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FEAR AND LOATHING IN INNSMOUTH

by Duane Pesice

This is a work of fiction. You probably shouldn't read it if you are easily offended. Any similarity to any persons, places or things in the real world is purely coincidence, and anyway it's all in your head.

A skyful of bats...driving through the nightmare...the awful sins/crimes of hoary old New England towns...what is under those quaint little gambrel roofs? And why are you looking at me so funny?

We were just around Bristol on the edge of Massachusetts when the drugs began to take hold. Suddenly there was a terrible roar around us,and the sounds of distant drums, and flutes, piping. The sky was full of bats and batlike creatures and random interstellar nightmares, all shrieking and tittering and diving around the car like flies around money, and my attorney was screaming something unpronounceable, with far too many consonants for my liking. I remember saying something like "pull over, maybe I should drive" when my attorney suddenly wrenched the steering wheel hard right and drove the car into a ditch at the side of the road.

A few stray vultures had joined the overhead entourage, where they were joined by ravens and whippoorwills, and still more interstellar nightmares.

"Ia!" My attorney cried. "Ia! Hastur! Hastur cf'ayak 'vulgtmm, vugtlagln, vulgtmm! Ai! Ai! Hastur!"

A couple of the more batlike interstellar nightmares wheeled down out of the sky and landed before us. My attorney, normally a man of reason (excepting certain instances where he claimed "not to be himself") indicated that I should take a seat on the back of one of these alien beasts.

Indicating my disapproval in no uncertain terms, I stood my ground.

My attorney looked at me sadly, glanced significantly up at the sky, which was full of diving, screeching, flopping, shrieking, tittering gibbering faceless interstellar nightmares. All of the terrestrial birds and bats had gone home.

"They're hungry," he said.

So I climbed up on the scaly slick back of the bat from outer space, grabbed the thing by the nape of the neck, where some of its scales made a convenient handhold, and off we went. Some of the rest of the crowd followed us for a while, until my attorney hollered at them some. Then it was quiet.

"What exactly do you put in that goddamn mead?" I yelled. "Whatever it is, I want more!"

My attorney had approached me back at the hotel with the proposition that we go out and absorb some of the local color. It was as boring as watching paint peel, sitting there in the room watching the paint peel, so I took him up on the offer. "I'm from around here," he told me. I looked him right in his bulging eyes and believed him. I had seen plenty of folks running around with no lips and big frog eyes like he had, in the last couple of days.

He handed me a glass vial and a matchstick.

"Dip the match in the vial, and take a bit on the tip of your tongue. Just a bit. This stuff's pretty strong."

I tasted the stuff. It had a hint of cornstarch, some lemon, and herbs I coudn't identify, and I think a little menthol.

"This stuff is pure dynamite", he informed me. "You'll be tasting it in your toes pretty soon..."

I had scant time to consider what he meant by that, because immediately after tasting the foul but sweet concoction, I was more aware of my surroundings than I had ever been. The colors of the room, faded as they were, became almost unbearably intense. I couldn't even look at the television-the people on it began assuming reptilian characteristics, gnawing on each other's limbs, grappling in a rapidly spreading pool of blood...

And that was the weather channel.

What's worse, the pool of blood was flowing out of the tv into the hotel room. My toes started to tingle, and then an electric eel swam up my spine. Strange vistas of time and space began to unfurl in my mind's eye, and lost civilizations told me their story. This movie kept on running, and I started to enjoy it...

I gulped down most of the rest of the contents of the vial, handed it back to my attorney, grabbed my coat, and headed for the door. His eyes bugged out about a foot when I did that, but he didn't say a thing.

He stood there looking at me in the most extraordinary way, and I had the idea that he was about to flick a ten foot tongue at me and swallow me like a fly, then his flesh erupted into bleeding stringwarts, and about six huge hairy tits swelled up on his back as his skin assumed an ichorish pallor almost exactly the color of Aurora monster models, the ones they don't make any more.

His smile engulfed the room as he said "You took too much", whereupon he, with great ceremony, swept down the stairs and through the hotel lobby, where a walleyed night clerk sat disinterestedly doing a crossword puzzle. He didn't even glance in our direction as we passed.

I gave him a fine warm smile, from the bottom of my heart, then, beaming, turned to my attorney.

"Jesus!" He exploded. "That stuff got right up on top of you. I'll drive."

I agreed. "As your doctor, I advise you to drive at top speed, with the top down, and the volume all the way up." I jumped into the car without using the door, began fiddling with the radio.

"Volume! Clarity! Bass!" Howled my attorney. "We must have BASS!"

But all I could get on any local station was unearthly flutes piping and monstrous drums pounding in an unsteady off-kilter rhythm.

We had brought along a portable tape player/recorder, for random noise sampling, and I had some tapes in the glove compartment. I reached in to get them, brushing aside more vials of the golden mead, and began to moan along with the words to Brewer and Shipley, leaving the car radio on as a kind of demented counterpoint.

The boom box had plenty of bass.

I opened the suitcase we had brought along. We had eye of newt, toe of frog, tail of cat, wolfsbane, garlic, some herbs I couldn't identify, and a whole galaxy of grimoires, manuals, tomes, volumes, and scrolls dating from before the dawn of civilization until now, with time out for the Dark Ages. There was also quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, two zs, hundreds or peyote buttons, and if all else failed, we could take a seat on the good left arm of my friend Mr. Natural.

My attorney had insisted that we bring these books along, though I didn't see the need. He had a satchel of his own, with who knows what in it. He was the king of the great horny brown toads, he had a plan, and nothing was gonna stand in his way.

I had some nitrous oxide, and poured it on a towel, letting the scent rise from the floorboards and into our faces as we traveled. I didn't know if this procedure would work, but it was certainly worth a try.

We had gotten maybe ten miles out of town on this lonely back road when my attorney pulled his stunt-driving maneuver, and we were then collected by the Shantaks.

