scooby-Doo on the wrong kind of mushroom and mind-set and had seen way too many Roger Corman-Vincent Price movies to not know a creepy place when we saw one. Without the full team of Fred, Daphne, and Velma, of course, we said “screw this” and backed out of town fast. Brace for the G’s of the 180 turn. Fast heel toe.

But as we reached what we thought was the entrance to town, we found the road and the bridge we came in on had gone and our red Cadillac nearly fell off the cliff. We had no choice now but to carry on as wayward sons and try to break on through to the other side of the benighted town.

Insmund seemed drained of life and color in the fog. It looked for all the world like we had walked straight into an old RKO horror movie. With our Acapulco shirts and fly hook fishing hats, we were the only brightly colored things in the place.

Our car battery breathed its last and we headed gingerly through the cloying grey mist on foot. Murphy’s Law decreed that as soon as we were on foot it would start to rain like a bastard in the town. Hunter was being a bastard too . . .

“Jesus, God man your eyes look messed up. You took too much of that goddamn stuff. It’s started to do some freaky ass crap to you . . . ”

“Wha’ I have pink eye or something? What’s wrong with my eyes, man? You’re freakin’ me the hell out, I think I’m getting the Fear . . . ” Fingers of insanity and fear clawed at me again. And I bit them off as best I could.

“You fiend, your eyes have had a divorce and went on separate vacations to the sides of your head, and your mouth has turned vertical, pull yourself together ya two-bit Yugg, you’re a man, you’re an American goddammit,” barked Hunter.

As we progressed deeper into town we heard sounds of movement amid the fog and visibility started to clear some. Soon enough we saw shambling forms lurching in the mist. We called out to them for directions but they scurried indoors and slammed them shut as we passed.

People are strange when you’re a stranger at the best of times. But these assholes were downright inhospitable. Faces appeared out of the rain at windows, staring at us with weird-shaped desolate eyes set in grey-pallored, tapered faces. We broke into a run . . . our shadows grew German expressionistic and Scooby-Doo-like in their proportions as we passed buildings whose angles were not right by any earthly standards.

Insmund had once been a beautiful and picturesque fishing town. However God had decided to turn his back and wipe his ass with this place long ago. It was now a living skidmark upon the world.

The place stank of rack’n’ruin. It stank of dead fish, seaweed, and that deep, dank, cloying, stagnant smell of an uncleaned drain that had been left for far too long. We reached what looked like a town square and saw the piss yellow glow of a neon sign amidst the purgatorial grey. A sign in the distance said, “Kieme Mensch Hotel.”

The Kieme Mensch Hotel was a rundown piece of crap flop house if ever we saw one, but seemed like as good a place as any to get directions to get out of town or, if worst came to the worst, someplace to hole up until daylight.

Things looked up as an eerie beauty on the main desk greeted us as we entered. She had that roundish Bette Davis or Carole Lombard kind of face.

She was beautiful and cherub-cheeked but haunting and austere, like her face wasn’t real but a perfect waxwork copy. Her blond hair looked like golden, crinkly seaweed framing, black, unblinking, doll-like eyes that were maybe too big for a face with a wide, thick-lipped, fixed smile spread across it.

Her figure was certainly very inviting in the tight-fitting but otherwise Amish full-length dress she wore. She didn’t seem to walk but glide behind the front desk counter. She had a key in her hand and her head was cocked congenially to the side.

“Hi there, Miss? Dr. Hunter P. Lovecraft and Dr. Duke R. Gonzalez, we need directions out of town and maybe a bed for the night. Our car battery has given out too, is there a good garage in town?”

Always been amazed how my friend Hunter can string a whole sentence like that together and appear totally straight, while being completely out of his tits. I on the other hand was experiencing myself vicariously like I was watching a nature program of myself. I was flicking my tongue like a lizard and hankering for raw man flesh. I wanted to eat a human then climb inside the abandoned skin and wear it as a leotard with mask to become man once more.

