Slimy Underbelly

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Around the grotto, the stolen anti-evil protective machinery throbbed and pulsed. Sparks flew everywhere as the shielding increased until automatic fail-safes kicked in. To Ah’Chulhu’s alarm, the machinery short-circuited and imploded, unable to handle the sheer surging power of the unholy realms. So much for the safety systems.

  As the spell accelerated, however, some of the blood on the rune-etched altar bubbled and turned black, clogging parts of the etched runes. The sizzling dark magic sputtered and stalled as blood backed up across the stone.

  “Oh, bugger!” Ah’Chulhu wailed.

  McGoo gave me a knowing look, and I nodded. “Talbot and Knowles might have paid a premium, but obviously not all of the donors were as virgin as they claimed to be.”

  “But enough of them were!” In desperation Ah’Chulhu wrenched the stone basin and poured the remaining red liquid onto the altar, flooding the arcane symbols with blood that was at least mostly pure. “I will not be scuttled in my moment of triumph!”

  Stentor’s frog hopped in front of us, bellowing, “Help! Someone has stolen my voice. If found, please call the police.” I scooped up the spotted creature and stuffed it in the pocket of my bullet-riddled sport jacket.

  While we were fighting Ah’Chulhu at the altar stone, another transformation had taken place. Shadows like inky black fumes roiled around the side of the stage next to the porcelain throne, and the supervillain suit finished applying itself to the scrawny body of Jody Caligari. As supervillain strength poured into the young man, he now rose up as Dr. Darkness!!!

  The black oily Spandex uniform clung to a well-sculpted bodybuilder physique that Jody definitely had not possessed a moment ago. A black hood covered his face down to his nose, and black goggles masked his eyes. An ebony cape swirled behind his shoulders, dramatically wafting about despite the conspicuous lack of a breeze inside the grotto. He wore gloves up to his elbows like something a welder or a crab fisherman might have used. His boots were high and stylish, black rubber and waterproof—the type of galoshes that even an edgy zombie detective would have been willing to wear. His chin and lower cheeks, though, still showed tiny freckles, and when Dr. Darkness!!! smiled, he flashed incongruously white teeth.

  Ah’Chulhu reeled back, astonished. He stepped away from the smoldering altar.

  “We’re in trouble now,” McGoo said.

  “We were in trouble before,” I pointed out.

  Then, better late than never, the gator-guys charged McGoo and me again, remembering what their master had commanded them to do. They were powerful, but slow and stupid. At the back of the grotto, the cops rushed forward to join the fray.

  Dr. Darkness!!! faced the business-suited half demon, his black cape still waving.

  Now Ah’Chulhu drew back for the battle, recognizing his true nemesis. “These sewers aren’t big enough for both of us.”

  He detached all the rest of his facial tentacles and hurled them at his opponent on the other side of the dais. Enlarging dramatically, dozens of deadly appendages writhed toward Jody, as if somebody had dumped the lost-and-found box from a giant-squid convention.

  The gator-guys showed support for their master by applauding and cheering. In the distraction, I was able to slug one under his long scaly chin with a full-fledged roundhouse, knocking him back into his fellows. It was an impressive blow, but nobody was paying attention to me.

  On the expanded stage, Jody’s chuckle came out as an impressive booming, maniacal laugh. “Ha, ha, ha! Ah’Chulhu, you aren’t even a worthy opponent for Dr. Darkness!!! You’re no match for my tar globs.”

  He thrust his black gloves forward, unleashing splurts of thick, gooey ink that closed around the approaching tentacles, staining and sticking to them. One stray tar glob sprayed onto Ah’Chulhu’s new gray suit, and the frown of disgust was clear on the half demon’s oddly naked face.

  In annoyance, he shouted for his gator-guys to attack, which only confused them because they were trying to fight me and McGoo. The tentacles lunged forward without hesitation, though. Meanwhile, Dr. Darkness!!! fought back by hurling more globs like a rowdy vandal in a mud-ball fight. The gator-guys, who had attempted to look menacing as they charged the stage, turned around, ducked, and ran splashing back into the crowd. They decided to go back to fighting McGoo and me again, seeing us as more desirable opponents.

  Even Thunder Dick confronted one of the frog demons, trying to figure out which one had swallowed his sundial talisman and vowing to get it back, whatever it took. “When I find the right one, I’m going to need a moment of privacy.”