Now we were climbing out of the atmosphere into interplanetary space, and I was sure I was gonna die.

I still had the suitcase in my right hand. I hadn't noticed it because it didn't weigh anything anymore. Forgetting about worrying about how I was gonna breathe, I began to think about what exactly I was carrying. And what were we doing out here in outer space, when we both had bad hearts?

My attorney was busy discussing something with one of the Shantaks, using a series of complicated hand gestures to communicate with the creature. I tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned toward me with a huge knife, one of those Indian-looking curvy things, a real nasty blade from the South Sea islands my attorney was known to frequent.

He held a big brown forefinger to his lips.

He mimed a bronco ride.

We began to descend, and the infernal music that had been playing on the car radio started coming from everywhere.

Huge buildings hove into view, their proportions somehow not quite right, and boulevards of broken glass with huge colored lights shining on them appeared between them.

"This is Savage Henry's house. He waits dreaming inside," explained my attorney, who was taking a bite out of something unspeakable, cutting little pieces of it off, and feeding the pieces to the bat-thing he rode on.

A great voice intoned from everywhere. "The stars aren't right!" The voice exclaimed.

And just like that we were back in the car, moving at speed through the same country lanes.

"What's in that stuff?" I queried, stuffing a cigarette into my holder and reaching for a beer.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you. And the stars aren't right." The sun had risen, and it was very warm, and very bright, and I just wanted to surround myself with it...

I leaned back and closed my eyes briefly, enjoying the sensation. My attorney was driving with one hand, and with the other he was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process.

"Savage Henry has cashed his check!" My attorney was screaming at the people in the car that had pulled beside us.

I looked inside the car, and it was full of rich old fuddie-duddies on their way, doubtless, to Cape Cod, where they could warm their bunions on the rocks, with a twist, and forget about the mundane cares of the world, like what to have with the fish tonight, honey, and did you remember to turn off the coffeepot?

Their hair was the same white-blue as ice, and they were so pale that their skin had acquired a bluish tinge.

My attorney slowed down slightly, to look at their license plate. It was issued in Rhode Island, and read "Ithaqua".

"What's an Ithaqua?" I asked innocently.

My attorney motioned toward the satchel I was still clutching to my chest.

"Open it up," he said, raising an eyebrow archly. "Then take out the first book, shine that sucker up real good, fold it sideways the long way, and stick it in the dash lighter."

Indeed. When I had done this thing, the knowledge was passed to me, of the Elder Gods, and their long battle to suppress the Great Old Ones, who were banished to forgotten corners of the universe, but wait and dream, dream of the day when the stars are right, and they may once again lay claim to their holdings, this poor mudball, and the rest of the universe, which was rightfully theirs.

This thing began eons ago, and periodically the agents of the Great Old Ones on earth and elsewhere attempt to bring this about again.

Some call it evil, but is it evil to step on an anthill, if it's in your way?

And what is evil, anyway, but an imposition of human moral values on things that have no intrinsic morality to them anyway.

"I need my medicine," I said.

My attorney laughed. "You're the doctor!" He chortled.

"Oh yeah. I forgot." The rigors of the road had taken their toll on me, and I needed refreshment. Reaching into my personal kit bag of trendy chemical amusement aid, I selected several choice morsels, washing them down with some of my attorney's golden mead.

My attorney turned to me. "Remember that we are professionals-we're here to cover the story," he imparted before howling "Holy Shit!" and turning the car into a ditch again.

I was about to turn and explain that that was my line, not his, when I see the reason we've pulled another Chitwood shot-He has spied a hitchhiker by the side of the road, and had stopped to pick him up.

"We're businessmen," I explained to the kid, as he was getting in. "We came here to cover the Martha's Vineyard yacht regatta, but we've lost our way. The telephone number to the pink phone by the pool is out of service, and the dwarf is out of town, looking for Savage Henry."

I fixed him with an even finer, warmer smile as I continued, admiring the fine shape of his skull as I talked. "We plan to follow this here Miskatonic River to it's source, in order to get to the race on time. Have a beer," I said, handing him one. "There's no other way to get to the other side..."

He nodded, clearly misunderstading my line of thinking. I took a moment to collect myself, ate one of the peyote buttons, took a generous swallow of my beer, and began once again to try to explain that we were JOURNALISTS! FOR CHRISTS'S SAKE CAN'T YOU SEE THAT WE ARE HERE TO COVER A STORY!"

Jesus. Did I say that or think that? Or did someone else say it to me?

My attorney was driving extremely rapidly, white-knuckled at the wheel, and moaning along with the obscene pipes and drums on the car radio.

"Ia!" he was mumbling. "Phn'glui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'Lyeh wgah nagl fhtagn," he continued. "Ia! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods With A Thousand YOUNG! YOG-SOTHOTH!"

This last was accompanied by a rumbling from the skies, and I could see that we were making the kid nervous.

"Drink more beer," I advised, handing him another. The kid nodded again, but his eyes were nervous. Still I wanted him to have all the background, because my story was true, I was certain of it, had all been true since the monent by the hotel pool when the dwarf brought us the pink phone on a silk pillow, when the call came through.

I was attempting to fit the contents of a twelve ounce glass into an eight ounce tumbler, and was having a little difficulty, so my attorney took the call.

You could feel his wheels turning as he said, "you don't say."

He raised an eyebrow above the rim of his huge sunglasses as he said again, "You don't say".

He nodded, and hung up.

"Who was it?" I asked, knowing the answer before the words even came out of my mouth.

"He didn't say."

I groaned audibly. "But what did he say?"

He said we need to rent a car and a boat, and go from room to car, and room to car, and eventually boat."

Whatever the hell that all meant.