Then I got pissed I couldn’t turn the nature program over to the porn channel where the lady behind the counter was getting it on with me. Wait . . . she’s looking at me . . . Did she hear me think that? What was that sound of little children laughing? Why won’t the little bastards answer that ringing phone?

“Willkommen und guten Abend mein Herren. I am Helga. You are ze American gentlemen guests are you not? Your room has been pre-booked and paid for you. Do not worry about a zing, your car will be attended to . . . ” Her eyes were hypnotic.

Hunter and I trundled upstairs to bed like good little boys at Christmas waiting for Santa, obeying Helga’s commands. As we rounded the next flight up, a pale yellow flash split the air in front of us and we didn’t notice we were suddenly heading downstairs until we reached an open cellar door and realized it was too late to turn back as the stairs behind us had disappeared into a dark void.

Helga was there waiting in the chamber in front of us with a whole bunch of other people chanting Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Ph’tagn! over and over again. The place was underlit by the cyan glow of an underground lake. The shimmering water reflections cast huge shadows upon the back walls. She was wearing that same eerie but beatific smile and very little else apart from a golden ceremonial crown that looked like a stylised octopus. Her breasts were truly a thing of beauty but as Hunter pointed out —

“Great freakin’ tits! But where are her Southern Territories? She’s a Goddamn Calamari!”

Gone was her form-fitting dress revealing why she seemed to glide about behind the counter. From the hips down, she had no legs nor feet. She had myriad tentacles in their place instead.

This may have unhinged a normal man, who would never trust another woman in a floor-length dress again, his life ruined forever as this revelation pierced the flimsy safety bubble of his sanity and pushed him into the laughing mouth of madness. But Hunter and I were made of sterner stuff. We had surrendered our normalcy and sanity to the proper authorities long ago. We saw the tentacles as only a hiccup to our bedding the otherwise fair Helga. Now we would have to plan with military precision, and possibly with maps, how we could go about it. The naked guys that she had with her though were not invited. Already too many tentacles were there without a wienerfest being added to the mix as well.

This didn’t seem to be an issue, however, as they started to rip their ill-fitting greying skin off, including their redundant junk. What disturbed us now was this revealed the squamous second skin of the batrachian fishmen beneath. Their wide, blubbery-lipped mouths and hooked teeth were slaked by ragged, warty tongues.

They drooled uncontrollably as they eyed us for the main course. Hunter of course took the lead. Behind his tinted glasses his eyes seemed to spark in the dark with the silvery fire of righteous fury.

One giant fishman looked like it was going to set upon us, a look of mayhem in his eye. Unfazed, Hunter clenched his cigarette holder between his snarling teeth at a forty-five degree angle, like Burgess Meredith in that Batman TV show.

“Okay, you insidious fishmonger window bastards! Cease and desist all movement towards us and do not look at me in that tone of voice! — Do You Hear Me!?!”

Little green men could hear Hunter on Mars . . . His voice rose in timber to match Moses commanding back the Red Sea. For someone who hated authority, Hunter had one of the most authoritative voices I have ever heard. He missed his calling as a leader of men.

“You may well be giant Orcas . . . But I am freakin’ Ahab! Visit violence upon us and you’ll be messing with an expert in the ancient and deadly martial art of Barista!”

He took a coffee flask out his jacket, popping the top. He stressed the “Barista” in hushed mystic tones emphasizing the last “a” as “aaaaaaaa” and waved his hands in circles with the flask spilling steaming coffee and then snap-kicked his leg up to brow height athletically in a free-form kata to indicate he meant business.

I had seen the damage of this self-created martial art of “Barista” and it wasn’t pretty.

Stage 1 — Distraction. Consisted of catching someone off guard with comments or actions designed to annoy or confuse.

 

Stage 2 — Blind. Disable. Debilitate. Smack or splash the opponent in the face, very fast, with a preferably hot beverage like boiling black coffee or disable by other means.