  “If you could summon a tornado, that might come in handy now,” I suggested.

  Thunder Dick strained again, but remained unsuccessful without his talisman.

  The great battle between Ah’Chulhu and the junior supervillain was so spectacular and dramatic that even the Phantom did not need to play clamorous organ music to increase the suspense. Dr. Darkness!!! drove back the minions of Ah’Chulhu, and I realized that the fate of the world now depended on an amateur supervillain with Norman Rockwell roots.

  Even though the real battle was taking place on the stage, the gator-guys tried to block us from the bloody altar stone. Frog demons joined the fray as more cops charged the dais. This was turning into a full-fledged brawl as the spell continued to work its way through the runes etched in the concrete.

  A pair of giant tentacles wrapped around Dr. Darkness!!!, but the supervillain flexed his bulging Spandex-enclosed muscles until he burst free. In retaliation, he unleashed a flurry of shadow webs that forced the tentacles to retreat. In the titanic battle, the combatants even toppled the impressive porcelain throne.

  I fought my way back to the altar stone just in time to see the bubbling, smoking blood suddenly grow brighter as it completed the sorcerous circuits, activating a color out of space, a shadow out of time, and a smell beyond imagining.

  Pausing in his battle with Dr. Darkness!!!, Ah’Chulhu pointed in triumph toward the spangles of twisted interdimensional light. “It’s about bloody time!”

  A great boom like thunder tore asunder the very fabric of the underworld. The shock wave rippled through the air and hurled us all backward—me, McGoo, Thunder Dick, and an assortment of henchmen. Fortunately, the frog demon minions we crushed beneath us were soft and cushiony.

  The cosmic doorway opened, sparkling with baleful green fire around its rim. Foul brown sludge began to stream from the bottom of the gate.

  Ah’Chulhu held up a victorious fist and turned to sneer at Dr. Darkness!!!—who threw a tar glob in his face. But their battle dwindled to insignificance as the gateway to the Netherworld swelled and blossomed. A second violent shockwave hurled Jody aside.

  My eyes hurt just from looking into that other dimension, and then I saw even darker shadows moving inside—enormous, horrifying figures that appeared at the threshold.

  CHAPTER 45

  As a zombie, I don’t tend to get creeped out easily—but those things were ugly: each had a slumped, rounded head boiling with tentacles, some of which sported bloodshot eyeballs on the tips, and a large, glowing cyclopean eye stared from the center of the gray-green forehead. Their mouths were jagged gashes that drooled a smoking yellowish mucus. Perky red bows tied onto a head tentacle indicated that one of the creatures might be female.

  Even as the otherworldly effluent continued to flow from the cosmic gate, the two gigantic figures shuffled through the threshold. They moved with painstaking slowness that implied unspeakable age, or perhaps arthritis. These must truly be Senior Citizen Gods.

  Barely able to keep his feet, Ah’Chulhu looked up in amazement. With a quavering voice and an uncertain smile, he said, “Mom? Dad?” Mustering his courage, he spread his arms and yelled out to the cowering minions in the chamber, “Behold, the titanic gods—Ma’Chulhu and Pa’Chulhu!”

  The male Senior Citizen God bellowed back at him, “I am not your father!”

  The female put a slimy, rubbery flipper against her husba
nd’s side. “Now, dear, we discussed this in therapy. You have to move on and be more accepting, for the sake of our marriage.”

  “Look at him, though,” burbled the male. “He’s something of a disappointment.”

  Ma’Chulhu scolded him again, “He’s my son, dear.” The gigantic female Senior Citizen God pushed her way through the cosmic gateway, as effluent continued to surge into our universe, although the huge forms blocked most of it.

  The smell was dizzying. McGoo looked as if he might vomit (which, in my estimation, would only have sweetened the aroma). Thunder Dick squirmed to get free from where we had piled on top of him, although I was doing him a favor by not letting him see the hideous things.

  Ma’Chulhu leaned forward. “What’s wrong with your face, baby boy? And you’ve got a stain on your suit.”

  Ah’Chulhu made an embarrassed gesture, and his detached facial tentacles came swarming back to him. As they attached themselves, he brushed at the inky smear from the supervillain’s tar glob. “It’ll come off.”