What it amounted to was a huge amount of advance cash, which we ran around all night spending, acquiring the necessary materials to make the trip, in a high-speed frenzy that lasted about twelve hours, and was preparation for an assignment to cover the Martha's Vineyard Yacht Regatta for Sports Illustrated. My attorney's family had a boat in the race, so he added himself to the itinerary.

So we put away our last Singapore Slings, and our last mescal chasers, and set off in search of the Beast that lies at the heart of the American Dream. My attorney, it is said, is truly in search of the Beast of the Great Samoan Dream, but I expect that they are one and the same, the one and only primal nightmare, the Beast at the Heart of the World.

I have never been so right before. Now this awful drug that my attorney made me take has warped my judgement, given me some sort of overall cosmic awareness, and found me led down the prairie path by my attorney, who claimed to be from "around here", but had also claimed to come from an obscure island in the South Seas. At times he would visit your home, with a head full of acid, and set fire to your front lawn, howling imprecations and chanting gutterally at the tops of his considerable lungs. Not exactly the guy you would choose for your neighbor, but he could do this every night, and still appear in court at dawn, his tie always knotted to hide the weird discolorations and scars on his neck. It looked like someone tried to hang him once, with barbed wire. Gods know, I've though of doing it myself. The King of the Great Horny Brown Toads, he called himself in his more extravagant moments, waving expansively to indicate the size of his realm. And you know, there were times when I was tempted to believe him, and go with him to live in sunken Y'ha-Nthlei, with its crystal cathedrals and coral ramifications, the shimmer of the deep black sea reflecting from the bejeweled minarets and turrets that rose above all, but mostly I thought it was some kind of psychobabble. But hell, if it got the guy through another day, I was pleased to let him keep his bubble intact.

And speaking of bubbles, a shining congeries of crystalline spheres had made an appearance in my mind-movie. Just briefly, but with an impression of such immense power, ageless wisdom, and utter disregard for the welfare of the human race that my very bones chattered within my skin. I was less than an amoeba to this being, but I impinged briefly upon His awesome consciousness, long enough to learn more of the truth of things than I could comfortably contain, and my head was going to explode like a stick of dynamite in a rotten apple if I didn't get some sleep pretty soon..

"Yog-Sothoth," murmured my attorney dreamily.

"I think I need to stop here...I mean, I really like you guys and all, but this is where I need to go." he said.

My attorney jammed both feet on the brakes, and the kid jumped out of the car and began running in the opposite direction before the car had stopped, or even slowed down very much.

He was moving as if the devil himself was after him, in his weatherbeaten clothes, all tattered and ripped, with dust all over his shoulders, trailing behind him, and the color of his skin? My god, that was the worst of it! The kid looked half-dead! Indeed. And on closer observation, it appeared that one of the shantaks was pursuing him.

"Good luck!" I called to his receding figure as we moved off again, in the direction of Innsmouth, where the race was supposed to start. We had a hundred miles still to go, and I already knew that we would arrive in as sick and twisted a condition as has been known to all the races since the time when Ithaqua was warm. What? I don't know from Ithaqua?

My attorney leaned over and suggested to me that I drink the contents of another vial, as I was slow of mind, and he would as well, for experimental purposes.

Why not, I thought. Final wisdom. Total coverage. The flowing robes, the grace, everything. I took a healthy swig, draining the vial.

My attorney did likewise. I also gave him some select medicine, for his bad heart, and turned up the bass.

Those little Crumb cartoons did the trick. We did the rest of the trip in less than an hour, without any serious incident, miraculous considering that we were in such conditions.

By the time we arrived at the hotel, we were both wrecks, twisted shambles of humanity, laughing uncontrollably at the doorman, who insisted that we couldn't park on the sidewalk.

I left my attorney to handle that, and stalked into the lobby to register.

We were registered at the hotel under the aegis of Sports Illustrated/Marsh Shipping, with a suite of rooms at our disposal.

The little frog boy bellman brought our bags up to the room as we staggered up the stairs.

I immediately called room service, having sent over two albino typists, a trampoline, a dwarf and a goat, for later, and a case of Wild Turkey, a case of Genesee beer, two bags of Wise potato chips, and two quarts of crab looie, for now.

I sent the dwarf out to find a pink telephone, had the typists inquire about network modems, DSL, and auxiliary audiovisual equipment, opened a fresh Wild Turkey, and set to The Work once again.

Strange medicine...Bad craziness at the hotel bar...the crack in the world...what do you mean slow of mind?

I am the best at what I do. Sometimes what I do isn't very pretty, but it has to be done.

Things can't get weird enough for me.

I was in the retinue when Red Buttons finally got a dinner, and it wasn't weird enough for me.

I was there when GG Allyn had his last performance, and that wasn't weird enough for me. Nothing ever is.

I am after all, a professional, and when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Never forget that.

I had just finished making the appropriate connections and final adjustments to the new mojo wire, a truly awesome machine, with a gig of RAM, a thirty-seven gig hard drive, piggyback server unit with 2 gigs of RAM and another fifty of drive space, with ultra flat-screen monitor and my own private satellite for firm connection to the source of the data, and a realtime laser printer, when my attorney sidled up to me. "I'm gonna take a bath," he said. "I want you to remember that Ithaqua is a town in New York."

He was wearing a hawaiian towel around his bulbous midsection, and I could clearly see the leech marks on his arms, and the weird scales on his neck stood out in relief against his jaundiced skin. He had clearly been into the peyote, and he was carrying a tape of "Call of KTULU", which he insisted on playing over and over, at top volume. He was clearly a man in need of release, but I was way too far gone to help him now. My cosmic awareness had expanded to the point of no return, and I was afraid of achieving critical mass if I expanded any more.

My attorney flapfooted his way down the hall, and presently I heard water running, and the sound of drums and pipes over the sound of the boom box.

My attorney began chanting, and I could hear the water splash as he exulted.

I settled down to a critical overview of the contents of our bookshelf, assembling the principals into their proper order, drawing the lines just so, and collecting the fragments in the designated urns.