 

Stage 3 & 4 — Bring The Pain. As the opponent is blinded and burning from the coffee assault, kick and/or punch them in the balls, stomach, and face. Hit them with any available object at hand that would inflict more damage.

 

Stage 5 — Bow and Retreat. Bow low. Regain your equilibrium in salute to your defeated enemy. Then exit fast. Especially if opponent is still getting back up or you hear cop sirens approach your position.

There were many variations to the art, such as using cold alcoholic drinks in bottles or drinking glasses, and every country had its own variant. It was known in Scotland as “Stitch That!” or “Fa-Kyu!”

Maybe they didn’t understand English, maybe they wanted to call Hunter’s bluff, but I think it was more that they had gotten specially “undressed” for dinner and they wanted to eat. Three of them came bounding at us and Hunter sprang into action, delivering what could only be described as athletic hyper-energized hell upon them with fists, feet, head, and coffee flask.

“Nein, Nein, Nicht jetzt ihr Idioten!” Helga reprimanded the fishmen. It wasn’t time.

Hunter had laced the coffee with premium whiskey and this burned and blinded the fishmen as much as the boiling hot beverage did. But that was only a fraction of the pain that Hunter was visiting upon them. He was as a man possessed.

He stabbed one in the eye with his cigarette holder. Breaking off another’s teeth, using them as makeshift knives. Punching with brass knuckles and kicking with his hobnail, metal toecap army boots. Headbutting and catching their flesh with the fish hooks he wore in his fishing hat. And rodeo-riding another one into a stone column knocking it out. All the while shouting out a battle cry –

“Rue the day you screwed with a Doctor of Journalism!”

During the melee, Hunter shouted out to me to make “The Call” and threw me the field radio he had in the cargo pocket of the voluminous combat jacket he wore. I swear to God that thing’s plethora of pockets were actually pocket dimensions containing anything we needed however useless it may seem on the surface. It was gifted to Hunter by the Yogi Soth Oth in India who had had it especially made for him.

“Which one of you bastards is next?” Hunter said standing triumphant with one foot on a downed enemy fishman. He relit the cigarette in his cigarette holder.

Tentacles erupted out from the water on all sides as Helga lifted a golden ceremonial sceptre above her head and said something gargly and unpronounceable. The tentacles had the horrible smoothed, ribbed feel of sea worms rather than the suckered surface of octopus tentacles. They exuded some horrific slime that started to paralyze our struggling, and as we lapsed into unconsciousness we prayed we had bought enough time for “The Call” to take effect.

When we regained consciousness, maybe an hour or two had passed. Tied up like Christmas Turkeys, ready to be carved up and sacrificed to their Pagan god. With a headful of drugs, a bellyful of booze, and a heart full of hatred now for fishmen, this was no situation to be in. I demanded to talk to the American consulate and got smacked in the face by a talking man-fish. He sounded like he was gargling something in German. I do not know what he said but I deemed it not complimentary. He had the right hook of Mohammed Ali and Hunter had left a fishing hook through its lip when he head-butted him earlier. Helga, still with her fixed smile, took on a brand new malevolence in her eyes as her eyebrows arched in insanity-laced indignation as she gloated.

“Soon our master will come from the depths and we shall all feast together on you — body, mind, and soul. Then energized by the feast we will begin copulating and our spawn shall swarm across the world and take back what is rightfully Great Cthulhu’s. You have no hope. You are out-classed. Out-manned, and how you American’s say? ‘Out-gunned.’” She grinned, her eyes going real big and totally black.

Hunter and I felt the tell-tale rumbling in our bellies before she did. Hunter distracted her with some of his grade-A goading.

“Oh yeah? Outgunned? Just like we were in World War II, huh? When are you Nazi-types going to learn? Americans are never out-gunned!!!” Hunter grinned back.

The underground chamber was shook by the power of torpedo explosions as a submarine somewhere opened fire. More explosions above us and U.S. Marines descended on drop ropes opening fire on Helga and the fishmen. “The Call” had been made to local stationed US armed forces and now they arrived and then some. But where was that patriotic armed forces tune coming from? It sounded like a full on marching band.