  “No, it won’t,” yelled Dr. Darkness!!!, still trying to scramble to his feet. His impressive black cape now looked wilted and limp.

  The two Senior Citizen Gods ignored the pint-sized supervillain and peered out at the cowering crowds. “We were surprised when you summoned us, boy,” Pa’Chulhu said. “What have you been doing in this place? Causing trouble, I expect. And what’s with that ridiculous accent?”

  Ah’Chulhu gathered his pride. “I’ve made something of myself, even though the odds were stacked against me.” He raised his squirming chin. “I’m an important bloke here. I even have minions, lots of them—and I really, really, really wanted you to see my big plan for converting the entire world, a bonzer ambitious project as a real-estate developer to open up new property, flooding the entire Unnatural Quarter to create vast acres of new sewer-front property.” Nervous, he talked so fast that his Australian accent garbled some of his words, and then his voice hitched. “I just wanted to impress you.”

  “By stealing all of our effluent?” said Pa’Chulhu.

  Again, Ma’Chulhu urged her husband to be calm. “That’s charming, baby boy. You’ve done so well after . . . after we had to leave you behind.” She hung her head in guilt, and the lamplike orb grew dimmer in the middle of her forehead. The eyeball-tipped tentacles drooped downward as she turned to the gigantic male creature. “I told you we were going to scar him for life, dear. We never should have dumped him down that manhole. We were thinking only of ourselves.”

  Pa’Chulhu said, “That’s what saved our marriage. We had to do it. The lesser of two evils.”

  Dr. Darkness!!! sprang forward. “I’m the lesser of all evils!”

  Impatient with the distraction, Ma’Chulhu flicked a tentacle and sent a blast of otherworldly cosmic energy, which tumbled Jody back behind the fallen porcelain throne. She sniffled, a loud, wet sucking sound, and turned back to the domestic problem at hand. “But think of the harm I did to my baby boy.”

  “You brought it on yourself with your disgusting affair,” Pa’Chulhu grumbled. “Because you can’t keep your tentacles to yourself.”

  Finally, Thunder Dick managed to crawl out from under the pile of frog demons. He stood up, his tie-dyed wizard robes dripping with fresh drainage from the Netherworld. He shook his head, dazed, and stared at the interdimensional gateway. His jaw dropped open, and he gasped. “Merde!”

  Ma’Chulhu whirled at the sound. Her singular lamplike eye glowed brighter, her tentacles quivered in a frenetic mass. “Richard! Oh, dear sweet Richard!”

  I turned to the weather wizard. “Merde?”

  “It was my pet name for her. We adored each other, and she loves it when I talk French.”

  My head was already aching from trying to encompass the hideous Senior Citizen Gods from another dimension, but the idea of Thunder Dick having an affair with Ma’Chulhu . . . I thought my brain was going to explode and leak out through the bullet hole in my forehead.

  “You slept with that?” I asked him.

  He shrugged helplessly. “What can I say? Beer goggles.”

  “That would take a lot of beer!”

  Beside me, McGoo bent over and retched.

  “Oh, Richard!” Ma’Chulhu’s voice was longing and wistful.

  From the dais, still trying to reaffix the shrunken tentacles to his face, Ah’Chulhu looked at the scruffy weather wizard in astonishment. “You? You’re my real dad?”

  “No, I am your father!” yelled Pa’Chulhu, completely contradicting himself.

  Pale and nervous, Thunder Dick shuffled his feet in the rising levels of Nether slop that was filling the chamber. “Awkward . . .” he muttered.

  Ma’Chulhu wrung her tentacles. When she began sobbing, tears spewed from her numerous eyeballs.

  Pa’Chulhu grew louder and sterner. “I will not let this undo all the relationship building, all the therapy. Now we’re going to need more counseling.” He thrashed a tentacle, pointing at Ah’Chulhu, who began to quiver in fear. “And you, boy! Stay away from that weathermancer. He’s a home wrecker, a despicable philanderer.”

  Thunder Dick seemed to want to sink even deeper into the effluent.

  “Oh, Richard . . .” Ma’Chulhu sighed again, eliciting even more ire from her husband.

  The male Senior Citizen God roared at her, “Obviously, I have to take you away from him. The temptation is too great—I can see it in all of your eyes.”