The stones I kept for myself.

The commotion in the other room was getting louder, and I could swear that he had others in there now.

Ignore that nightmare in the bathroom, I told myself. He is a member of a doomed race, for their efforts would ever fail, due to their hybrid condition. The beast was in the details, and the details weren't right.

Kill the head, I thought, and the body will die, and in strange eons, even death will die.

No, that wasn't quite it. I concentrated.

That is not dead which may eternal lie, and with strange eons, even death may die.

YES! THAT WAS IT!

"Never do that again," He gritted out between his chattering teeth.

I shrugged. "The stars weren't right". I spread my hands. "So, where's the goat?"

The animal had been locked in the linen closet, where it would be okay for a couple of hours. I had some errands to run.

"Leave the goat alone. He's mine. Just stay here. I'll be back shortly," and so saying, pushed his head back beneath the surface.

"You waterhead South Sea mongrels are all alike, " I called, leaving. "No style, no class." A water spout followed me down the hall.

I collected the pink telephone from the dwarf, throwing it into one of the adjoining rooms, and wandered downstairs in search of strong drink and good conversation.

I wandered into the hotel bar, took a seat away from the action. I needed storng drink, and plenty of it, in a hurry. I needed to consider my options. Granted, I had been given this assignment by my attorney, but he was now a hostile and dangerous factor, twisted beyond the reach of a normal man by the strange drugs he had been taking, and the strange things he had been into.

"God Hell!" I exclaimed, knocking over my glass as I pounded my fist on the bar. "I think I see the pattern!"

And I did. It was elegant in its simplicity. My attorney had me here to do the dirty work, and then he planned to feed me to these Shantaks, without so much as a by-your-leave, and I wasn't having any of it.

There was also the small matter of the goat, and countless other indecencies that this squat brown bastard had been heaping upon me, a card-carrying, dyed in the wool professional Journalist.

Why, who knows what was in that satchel he constantly carried? I for one did not. what weapon of death, what obscure and half-mythical tome did he secret within?

What was the deal? "Why the fuck am I here?" I roared.

"To pay your tab, if you don't shut up," rejoined the bartender, polishing a glass with quick, professional swipes of his clean white towel.

I sipped at my beer and maintained my silence, ruminating on the factors...and listening to the conversations around me. Presently my attorney appeared at the bar rail, smelling like soap. He ordered some complicated drink called narcolepsy, with about a thousand different ingredients, and ice. he had to write it down for the bartender, who had clearly never heard of such a thing before...

The bartender scuttled off to make the foul concoction.

We drank in slence, my attorney examining his face and squamous neck in the mirror behind the bar, ruminating, while I leaned against the rail and continued intently listening to the sounds around us, which were growing louder, with a bass undertone as if a mighty river was coursing under us, which was of course impossible as we were on the tenth floor.

I didn't understand the sign, but knew it meant something, perhaps something critical to the mission. I dropped my cigarette, and bent to pick it up, noticing that the cracks in the yellowed linoleum were filling up with rivulets of blood.

I looked up to see the bar patrons advancing on us, their cruel claws extended as they bore ever nearer. The fur rose up on the back of my neck as I surveyed their large yellow teeth, and hirsute countenences. My attorney showed his teeth, and I got to my feet.

"Howya doin?" said the one in the lead, extending a paw. "I'm Sam Hooke. I'm the police chief of Pnob's Bay, Maine, or at least I am now. We had some difficulty with cultists a while back..." His voice trailed off a bit, and I spoke quickly, to allay the tension I felt.

"Sam," I replied, shaking his gargantuan paw. My attorney did likewise. The wolf with Sam did nothing, just stood, with his green eyes reflecting the light from the mirror behind the bar.

This put me off a bit, but I joined in the conversation anyway.

"What about a cult?" I managed. "You said something about a cult?"

"Damnedest thing I ever did see. Bunch of characters from the woods all hootin and hollerin, and those little statues all around." He leaned forward, confidentially, his breath reeking of the foulness of the pit.

"I think they was gonna sacrifice virgins," he whispered, "and they had goats, and a trampoline...I don't understand what all they were trying to accomplish, but it was sure weird..."

Our friend Sam was clearly troubled by this incident in his recent past, and needed to unburden himself. I made an order, the bartender returning soon with some tequila and more beer.

I handed one to Sam, saying "As your Doctor, I recommend you take this medicine. I'm all ears. Tell me more..."

My attorney turned to the other wolf, resplendent in his expensive outer clothing. "And were you there, too?" he asked, smiling.

The wolf hesitated, then said "Nunya Damn Bidness", and went back to filing his claws meditatively. I could tell at a glance that he was as twisted as we were, could feel his presence a little among all the other buzzing voices at the back of my brain, and knew that whoever this wolf was, he was certainly no cop...

My attorney was taken aback by this, didn't understand, because he was way around the bend himself. The other wolf nodded. "He's trying to introduce himself, see..."

And it was true, the other wolf had extended his bloody paw. "Meetcha," he said, gnawing on a skull he'd found lying on the bar. "Bidness...iz name."

My attorney grunted his answer, and Sam went back to telling us about the cult that had infested his town...

"Some of 'em," he finished, "looked like your friend here. No offense, fella. But they was kinda froggy, see, no lips, no ears."

I nodded. "I've heard of such things. I'm a journalist."

"A journalist? How the hell did you get in here? This is a Police convention!"

I pointed to my attorney. "This man is my attorney. I am a Doctor of Journalism, amd am conducting a study into the nature of these cults, in order to help you guys in your work. We get down in the trenches with the scum."

"Do tell." He was clearly interested.

"Just the other week we had to clean up a real mess. These satanists will do anything. They're everywhere," I said. "Nobody's safe. And sure as hell not in the North. They like the cold weather."