I looked over at Hunter for answers and his face was like a little boy at one of the best fireworks displays ever. His grin was infectious and I started to laugh my ass off. God bless this man who could turn the darkest situation into something positive. And God bless the United States of America! Wait . . . Why is everything suddenly getting really bright?

“Ja, I concur . . . Failure to act to stimuli after so long. He has lapsed into Catatonia. He is quite gone. Complete psychotic break,” a voice said from the light.

The light disappeared from my eyes and I could see it was a pocket torch held by someone who looked a lot like Helga except she had legs, wasn’t naked, and wore a doctor’s coat and spectacles. Damn, she still looked hot though . . .

“Ach Du Lieber Gott. He also has an erection,” said Dr. Helga looking away.

“I am surprised he is still capable after all the drugs he has taken over the years. But I suppose it was only a matter of time until his mind fractured under their onslaught.”

Another doctor’s voice was talking, this one an American. His voice seemed vaguely familiar. It was mid-toned, husky but warbly, and breathless. It had a strange, cold, sibilance to it. I couldn’t open my mouth to argue with them as I wore a bit and muzzle, or move as I was held down with leather restraints. Jesus Christ, I was in a mental institution. What had they done with Hunter?

“Let’s begin with some Electroshock therapy and see where we go from there.”

“Ja, I concur. We have had a quite high success rate with natural psychotic breakdowns but I have never tried the procedure on one who has taken so many drugs that he has brought one on himself. But let us try it.” Helga spoke to the voice.

“I’m glad you brought me in on this Dr. Hillfer, although it is very unorthodox. I was at Miskatonic University with him you know and we knew each other quite well.”

He was at Miskatonic with me? Who the hell could this asshole be? And what had they done with Hunter? I wasn’t insane. I wasn’t catatonic. I could think clearly. I just couldn’t speak.

They pushed me down the corridor on the gurney and as I passed a reflective surface I finally saw Hunter stare at me. Hunter was me all along. Oh my Christ no. What had I done to myself. I had gone psychotic. No wait. Scratch that. I knew only too well what I had done . . . I wanted to cry and howl. But I was a living statue, trapped in the prison of my own flesh.

“Ach dammit — it’s my beeper. Could you continue on with the patient, Dr. West?”

“Of course, Dr. Hillfer. Mr. Lovecraft is in good hands I assure you.”

Mr. Lovecraft? I’m a Doctor of Journalism dammit and demand to be called thus.

I then realized who the other voice was as I heard his name and his face came into view. Herbert goddamn West. The one person I would never want to lay a hand on me in a medical capacity or otherwise. As his pallid face and eyes watched her go, he slowly looked down on me.

“Don’t worry Hunter you’ll hardly feel a thing. I hope you don’t die during this but then since you’ve already taken some of my reagent, death may not be an issue. It will be interesting to see what happens next. But let’s give you a little booster shot shall we?” He smiled wanly, producing a small bottle of green-glowing liquid. He filled his syringe with it and buried the needle in my arm.

“Rest assured Hunter. Alive or dead you will be of immense use to me . . . ”

My mind raced out to grab the edges of conscious reality and failed as I slipped again into cold, howling darkness . . .

PAUL “DEADEYE” DICK is a one-eyed “Jack of All Trades,” an artist/writer from Fife, Scotland. His photorealistic, part-painted 2D art features on numerous Yellow Mama, A Shot of Ink, and Black Petals stories. These include his own Dick Dice hardboiled SF/Noir tales, as well as Anne Stickel’s Horror/Fantasy book Next Stop: Napper’s Holler and Cindy Rosmus’ Death Takes a Snowday. His Dick Dice Novella “Snake Eyes” — co-written by Tara Fox Hall — is available on Barnes & Noble and Amazon just now. Like a Ronin Samurai of old, Paul’s available for any paid freelance work. You can contact him at: Deadeye_Samurai@Yahoo.co.uk