  She sniffled that loud, unpleasant sound again and turned away. “You’re right, I have to think of my family. The heart wants what . . . no, my marriage is strong! Come with me, Pa’Chulhu—let’s go home and take our son with us.”

  The male creature snaked a long tentacle around Ah’Chulhu’s waist and yanked him toward the cosmic doorway. “Our son.”

  Ma’Chulhu also enfolded her half-demon son, and the smoking mucus dripped onto his gray business suit.

  Thunder Dick was thunderstruck, cringing and longing at the same time. The shadowy figures began to dissolve in the cosmic gateway, but Ma’Chulhu thrust one last tentacle out to wave a forlorn goodbye.

  Then Ah’Chulhu and the two Senior Citizen Gods were gone. With a sucking roar, a cosmic vacuum slurped all the effluent back into the Netherworld, draining the grotto . . . and the rippling dimensional doorway vanished.

  When all the virgin and not-so-virgin blood burned out on the altar stone, the sorcerous designs turned black. The stone shuddered, split asunder, and collapsed with a loud thud.

  From the dais, Dr. Darkness!!! rose up and shouted, “At last, the world is mine!”

  CHAPTER 46

  After such a long and difficult day, the last thing I wanted to deal with was a megalomaniacal supervillain. I pushed aside the multiply-confused gator-guys and tried to work my way toward the kid, hoping I could make him see reason.

  Now that he had the spotlight to himself again, his ebony cape flowed out, rippling in a stiff supernatural breeze. Black lightning bolts surged from his suit. Dr. Darkness!!! flexed his gloved hands, and shadow webs spun out to cover the ceiling, then slammed down as impenetrable bars to prevent any potential minions from escaping the grotto. As he grinned, Jody’s white teeth were dazzling.

  At his organ, the Phantom pressed down on the ivory keys and blared out an ominous note. Annoyed, Dr. Darkness!!! flashed one of his black gloves and sent out a bolt of black lightning. The Phantom dove out of the way just as a bank of pipes exploded into a shower of atonal debris.

  A pair of trapped cops in the grotto swung their service revolvers and opened fire, but the three exclamation points glowed on the supervillain’s chest, and he deflected each bullet with a darkness shield. Careful not to hurt anybody, Dr. Darkness!!! hurled tar globs like bowling balls, which splattered against the officers and plastered over their guns.

  “I am your master!” His voice was so loud it throbbed in the chamber. “Kneel before Jody.” Then he remembered the puddles of standing effluent. “Never mind, t
oo messy. Bow your heads—that’ll be good enough. Now I shall rule the world.”

  I reached the front of the dais and I knew what I had to do. “Now why would you want to do that, Jody? You’re just a small-town kid who likes to build gadgets in his parents’ garage. You came here for Junior Mad Scientist Camp, not to conquer the Earth.”

  “It’s for extra credit,” said Dr. Darkness!!!

  I wasn’t afraid of the black power emanating from his suit. “You’re a good kid, Jody, and there’s no question you have a lot of talent. A genuine master of disguise. That gator-guy costume was incredible. Even the real gator-guys couldn’t tell the difference.”

  At first, Dr. Darkness!!! swelled with pride, then he frowned. “Well, they’re not all that bright.”

  When some of the orphaned semi-sentient alligators hissed at the insult, Jody hurled tar globs at them, which quieted the complaints.

  “Do you know how much trouble it is to rule the world?” I didn’t think the kid understood all the headaches he was going to suffer from being an omnipotent evil overlord dictator of the planet. “Nobody really wants the job. You may be a scientific genius, but have you taken civics class? Do you watch the news? Do you understand the stress that goes along with politics?” I gestured toward the weather wizard in his tie-dyed robe. “Look at Thunder Dick and Alastair Cumulus the Third. One little campaign nearly ruined them, and that’s for an office that nobody cares about.”

  “I care about it!” cried Thunder Dick. “Wuwufo is very important.”

  In my pocket, Stentor’s squirming frog tried to bellow out its usual announcement again, but I shushed it by pressing my hand against the side of my jacket.

  Crackling with power, Dr. Darkness!!! loomed over me, but he seemed unsure of himself. I continued, “Remember when you first came into our offices dressed as iGor?”

  He grinned. “Yeah, that was a great disguise.”

  “When we took your case, you promised you would remember the friends who helped you. I’m your friend, and now I need you to take it down a notch.”