"They work in pairs," said my attorney. "Sometimes in gangs. They'll climb right into your bedroom and sit on your chest, with big Bowie knives." He nodded solemnly. "They might even sit on your wife's chest-put the knife right down on her throat."

"Jesus God almighty," said Sam the downeaster. "What the hell's goin' on in this country?"

"You'd never believe it," said my attorney. "In L.A., it's out of control. First it was drugs, now it's witchcraft."

"Witchcraft! Shit, you can't mean it. I mean, I saw something, but witchcraft?"

"Read the newsgroups," I said. "Man, you don't know trouble until you have to face down a bunch of these addicts gone crazy for human sacrifice!"

"Naw," he said. "That's science fiction stuff!"

"Not where we operate," said my attorney. "Hell, in Malibu alone, these goddamn Satan-worshippers kill six or eight people every day." He paused to sip his drink. "And all they want is the blood," he continued. "They'll take people right off the street if they have to." He nodded. "Hell, yes. Just the other day we had a case where they grabbed a girl right out of a McDonald's hamburger stand. She was a waitress. About sixteen years old...with a lot of people watching, too!"

"What happened?" said our friend. "What did they do to her?" he seemed very agitated by what he was hearing.

"Do?" said my attorney. "Jesus Christ man, they chopped off her goddamn head right in the parking lot! Then they cut all kinds of holes in her and sucked out the blood!"

"God almighty!" Sam exclaimed..."And nobody did anything?"

"What could they do?" I said. "The guy that took the head was maybe six-seven and about three hundred pounds. He was packing two Lugers, and the others had M-16s. They were all veterans..."

"The big guy used to be a major in the Marines," said my attorney. "We know where he lives, but we can't get near the house."

"Naw!" Our friend shouted. "Not a Major!"

"He wanted the pineal gland," I said. "That's how he got so big. When he joined the Marines, he was just a little guy. The pineal gland has long been the subject of speculation, for it has strange attributes..."

"Oh my god," said our friend. "That's horrible!"

The other wolf looked interested at last. He was licking his snout, and grinning in a most suggestive way.

"It happens every day," said my attorney. "Usually it's whole families. Most of them don't even wake up until they feel their heads going, and by then it's too late."

The bartender had stopped to listen. I'd been watching him. His expression was not calm.

The other wolf was watching the bartender, with a smile on his chops like he'd decided what to have for dinner.

"Four more rums, " I said. "And maybe a handful of lime chunks."

A sudden spasm came over me, and I reeled, as if to fall, but recovered my equilibrium quickly enough that it looked like a slipped footing, not out of the question what with all the blood on the floor, and my vision cleared again, to disclose a great deal of the beings gathered here were normal humans,and that the wolf in the tuxedo was peering me speculatively, a guarded look in his feral green eyes. Louds sounds of bleating came from the assembled crowd, especially the ones that were being lunch at this moment in time.

It was time to get back to The Work, we were properly fortified, and I tugged on my attorney's sleeve to get his attention.

"I understand you have magnums..." began the wehrwulf. "And a goat."

I turned. "What? Did I hear you right?"

"And I happen to know where you can get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow...and a few extra pineal glands. I have extra." A really evil grin suffused his lupine features. He licked his lower lip, still grinning.

"I'll have to get back to you later," I replied, loudly. "We're here on business, and have to attend to that business." I looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening. "Have your people meet my people, preferably near a large body of water, so that they can immediately return to their underwater demesne. They're good people, but really paranoid about being out of the water for long."

He nodded. "Indeed."

"We have some potations, preparations, and vegetations you may be interested in later, when The Work is done. We can sit back and chemically enhance the prospects of the coming new world, by the light of the new sun."

I knew this wolf for a fellow traveler in these spheres, and knew enough not to turn my back on him. A wolf is a wolf, after all. And a drug is a drug. You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug. Or a wolf. Especially not a wolf who has been taking cosmic awareness drugs and has had his hand in the pharmacopieac cookie jar.

He grinned wolfishly. "For a certainty, sir, I am interested in those preparations and potations, and would reply in kind."

"One thing, though. Please don't eat my representatives. They are unpalatable, if not actually poisonous. I know this from experience. Besides, they will be bringing many items of tribute, scrolls, works of art, some forbidden tomes, and the aforementioned potations, preparations, and vegetations."

I inclined my head slightly forward and hissed between my teeth. "I take my leave now, to pursue my ends. May we and our gods always meet as allies."

"Amen," he assented, and moved into the crowd to capture a likely meal.

My attorney and I proceeded back up to our rooms, to begin the work.

I think he followed us back to the room, but he saw me before I could get a good look, let alone a clean shot.

I'm fresh out of silver bullets at any rate.

The dwarf handed me the pink phone as soon as we arrived. I took the call this time.

It was our man Lacerda, back in Los Angeles, where the whole thing began. He told me the Atlanteans stood ready to do their part, and that he was in constant contact with the other co-conspirators.

I was more than happy to hear that, and told him so. He chuckled.

"We all have our part in this great pageant," he said. "And that of you and your attorney is not the least part of the Great Work. We stand ready to assist, just as soon as the stars are right."

"Understood. Cthulhu Fhtagn, out." I hung up.

Lacerda had supplied all of the gold we used to buy provender for this trip. He got it from the Deep Ones. Where the Deep Ones got it from, I don't know. Sometimes it's better not to know too much. By then the drugs were wearing off, and my eyes were beginning to close of their own volition.

"How long til the stars are right?" I asked my attorney.

"About twelve hours."

"Wake me up in seven," I said, lying down and falling asleep immediately.

A noise in the night had me catapulting out from under the covers and onto the floor with a whump that left my backside sore. I sat up and almost rolled onto the first step of a long dark stairway that led down into blackness. I rolled away from it, in the direction I thought I'd come from. The entranceway moved to accomodate my motion and I rolled onto the first stair. Seven hundred bruises later (I was counting), I rolled to a stop before a man clad in priestly gown of crimson, bearing a torch and a bemused expression. That worthy extended a hand to help me up, fixing his eyes on me questioningly with one eyebrow raised.

He swept off his scarlet hat with a flourish, and announced that he was Jaguar, pronounced without the first 'a', JGwar, would be closer to it I think. "I am the guardian of this portal. I am the keeper of the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, and the master of the Cylinders of Kadatheron. Far have I traveled, many lands have I walked in search of the very keys to the updated texts, and yet still I seek. My search however is quiescent for now, as the Priests Nasht and Kaman-Tha have departed for parts unknown. I remain in their stead, for their duties are important enough in the sheme of things that I am proud to do so."

"I am cognizant of the answers that you seek personally." Jgwr gestured to a hulking man in a resplendent white suit. Gnarl here will show you where to look, and who it is safe to speak to. For the land is in turmoil presently, due to the contest of Champions that is about to commence."

Gnarl led me to a great vessel of some dark wood, and we ascended the hundred steps into this craft. Occasional decorations of silver and scarlet were the sole adornment in the passageways of this vessel, black, ebony black, the black of the starless, was the predominant color. Black so deep that you couod travel in it, get lost and never return. Gnarl led me to the deck, from which vantage I surveyed a landscape straight out of a dream.

In the foreground were great plains of shifting vermilion sands, bounded by jagged hills in the middle distance. Beyond the hills were the towers and battlements of an ebon city. Gnarl indicated that the city was our destination, and took the tiler of this craft. Great black batwings unfurled from the sides of this ship of the sky, and we ascended rapidly over the silvered clouds. Our path took us around the far side of the moon, on which I spied several mansized porcine beasts, with bunches of tendrils coming from their pink snouts, devouring a beast shaped like a weasel. As we rounded the moon, our speed doubled and redoubled, Gnarl using the gravity of the moon itself to somehow propel us at a furious pace. We swept in over the city and coasted in for a landing, the gigantic wings moving volumes of air, which changed color in our wake, and caused the very air to scream.

This craft hovered above a bookshop, and a ladder of black rope was let down so that I might descend. I did so and entered the shop.

The proprietor greeted me from behind a lectern, where he was shuffling some papers. "Hi! I'm Jim-be right with you."

Music played in the background, fast-paced with a lot of backbeat. The barks of the vocalist could not be understood as words in any language I knew of. Jim climbed down the short flight of stairs from the landing where the lectern was, rubbed his hands together and asked me what my pleasure was. "We have every book, pamphlet, newsletter, brochure, and random bit of correspondence pertaining to matters of the occult, with especial reference to matters of Time, and the manipulation thereof. I understand you wish to hasten the stellar opportunity. I can point you in the right direction."

"I don't intend anything of the sort," I protested. "I want to know how to get home so I can get some sleep. That's all. Count me out of any apocalypses." A raven in a black metal cage cackled derisively.

"No, there's no error, just as sure as I'm Jim Buell, just as sure as you're the doctor. The drugs wore off, eh? You should have asked the wolf before." "Before," the bird croaked out.

The phone rang. "You don't say," he began.

I groaned. "Don't start that again..." "Nevermore," quoth the raven.

He put the phone down, rummaged in a desk drawer, came up with a foil packet. "Hmm, this should be it, yup, it is. The contents of the Phaleron Jug. Got it." He went back to the phone, picked it up."Uh-huh, yeah, got it Jim. Ok, tomorrow. Yeah. See ya."

"What happens tomorrow?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Never mind. It hasn't to do with you. Society of James business. It's a Jim thing, you wouldn't understand."

"Ok. I have no idea what you're talking about, so fine." I admired his sideburns and the shape of his skull, waiting for him to remember to give me the foil packet he still held in his hand. "Do you need money for that?" I indicated the item in question.

"What? Oh, no." He had been about to tell me about some of the books. "I'm going to go in the back and get some stuff for you-you'll need it where you're going."

He handed the packet to me. "Lick me," said the wrapper. I tore it open and poured the contents out onto the palm of my hand, obeyed. Why not. In the process I spilled some on the sleeve of my shirt. A goblin of some sort tore the sleeve from my arm and thrust it into his maw. The bats began to wheel about again, and I felt better about things all at once. Jim Buell handed me a stack of magazines, saying that what I needed to know was in them, and herded me outside. The door closed behind me with an audible click.

Gnarl was still hovering outside, wearing his dazzling white suit. He stood confidently, one hand on the studded wheel, waiting. "Forget about the ladder," He called down, and raised up his hand, palm upside. I rose and plopped down on the deck.

"We need haste now. A full four hours remain, hardly enough time for preparations. You will have to return by elevator. Forget about all those steps." The huge wings flapped slowly, once, and the vessel soared into the sky. "You had best go below. The wind will tear you from the deck."

I stood in the gangway and watched Gnarl twirl the steering wheel with one hand, through a storm like I'd never seen before, and I distinctly heard the sound of a sonic boom well before we reached our peak of acceleration. I could see the wing on the starboard side through a porthole. Big as it was, it was beating like a hummingbird's wing.

We reached the foot of a mountain in no time at all. Gnarl lowered me down before a common elevator. "Get off at the thirteenth floor," he advised.

I got in, hit the button that said "13". I stepped out into the hallway at the hotel, went down the hall to the room, entered to find my attorney sitting on the floor in the middle of an enormous glowing Elder Sign, surrounded by portraits of Cthulhu with tentacles that had the quality of following one around the room in a most disconcerting fashion. Frightening in their intensity, these portraits, done in all manner of media from pencil to oils. I stepped around them and headed for my room.

"This is Anita," said my attorney. "She's from the Severn Valley." Anita was concentrating on yet another drawing, the tip of her pink tongue appearing at the corner of her mouth. She was lying on her stomach with her legs swinging back and forth, working furiously at a three-quarter shot of Cthulhu.

I continued down the hallway, lay down and rejoined myself. I could feel my eyeballs jitter in the throes of deep rem sleep as I got hold of myself. The alarm went off immediately.

I laid there on the bed and examined the magazines and pamphlets that I had brought back from wherever it is that I had been. The Cthulhu Cultus: an examination of South Pacific Cults in North America, was one. Another was "The Files of the Book of Dead Names". It was plain at a glance that the authors of these texts had the stuff it took. Cocking one eye at the bedside clock, I began to read aloud the particular passages that I had been seeking.

The door was left open a crack, and I could scent noxious potions brewing, and could hear the hurried footsteps of the dwarf as he scanned all of the Cthulhus into the databanks for his model.

Faint rumblings came from above the clouds and below the ground. It began to rain outside as the immaterial substance of the Great Old Ones and the Gods from Outside began to filter into this continuum. Their foulness could be felt upon the breath of the breeze, and it was as a balm to me.

I welcomed the piddle of the tiny raindrops as they splashed on the windowsill and caromed into me

The pink phone rang. As it was in the other room, I naturally hollered to have it brought to me.

The dwarf scurried in with it, and was off in the other direction and soon as he had made the handoff. "Go Team!" I yelled, delighted.

I took another call, from a Mr. Mcmahon. He promised the spectacle I was after, in spades.

I grinned from ear to ear and hung up. The phone rang again. It was like that for a while. There I was, twisted to the gunwales on some kind of exotic cosmic awareness potion, stewed from the fumes of the hellbroths whipping up in the front room, and behind some fun pharmaceuticals, to boot, but I was expected to make all the Arrangements.

To make a long story short, I hooked everyone up. Finally the action began to quiet down, and I strolled out to the parlor to see what was cookin'. Hands in my pockets, I made my way out there.

The model was up, a holographic projection of the Mighty Cthulhu himself. My attorney and the woman from the Severn Vallet were quite prematurely worshipping, and I stepped around them to get into the kitchen, almost tripping over the goat, which was tethered to the kitchen.

The goat had apparently sampled the table, and liked the taste.

"Good", I remarked, eyeing the chewed-on table. "I hope you get splinters. Wait until your mother hears about this." I reentered the front room.

Anita was now doing giant goatish figures of Shub-Niggurath for the projection. There were still a few more to do, but it seemed all was in order. I voted myself some time off.

There was a little diner across the street from the hotel where maybe I could get a hamburger with pickles on it and forget about all of this bad craziness for a while. The eye of the storm.

The noises from above and below were getting louder. I took the elevator. In my opinion, there wasn't any time to lose.

From the counter where I sat, I could see the movie blowup down the block. This was a machine that would allow you to present any image you liked, in full color and motion, two hundred feet tall on a downtown street.

Right at that time, there was a cowboy swaggering through the Magnum I Grand. He was followed by a wicker man.

A waitress sauntered over eventually, gave me the once-over. "Wadaya havin'?"

I allowed that I'd like a hamburger, plain, with pickles. "We can do that," she retorted, returning to the kitchen.

"Slab up!" She yelled. "Green slices on top!"

"Got it," came the reply from everywhere.

"Cthugha is the best cook we've ever had," confided the waitress, coming back out. She had my plate with her, and she was wearing heavy gloves. "Don't touch-hot plate," she warned.

I understood. With a fire that burned at the temperatures that He usually reached, short orders were no problem. The difficulty was with lawsuits from the people who burned their hands on the plates, I would bet. Who needs microwave ovens when you have a small sun in your kitchen.

Indeed. I could see him moving around back there in his white hat and asbestos uniform, flipping burgers with his fingers. As soon as it hit his hand, it would be cooked. He turned once and slapped it on a plate. Then he would hand the plate to an assistant, who would be juggling buns and things. French fries would naturally be immersed in boiling pitch, vats of which Cthugha would use at night to ease the pain in his tired old feet. I'd be worn out too, at approximately 4.5 billion years past retirement age.

And I understand Mrs. Cthugha is frigid. Glacial even. No wonder he knocks himself out at work like that.

The dwarf trotted in while I was chewing on my burger, handed me the phone and left.

"Yes," I said.

"This is James," informed the voice on the other end. "I have some information for you."

"Please go on."

"What you think is happening is not really happening. You are actually in Las Vegas, covering a motorcycle race. You have never met a shoggoth."

I chortled. "Unfortunately, I have. While I would like to entertain the notion that you are in fact correct, and I am lounging poolside in glorious glitzy Vegas, I am afraid I cannot."

"No, listen. You are not who you are either."

This was getting good. "And which James are you anyway. I keep running into Jims and Jimmies and Jameses, and I'm getting you all confused. Do you guys come as a set or what?"

The caller sighed. "Look, I'm James from the Society of Jameses. You know me as the wizard/priest JGWR, from that mysterious southern island."

"But wasn't that part of a dream? I'm trying to keep up with you here, but I'm not sure where we're going with this, or where you're coming from. So work with me a little here, dude."

Another sigh. "Fine. The worlds of dream and the waking lands are growing closer together, and some entities are migrating between them and causing trouble. The beings that inhabit the spaces in between are suddenly ready to occupy both. You're trying to help them."

"In theory I have to agree with that. Are you saying that you oppose this plan?"

"No, not at all. Fuck. How can I put this?" He sighed again. "You're a character from another story, and you've been planted in this one as part of a nefarious plot on the part of the author, the details of which are released only on a need-to-know basis. But the metaverse of the imagination is coming into the conjunction also. That means that it can all happen in reality, and soon."

"And your point?"

"Not only do I want to help you, I want to document the proceedings. I have a film crew ready to go. I want to put the results on television where the many dread minions of the Old Ones can see it."

"Wait-you want live tv?"

"Yes."

"Fuck. Yeah, let's do it. Here's where you'll need to be..."

And I detailed the plan to him. If he was bogus, there was nothing he could do to stop us. If he was for real, then nothing could stop us.

As soon as the material forms of the Great Old Ones morphed with their images, it was all over but the singing.

I put the phone down, and glanced at the tv.

The screen was playing tricks. Optical illusions appeared, one after the other. Then a retro cartoon of a television, in black and white, came onscreen. Where the screen of the tv would be was the caption "JamesTV", in highly stylized lettering.

The wizard /priest in his robes of scarlet came out and removed the piece of cardboard that the legend was printed on, threw it out into the audience.

"Hello everyone and welcome to JamesTV. Tonight's production is the "Duke in Scarlet", a live feed from events happening right now in Innsmouth, Massachusetts."

I choked, and coffee erupted from my nostrils. I laughed helplessly as he continued.

"The background-the town of Innsmouth once harbored a race of hybrid beings called the Deep Ones. These were repellent half-human/half-frog/half-fish entities, whose practices were foul beyond the capability of description. These practices were often observed during rites that sought to free their God, the Great Old One Cthulhu, from his ancient prison beneath the waves of the Pacific.

"There are numerous other entities in the pantheon of the Great Old Ones, and their minions also seek to free them or at least get them to pay a visit locally. And tonight it is rumored that the stars are aligned properly for the first time in 3.5 million years, and those efforts will be successful. We will be bringing you continous coverage of this momentous event, and interviewing some of those working both for and against this cause. Jim tells me he may actually be granted an audience with the Crawling Chaos himself. There will also be entertainment based on the lore of the fascinating culture of the Cthulhu Cult, and we will gladly accept donations to the cause of Cthulhu For President, Inc.

"The chairman of CFP, and our emcee for this evening is the ageless Dick Clark. Welcome, Dick." Dick Clark bounced onto the stage, wearing his megawatt smile, shook hands with James.

"Well, Dick, I guess the secret to your eternal youth is out," remarked James, tugging his beard as if it itched below the yellow mask.

"That's true, but ya win some, lose some," replied Dick. "I'd rather be part of the new World Order, to tell you the truth."

A group of large gentlemen in tight colorful clothing rolled about behind them, grappling with one another.

"No, not yet," called James. "Only two capitals."

"Oh, sorry." The wrestlers slunk away. The sounds of violence began again as they left via the tent door. A naked man playing a piano appeared.

"And now..." began a rather nasal Londoner with wavy brown hair who also appeared, standing behind a lectern wearing a crisp blue suit with matching tie and handerchief.

"No, not completely different!" Shouted James. "Can't you numbskulls get it right? We're on page twenty-three now. Director!" He screamed. "Get me rewrite!"

A clown appeared with the chalkboard. "Cut," he said, clicking down the lever.

The regular news started up again.

"God, did you see that?" I asked the waitress.

"See what? You choked on your coffee and then got hysterical. Must be some pressure you're under."

She didn't see it. Hmm. I took that thought back up to the room with me.

While I was waiting for the elevator to come down, the dwarf brought me the pink phone again. "How come you keep bringing me this phone,?" I asked. "What's the deal?"

He laughed a tinny little laugh. "It's a special phone. I bring it by Byakhee Air," he confided.

I understood instantly, and took the call.

"Yes," I said.

"This is James."

"Yes. You sound different."

"I'm a different James."

"Oh. Is it a club?"

"Kind of." The elevator arrived, and I stepped inside, holding the pink princess phone with the cord cut off about eight inches from where it came out of the phone, holding a conversation. The people already in the elevator car shunned me. I had a corner all to myself. I turned my bck on them.

"Oh. What did you call about, the airspeed of an unladen African Swallow?"

"No. It's about the television programme." I could actually hear him pronounce program like that. Amazing.

"Go on."

"Well, we're having a little trouble over here. There's a young man with a fabulous head of hair here who is running around with a knife and a fork threatening to eat some of our personnel. He fancies a bite of James, he says, doesn't matter which."

"Can I speak with him? I am a doctor after all, and this is right up my alley." Right. Nip this right in the bud.

"Right." I could hear him yelling off in the other direction. "This is Demon James-get that bouffant-headed bastard over here-the doctor is on the phone."

Presently a voice came on, humming. DumdadumdadumdadumdaDAAAAA! "Are you really the Doctor? Which one? I like Jon Pertwee myself." I recognized the voice, but I couldn't place it.

"Who are you?"

"Jim. From the bookshop." Oh, Jim Buell, with the extraordinary sideburns. I remembered.

"Are you running around threatening to gnaw on people?"

"No, they're still trying to fetch him. This is a party line, you know. Conference call."

"What?"

I didn't get an answer to that right away as another voice broke in. "Hey-doctor. Heard you wanted to speak with me..." It was obviously the well-coiffed cannibal that James had spoken of.

"Yes. What's this about your going around threatening to eat people?" "

I like meat named James. I wasn't so much threatening to eat them as, well, making fun of them. I mean, in the sense that, were they to actually perish, I might be tempted to take a bite or two, for experimental purposes. Maybe. But I've been killing them and eating them in my screenplay."

"What's your name, young man?"

"Rich."

"Okay, Rich, here's what I want you to do. You're obviously a bright young man. Pick out a particular James and have at him, and save the rest for later."

"Hey!" He shouted at someone. "He says to eat just one of you. Any volunteers?" A voice in the background agreed to donate some of his anatomy.

"Okay. It's all set then. Can I work on the crew now? I'm not really that hungry any more."

"Yes. Put James on."

"Hello," answered a peculiar buzzing voice, like a swarm of hornets that spoke. Really unnerving, with a sort of hissing behind it.

"Sorry, wrong number," I replied, and hung up instantly. By then I had gotten off of the elevator and was proceeding down the hall to the rooms. (c) 2000. All rights reserved.